Chapter 22
Sean
The silence in the SUV is louder than a gunshot. I flex my fingers, enjoying the sharp sting of splitting skin on my knuckles. It’s a grounding pain, unlike the hollow, screaming void in my gut that’s begging for a bottle of Glenfiddich to drown out the memory of that prick’s hands on my wife.
My wife.
My fucking arranged wife, who somehow feels like the closest person to knowing me at all.
My wife, who I have fucked until I hurt her, but still needed her.
My wife, who let me for reasons I will never understand.
Ciara sits rigid beside me, staring out at nothing. She hasn’t said a word since we got in, but I can practically hear the gears turning in her head. She’s assessing threats, calculating exits. She’s doing my job because I failed at it.
“Stop thinking so loud,” she murmurs, not turning her head.
“I’m not thinking,” I lie, my voice raspy. “I’m plotting.”
“Plotting what? How to explain to Connor that you owe money to low-level thugs?”
I clench my jaw. She doesn’t miss a beat. “It’s handled, Ciara.”
“It is now.”
The car turns onto the familiar red-bricked drive of my father’s estate.
The imposing house looms ahead, a fortress of judgment.
I hate this place. I hate that it’s the only safe harbor I have left to offer her.
As the car rolls to a stop, the urge to drink is so strong it nearly doubles me over.
But I look at her profile, sharp and unyielding, and I force the monster back into its cage.
I have a wife to protect, and a father to face.
The driver opens the door before I can shove it out of my way.
I step out silently. The air here is cleaner, sharper, smelling of manicured lawns and old money, but it does nothing to clear the red haze lingering at the edges of my vision.
I reach back in for Ciara. She takes my hand, her grip firm, not a tremor in her fingers.
She’s made of steel, this woman, while I feel like I’m held together by rusty wire and bad intentions.
As she steps out, standing beside me in her oversized tee and yoga pants, she looks more regal than she did in the wedding dress.
“Ready for round two?” she asks quietly, her green eyes scanning the house like she’s looking for snipers.
“I’d rather take on another three gunmen,” I mutter.
Her eyes pin mine, and she smirks, but says nothing.
The massive oak doors of the manor swing open before we even reach the steps. Liam stands there, looking every inch the perfect heir. His suit is immaculate, his expression hard, but his eyes land on the blood drying on my knuckles with a flicker of fury.
“You look like shit,” Liam says by way of greeting, stepping aside to let us in.
“Good to see you too, brother,” I growl, tightening my hold on Ciara as we cross the threshold.
The scent of beeswax and expensive Scotch hits me instantly—the smell of my childhood, the smell of my father.
My stomach cramps with a violent need, the phantom burn of whisky in my throat almost choking me.
I grit my teeth until my jaw aches. I can’t fall apart now.
Not in front of Liam. Not in front of her.
She raises her hand to the back of my neck and digs her nails in. She can smell it too.
“Connor is in the study,” Liam adds, closing the door and sealing us in.
With a nod, I lead Ciara, followed by Liam, into Connor’s study. My eyes immediately go to the drink’s cart, nestled in the corner where it usually is.
Ciara’s nails draw blood.
“Ow,” I mutter.
“Eyes off,” she mutters back.
I tear my eyes away from the cart, the amber liquid inside the crystal decanters mocking me.
It’s glowing like liquid gold, promising oblivion, but the sharp sting of Ciara’s nails digging into my skin anchors me back to the shitty reality.
She knows. One sip, and I’m gone, and with Connor sitting behind that massive mahogany desk like a judge ready to pass sentence, I need to be here.
“Sit,” Connor commands, not even looking up from the file he’s reading.
We sit. The leather chairs creak, the only sound in the room besides the ticking of the grandfather clock that has counted down every disappointment of my life. When Connor finally looks up, his gaze is heavier than lead. He ignores me entirely, focusing on Ciara.
“You’re unhurt?”
“I’m fine,” she answers, her voice steady. She hasn’t let go of my hand since we sat down.
“Good,” he says with a nod and an icy smile, which I know actually means he’s trying to be happy about someone other than himself. Not that I have any doubts, the overarching response is about himself and not having to deal with Donal over his dead daughter.
“I’m fine too,” I grit out. “Thanks for asking.”
Connor shifts his attention to me, and the temperature in the room drops ten degrees. “Of course you are,” he scoffs. “I didn’t raise a pussy.”
Liam stifles his snort of amusement, but I hear it anyway.
Connor closes the file with a snap that echoes in the quiet room.
“Three dead men in your penthouse. A security breach that makes us look like amateurs. And a gambling debt to a bottom-feeder like Mick Rankin?” He leans back, tenting his fingers.
“You’re lucky I don’t put you down myself just to save the cost of the cleanup. ”
Ciara stiffens beside me. “We handled it,” she interjects, her voice slicing through the thick air. “And for the record, your security was shit. Asleep on the job, dead for his efforts, and Mick and his creeps walked right in.”
Connor’s eyes snap to her. A flicker of surprise, then something that looks dangerously like respect. Or maybe just calculation. “Creeps?” His tone has gone deadly. “Is there something you aren’t telling me?”
“They caught us naked in our wedding bed. How did you think that was going to end for me? Them throwing a robe over me to keep my dignity?”
Her dry tone has Liam’s eyebrow going up in approval.
I feel nothing but fucking pride.
My wife.
If I hadn’t already, and it’s hard to tell in the first days of sobriety, but in that moment, I fall head over fucking heels for her. She is fearless. She is sexy. She is beautiful. She has a vulnerable side that I will do anything to protect.
She is mine.
Connor’s gaze shifts from Ciara to me, the air in the room turning lethal. He might think I’m a screw-up, but he hates outsiders touching what belongs to the O’Neills even more.
“Did he succeed?” Connor asks, his voice low, devoid of any paternal warmth but heavy with the promise of violence.
Succeed. In raping her.
I know full well that if they had, if I hadn’t killed myself in shame after putting those bastards down, Connor would do it for me now.
“He put his hands on her,” I answer for her, the memory of that prick’s fingers on her skin making my vision blur with red again. “That’s why he’s currently dead on my bedroom floor.”
Connor nods once. A single, sharp dip of his chin. It’s the closest thing to approval I’ll ever get. “Liam, scrub the city. If Rankin had any family, any associates, burn them out. I want a message sent. No one touches an O’Neill wife.”
“Already on it,” Liam says, tapping something into his phone, his face bored but his eyes sharp.
“And you,” Connor says, turning his cold blue stare back to me. “You’re lucky you handle a gun better than you handle your liquor. Go to your room. Stay there until I tell you otherwise.”
It’s a dismissal, treating me like a wayward child, but I don’t care.
I pull Ciara to her feet, her hand warm and solid in mine.
We walk out of the study, leaving the scent of Scotch and judgment behind.
As the heavy door clicks shut, I pull her against me, burying my face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the scent of soap and our survival. I don’t need a drink. I just need her.
I’ve fallen harder than an avalanche in the Alps, and even if she doesn’t ever want me in that way, I know I will spend my whole life trying to be a better man for her. One she can respect. Maybe even one she can love.
It’s what she deserves.
Instead, she ended up with me, the man so far gone, he didn’t even hear the fucking breach and her being dragged from our bed. “I’m sorry, I failed you, Ciara.”
She pulls back slightly to look up at me. “Failed me? How? Because you were desperately in need of some proper sleep after being used to passing out drunk every night and then going through withdrawals? Sean, you didn’t fail me. We’re here. I’m fine. You’re fine.”
“He touched you,” I growl, cupping the back of her neck and squeezing tightly.
“And now he’s dead.”
I let out a dark half-chuckle. “That easy to forget it?”
“Yes. Now let’s get up to your room before Connor decides he’s not finished with us.”
“Arsehole,” I mutter, looking back at the study door. “It was his men who let us down.”
“Yes, and that is why he is angry. He feels like he let you down.”
I scoff. “Not likely.” I lead her to the stairs, and we go up. I’m not sure if being here is a good thing or a bad thing. All I know is that Ciara is safe, and that is the most important thing.
For now.
This isn’t over.
I’ve got ants crawling under my skin, and it’s not just withdrawals.
There is something seriously off about this.
Mick Rankin is a fucking nobody. Sleeping on the job or not, Connor doesn’t hire idiots.
The elevator dinging, the approach of three men…
something should’ve tipped him off. Not to mention the outside perimeter.
According to Liam, there were guards stationed around.
I stop and look back down the stairs with a frown.
Liam is there, giving me a look that knows he’s been busted.
I’ve known his face since the day I was born.
I could always tell when he’s lying to me.
There was no outside perimeter.
There was the one guard for show outside the door, and the rest was my survival instinct keeping me in line. My survival instinct is only in existence because being dead means I can’t drink.
I turn my back on him and keep walking. I’ve been played for a drunk fool, and it got my wife sexually assaulted because I was complacent.
Liam knows it, Connor knows it, and I fucking know it.
We can’t trust them. Not after this.
We are on our own.