CHAPTER NINE
Aoife
I WAKE TO unfamiliar darkness.
For a moment, a single, blessed moment, I don't remember where I am. Don't remember the blood. Don't remember my father's throat torn open by the bullet. Don't remember the way William Murphy looked at me in his kitchen before walking away.
Then it all comes back, and I'm drowning in it.
The room is too large. Too cold. The bed beneath me is unfamiliar.
I sit up, and my head swims. How long did I sleep? Minutes? Hours?
The dress I'm still wearing is stiff with dried blood. My father's blood, crusted on the navy fabric, dark and brown now instead of red. My hands are stained. My arms. The smell of iron clings to my skin.
William left me alone in that kitchen. Walked away when I needed...when I...
I don't know what I needed. But he wasn't there to give it.
The room is unfamiliar.
The image hits me before I can stop it. Father's face. The glass shattering. The way his body jerked when the bullet tore through his neck. The blood, so much blood, poured between his fingers as he tried to hold it in.
My stomach twists. My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my throat.
I've never seen violence like that. Not real violence.
Not the kind that tears through flesh and bone and leaves people choking on their own blood.
I've heard about it, of course. Grown up knowing it existed around the edges of our world.
But hearing about it and witnessing it are entirely different things.
The way William moved. The way Aidan reacted. They knew. They'd seen it before. Multiple times, probably. It was in their bodies, the way they didn't freeze, didn't panic, just acted.
I froze.
I breathe slowly through my nose. Focus on something else. Anything else.
The room. Describe the room.
Deep greens and golds. Masculine but not harsh.
A four-poster bed carved from dark wood.
Heavy curtains block out whatever light exists beyond them.
Paintings of Irish landscapes covering the walls, County Clare, County Kerry, places I recognize from family trips when I was young and still believed this life could be beautiful.
My heart rate slows. The nausea recedes.
It's a coping mechanism. A way to pull myself back from the edge. Focus on details. On things I can control, can catalog, can understand.
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed. My feet find thick carpet.
My phone sits on the nightstand. Plugged in. The charging cable snakes to an outlet near the bed, and the screen glows softly with a full battery.
Someone did that. Someone came into this room while I slept, found a charger, and plugged in my phone for me.
I remember bringing my purse to the meeting. The navy leather one I grabbed when Father told me we were coming here to sign contracts. That feels like a lifetime ago now.
I scan the room and find it on the dressing table across from the bed.
Someone went to the effort. Found a charger that fit my phone. Took care of it while I was asleep.
I shiver.
Was it William? Did he stand in this room, his large frame moving quietly through the darkness, searching for the right cable, plugging in my phone while I slept? The thought makes my skin prickle. I don't know why. Don't know if it's a violation or something else entirely.
I grab the phone from the nightstand, needing to do something other than imagine William Murphy watching me sleep.
The screen lights up with notifications. Dozens of them. Missed calls from Reilan. Texts from cousins I barely speak to. Messages from family members expressing concern, offering prayers, asking questions I can't answer.
Nothing from my father.
Because he's in a hospital bed, fighting for his life.
Because someone shot him in front of me.
I scroll past the condolences and concern and find Reilan's number. He's called seven times. I hit call back.
He answers on the first ring. "Aoife."
"I'm fine." My voice sounds steadier than I feel.
"That's not what I asked." There's a pause, and I hear him exhale. "Father's still stable. Still unconscious, but stable."
The relief hits hard enough to make me sit back down on the bed. "Okay." I close my eyes. "Okay."
"I'm coming to get you. Fifteen minutes." His voice is clipped, controlled. The tone he uses when there's more he wants to say but can't. Not over the phone. Not where someone might be listening. "I'll bring clean clothes."
"Reilan, what's..."
"Just be ready."
The line goes dead.
I stare at the phone. Something in his voice. Something urgent beneath the careful words.
He knows something.
Fifteen minutes.
I look down at my blood-stained dress. I can't leave here looking like this. Can't let anyone see me covered in my father's blood like some kind of victim.
The bathroom is through a door on the right. I peel off the dress, let it fall to the tile floor in a stiff heap. The blood has dried into the fabric, turning it from navy to something darker. Ruined.
I turn on the shower and step under the spray before the water's even warm.
The blood runs off in rusty streams. Down my arms. Off my hands. Circling the drain like evidence being washed away.
I scrub until my skin is raw. Until there's no more brown water. Until I'm clean.
The towel is soft. I wrap it around myself, securing it above my breasts.
Reilan said fifteen minutes. He should be here soon with clothes.
But I can't stand here dripping in the bathroom until he arrives. I need a robe. Something to cover myself until my brother gets here.
I push open the bathroom door and step back into the bedroom, scanning for a closet, a wardrobe, anything...
William Murphy stands by the window.
We both freeze.
His eyes track down my body: the towel barely covering me, water dripping from my hair onto my shoulders, beading on my bare legs; then snap back up to my face. But not before I see something flicker in his gaze. Something dark and hungry and immediately shuttered.
"What are you doing in here?" I pull the towel tighter, trying to ignore the way my pulse kicks up. Trying to ignore the way he's looking at me. Like he can't decide if he wants to leave or cross the room and...
No. Not going there.
"This is my house." His voice is rough. He's still wearing the same clothes from earlier, still looks wrecked, but there's something different in his eyes now. Sharper. More focused. "I can go wherever I want."
"Common courtesy would suggest knocking."
"Common courtesy would suggest not standing in my guest room wearing nothing but a towel." His jaw tightens. "Where are your clothes?"
"My brother's bringing them." I lift my chin, refusing to feel embarrassed. Refusing to show weakness. "He'll be here soon."
"Will he." It's not a question. William doesn't move from the window.
The silence stretches between us, thick and uncomfortable.
"What do you want?" I ask finally.
"You should be resting." His voice is rough. "Not wandering around half-naked."
"I needed to shower." I force my voice to stay steady. "To wash off my father's blood."
Something shifts in his expression. Softens, maybe. Or hardens differently.
He moves closer. Not threatening, exactly. But deliberate. Each step measured. His hands are clenched at his sides like he's physically restraining himself from...what?
I can't tell, and that's both terrifying and something else I refuse to name.
He stops a few feet away. Close enough that I have to tilt my head back slightly to hold his gaze.
"My brother said my father is stable," I say, needing to break the tension. Needing him to stop looking at me like that.
"For now." His eyes drop to my collarbone, where water still beads, then jerk back up. "The Russians aren't done."
"I know that."
"Do you?" He takes another half-step closer. "Because you should be terrified. You should want to run as far from this as possible."
"Maybe I don't run."
His jaw clenches. "Then you're a fool."
"Perhaps." I hold his stare. "But I'm still here."
His expression shifts.
"You can't leave here with your brother," he says.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me." His tone is flat. Final. "Reilan takes you out of here, you're exposed. Easy target."
"I don't need your permission to..."
"You do, actually." He cuts me off. "You're going to be my wife. That makes you Murphy property. Murphy responsibility."
The words sting more than they should. Property. Like I'm a shipment to be guarded. A transaction to be secured.
"I need to see my father."
"Fine." He doesn't move from his position between me and the door. "You'll go with my security team. They'll take you to the hospital, stay with you, bring you back."
"That's not..."
"That's how it is." His voice is hard now. Controlled. "The Russians know about you. They know you matter. Which means you're a target, and I can't protect you if you're running around Ireland with just your brother."
I want to argue. Want to tell him he has no right to dictate where I go or who I go with. But the logic is sound.
My hands tighten on the towel. I'm suddenly hyperaware again of how little I'm wearing. How vulnerable I am standing here arguing with him while water drips down my skin.
"You need to leave." My voice is quiet. "Now."
His eyes drop, just for a second, to where my hands are gripping the towel. Then back up to my face.
"Yeah," he says roughly. "I should."
But he doesn't move immediately. Just stands there, looking at me like he's memorizing something. Like he's fighting with himself.
The silence stretches between us.
Then, unexpectedly: "How are you?"
I blink. The question is so incongruous with everything else, the tension, the anger, the way he was just looking at me, that for a moment I think I misheard.
"What?"
"How are you?" He asks it again, and this time I hear something different in his voice. Something softer. Almost gentle. "After last night."
The crack appears before I can stop it. Something in my chest that I've been holding together with pure will fractures at the edges.