Chapter 11
Ciara
I’m hovering and being judged by O’Neills past as I stand at the bottom of the grand staircase.
I know I’m being a nuisance, but I need to know if this ex-priest of the O’Neill clan managed to get through to Sean. Connor’s picture was not pretty. He won’t show me the live feed he has of his son, and I respect that. It is drawing a line in the sand that cannot be undone.
Logan O’Neill appears at the top of the stairs, and my heart kicks up a notch. I don’t even know why I care. Except I do. I’m going to be married to this idiot. I need to know that he hasn’t just tried to kill his cousin to get out of that room to get a drink.
He takes the stairs two at a time.
“Well?” I ask before he reaches me.
“He ate.” Relief loosens something low in my spine before I can strangle it. He sees it. I don’t look away. “Had to bribe him, but needs must. He drank the water as well. The shakes eased after.”
“Did he throw the bowl at you?” I ask, dry as bone.
“At the door, after I left.” One corner of his mouth tugs. “He’s still an O’Neill.”
“Will he make Monday standing?”
“He’ll be there.”
That’s not reassuring, but I’ll take what I can get.
Logan assesses me for a moment, and I lift my chin defiantly. “What?”
“Considering this is an arranged marriage, you are awfully invested in it.”
“I’m invested in keeping my end of the deal.”
“Because you’re a good girl, who knows her place,” Connor states, striding up to us and fixing Logan with a hard stare. “You got through to him.” It’s not a question. That means he watched the entire thing on the cameras he has set up. The thought makes me feel slightly ill.
“You knew I would. It’s why I’m here,” Logan replies.
Something passes between them that excludes me, but I don’t dwell on it. I’m not an O’Neill. Not yet and never by blood.
“Well, we all seem to have done our parts here today. Connor, Logan, I will see you both in two days.” I turn on my heel and march towards the front door, but Connor’s next words stop me momentarily.
“Thank you, Ciara.”
An acerbic comment that I didn’t really do anything dies on my lips. He is being sincere, maybe for the first time in his life. Without a look back, I open the door. “You’re welcome.”
The heavy oak door thuds shut behind me. I exhale, a long, controlled breath that fogs in the crisp air, releasing the tension that coiled in my chest the moment I set foot on this property.
My heels click on the stone steps, and I climb into the back of the waiting sedan. I don’t need to tell him where to go. There is only one place.
As the car purrs to life and rolls down the long, imposing driveway, I allow myself a moment of grim satisfaction.
Sean ate. He threw a tantrum, smashed a bowl against a door like a petulant child, but he put the food in his body.
My food. It’s a small victory in a war I haven’t even officially joined yet, but I’ll take it.
It proves he can be reached, manipulated even, if the leverage is right.
Two days. Forty-eight hours until I walk down an aisle and shackle myself to a man who hates me, in a dress his father bought.
I arrive back at the apartment and force myself to get out of the car. I feel drained, and I didn’t even see him. How is it going to be when I’m sleeping in his bed, waiting for him to come home?
Opening the front door, I head straight for the kitchen.
I need tea. I need order. I need to prepare.
When Sean O’Neill walks through that door with me on Monday night, likely resentful, stripped of his vices, and looking for a drink and a fight, he won’t find a blushing bride.
He’ll find a partner who is just as trapped and twice as lethal.
I fill the kettle and set it to boil.
The water bubbles and snaps into silence. I pour it over the Earl Grey teabag, watching the liquid darken as the scent of bergamot rises. It’s a mundane task, steadying and precise, and the exact opposite of the chaos swirling around the O’Neill name.
Cup in hand, I walk into the living area. The floor-to-ceiling windows offer a view of Dublin that he doesn’t deserve, but my eyes are drawn to the bar in the corner. Expensive bottles glint under the recessed lighting, filled with amber and clear liquids.
This is a test from Connor to me. Again. What will I do with all of this shit? I know that he is sobering Sean up for Monday; after that, he is my responsibility.
I set my tea on a coaster and approach the shelves. If Sean comes back here on Monday night with his blood screaming for a fix, this is the first place he’ll go. But he will find his source severely lacking.
I grab the first bottle of whisky. It is old and obscenely expensive. I carry it to the kitchen sink, twist the cap, and invert it. The glug-glug-glug is a rhythmic waste of money, the pungent fumes filling the air instantly. It makes my stomach churn, but I won’t let it stop me.
I don’t stop. Vodka, gin, bourbon. I empty every single bottle, watching the liquid gold and poison swirl down the drain. By the time I’m done, the kitchen reeks like a distillery floor, but the shelves are empty.
I gather up the bottles and place them in a bag to take to the recycling chute.
He is going to rage. He is going to try to get his fix by leaving, but this time, I won’t let him go. Once he becomes my husband, I won’t let him embarrass me. The bottles clang down the chute, and I take a step back, breathing in deeply.
Time to find the ones he has hidden.
I start in his bedroom. A person with a substance use disorder is nothing if not predictable in their deceit, and desperation breeds a specific kind of ingenuity I intend to dismantle.
I strip the bed, checking between the mattress and the box spring.
Nothing. I move to the closet, pushing aside the rows of expensive, tailored suits that smell faintly of him.
I check the pockets of the heavy winter coats first.
Jackpot.
Inside the lining of a charcoal wool trench, my fingers brush against cold metal. I pull out a silver flask. It’s heavy, sloshing with promise. I march to the en-suite and dump it into the toilet, flushing it away without a second thought.
I don’t stop there. I check the toilet tank, the space behind the pedestal sink, the hollow cavity of the curtain rod.
In the living room, I lift the sofa cushions, check the vents, and run my hands under the tables.
I find a half-empty bottle of vodka taped beneath the floating vanity in the guest bathroom and a pint of whisky shoved deep inside a pair of muddy wellies by the front door.
Each discovery is a testament to his weakness, and each disposal is a reinforcement of my strength. By the time I’m finished, the apartment is sterile.
I wash my hands in the kitchen sink, scrubbing with lemon dish soap until the skin is raw and pink. I dry them on a plush white towel and lean against the counter, surveying the silent room.
“Not on my watch, Sean,” I murmur to the silence. “I don’t do weakness.”