Chapter 14
Sean
The sound of a key turning wakes me. For a second, I think I’ve slept past it all and missed the whole fucking circus. Something like relief flickers. Then the door opens, and relief dies.
“Up.” Connor’s voice. No preamble. No good morning.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed. My mouth tastes like pennies and penitence. Logan slips in first, carrying a tray loaded up with porridge, banana, and black tea. Behind him, a man with a leather roll of knives and a smile that doesn’t touch his eyes ghosts in.
“Eat,” Logan says.
I choke down the porridge because it’s easier than listening to them tell me to.
The banana goes next in three savage bites.
The tea scalds, and I welcome it. The barber snaps the roll open on the dresser, and the gleam of steel flashes.
I sit because I’m told to sit. The straight razor glides along my jaw with the soft scrape of steel over stubble.
Hot towel. No cologne, thank fuck. I don’t think my stomach can handle it.
I glare at myself in the mirror and don’t recognize the man looking back.
Paler. Thinner. Eyes too bright in the sockets.
Sober enough to be dangerous to himself.
“Shower,” Connor orders, and I move.
It’s just fucking easier than fighting. The hollow space in my chest yawns wider, but I keep moving because momentum is all I’ve got.
I brush my teeth and rinse with mouthwash before stepping into the shower.
The water is lukewarm this time, not punishing, just functional.
I soap, rinse, and stand there with my hands on the tile like if I push hard enough, the wall will give me a tunnel out.
It doesn’t.
I scrub off fast, towel down, and step back out. The tailor’s already got a suit bag unzipped like he’s unveiling a weapon. Charcoal three-piece. White shirt. Black silk tie. Funeral adjacent, which seems about right.
“Arms,” he says, and I hold them out. He slides fabric over me, he smooths, he tugs. I’m a mannequin with veins. The shirt collar bites my throat. The waistcoat buttons feel like locks clicking shut one by one.
Logan hovers like a guilty conscience, pretending to scroll his phone. He’s not fooling anyone.
The tailor steps back, critical eye moving from head to toe. He hands me polished shoes, and I sit to pull them on. The world narrows to laces and the slight tremor in my fingers. Not as bad as it was. Bad enough.
When I stand, Connor comes closer and adjusts my tie with precise movement. He doesn’t meet my eye until it’s perfect.
“Keep it together,” he says, soft enough that only I hear.
“I’m housebroken,” I mutter.
His mouth twitches in almost humor, almost. He pats my shoulder once, an action disguised as affection, and steps away. “Car in five.”
He leaves with the tailor. The room feels bigger without him and smaller at the same time.
Logan nods once and then turns to leave.
“Where’s Liam?” I ask before I can stop myself.
Logan smiles. “He’s running security and didn’t want to make you more nervous.”
“Who’s nervous?” I scoff.
“See you on the other side,” Logan says and walks out, leaving the door wide open. I could run. I could escape and find the nearest bottle of Scotch and down it in two gulps. I could show up to the church drunk off my arse and feel better for it.
I don’t.
I walk.
The corridor smells like polish and old victories.
My shoes bite into the runner with every step, reminding me I’m alive and that I’ve made worse choices than this.
At the top of the stairs, I pause and flex my fingers until the tremor slows.
Down below, the front door yawns open, rain-glossed light pooling on the marble.
Connor waits by the car, a statue cut from spite, coat collar up against the spit of drizzle.
“I’m coming,” I say before he can open his mouth. I slide into the back of the Rolls. Leather, silence, a wall of glass between the driver and me. Connor settles beside me.
Dublin glides past in slow-motion smear. Wet stone, wet sky, wet people hurrying with heads down, all of them oblivious to the fact that a man is going to his own execution and calling it a wedding.
“You keep your mouth shut unless the priest speaks to you,” Connor says, not looking at me. “You speak clearly. You don’t crack jokes.”
I stare at the raindrops crawling down the window like ants fleeing a flood. “If I vomit on the priest, is the marriage still valid?”
Connor’s look could flay cows. “You won’t.”
The church rises out of the rain like a warning. St. Aidan’s. Too pretty for our kind. Gray stone, a bell that’s tolling like it has something to prove. There are cars, there are men and women in their finery, most of them, I don’t even know.
“Consummate this marriage as soon as you can,” Connor states as we pull to a stop.
“Sure, wouldn’t want old Donal to make a case for an annulment now, would we?”
“If he does, your head is on the chopping block.”
“Grand,” I say, and the door opens.
Rain needles my face as I step out. The damp air tastes cleaner than anything I’ve let into my lungs in years.
Men in suits straighten. Women tilt their hats to whisper.
All those eyes, weighing me, waiting for a wobble.
I square my shoulders and walk into St. Aidan’s like I own it, because that’s the only way I know how to survive.
Inside, the church smells of incense. Light filters through stained glass and paints the aisle in colors I don’t deserve. Liam is standing to one side, jaw tight, tie perfect. He gives me a once-over. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. I nod. He nods back. Truce for public consumption.
Donal O’Byrne stands near the front pew, hands clasped behind his back, expression smooth as a loaded gun. Our gazes touch. His is slightly terrifying. It screams, ‘hurt her, and I will gut you.’
The priest clears his throat. He’s not young, and he’s not stupid. He looks at me like he’s seen worse than me and buried it. “Mr. O’Neill,” he says, and it isn’t unkind.
I take my place at the front and wait.