Chapter 25
Ciara
Idon’t make it far. I was halfway up the stairs when I heard the second glass shatter in the fire and a sound tear out of him that wasn’t human.
The rage I’ve been clinging to slips, useless as a wet match. I turn back and find him in the doorway, folded against the frame like his bones forgot how to hold him up. His head is down, his shoulders shaking, his knuckles white on the jamb.
I go to him and kneel in front of him, taking his face in my hands. He looks wretched.
“You didn’t drink,” I say.
He squeezes his eyes shut, jaw clenched so hard I can see the muscle jump. “No.”
I press my forehead to his. “Breathe, Sean. Four in, four hold, four out.”
He tries. It’s ugly. He shudders, and a sound claws out of his chest that makes my stomach twist. I count for him, one palm cupping the back of his neck, the other pressing flat to his sternum, feeling the rabbit-fast stutter of his heart.
“Again,” I whisper.
He does it again. The tremor doesn’t stop, but it changes. It’s not the same freefall panic; it’s the aftershock. I stay there until his breathing evens enough that he can look at me without drowning in it.
“I threw it,” he rasps, as if I didn’t already know.
“I heard.” I brush my thumbs along his cheekbones. “Do you want a medal or tea?”
“Tea,” he grits out. “And… don’t leave.”
“I told you I wouldn’t.” I push up and offer him my hand. He takes it like a drowning man takes a rope, and I haul him up. He’s solid and shaking. I lead him to the back of the house, where I suspect I’ll find the kitchen.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Connor loitering in his study doorway.
I turn my head to look at him. He gives me a swift nod and then disappears.
I steer him through the back hallways until the kitchen opens around us.
I flick the lights on low. It feels wrong to flood him with brightness.
He moves on autopilot to the end of the island and grips the edge like a man trying not to be pitched overboard.
I set the kettle on. My hands know what to do even when my head wants to hit a wall. I pull mugs and teabags out of cupboards, while he watches me like I’m building a bomb.
“Sit,” I order.
The tremor is back, a fine jackhammer in his forearms, but he sits.
I wedge a chair close to his and sit sideways, my knee braced against his thigh. Contact. Anchor. He stares at the spot like he’s memorizing the exact angle of it in case he loses me in the dark.
We breathe.
The kettle clicks off, and I make us some tea. I push his mug to him and circle his wrist with my fingers when he reaches for it. He wraps his free hand over mine and squeezes once. It’s a plea. It’s gratitude. It’s both.
“We plan tomorrow,” I say, keeping my voice low. “But not with you walking into the Copper Lantern alone.”
His jaw ticks. “He won’t show if he smells sober.”
“So, we let him smell otherwise from far away. You fall off the wagon very publicly, without ever touching a glass.”
“How?” Skeptical, but listening. It’s enough.
“A staged stumble, colored water, throwing a game of poker—”
“I don’t need to throw a game of poker, I’m pretty shit at it.”
I giggle softly. “Even better. It’ll be real.”
He smiles, but it’s forced. He has put himself through the wringer.
“Why did you pour the first drink?” I ask quietly before taking a sip of tea.
“To test myself. I knew I had to walk into a pub tomorrow, and I needed to know if I could stare it down and still walk away,” he finishes, voice shredded.
I swallow, easing the ache in my chest with tea I don’t taste. “You did.”
“Barely.”
“Barely counts.” I set my mug down. “Listen to me. Tomorrow isn’t about willpower. It’s about choreography. You won’t be improvising in there; you’ll be following marks we lay down tonight.”
His eyes find mine, bloodshot but razor sharp again. “Go on.”
“We are not involving anyone else. This is you and me. Murphy can’t see me, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be there. He isn’t there to abduct you or kill you. He wants you to rat. Plain and simple. He will want you out in the open at all times.”
“You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”
“I do. I grew up with Donal O’Byrne,” I say wryly. “Let’s just say that is his preferred way of getting intel on his rivals. Turning those who are weak.”
“Weak,” Sean mutters, and I feel bad for all of a second.
“Yes, weak. You have to be the weak link, or this won’t work.”
“So, what exactly is the plan, Ciara? I’m not ratting, so what?”
“We convince him you will, then we double-cross.”
“How?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about this guy except that his family are tough bastards. But tough doesn’t mean they are elite. It just means they are hard and stupid.”
“So, we need to find exactly what his endgame is.”
“Exactly.”
“He might tell a drunk.”
“Men like that usually like to boast.”
“We need to find out what exactly it is he wants from my end. What does he want information on?” Sean says, taking a long gulp of tea.
I shrug. “That is what we need to find out. What you need to find out.”
“Where will you be?”
“Lurking. I need you to go to the gents’ and open the window so I can climb through.”
He snorts. “I’m beginning to think you have a fetish for the men’s toilets.”
I glare at him. “Okay, go to the ladies’ room and let me in. See how far you get with that one.”
He chuckles and holds his hands up. “Okay, you win. Men’s, it is.” He grabs my hand and brushes my knuckles against his lips. “If anything happens to you…”
“It won’t. I’ll be armed.”
“He has already tried to hurt you.”
“And we made sure that didn’t happen.”
He nods, but I think he is only playing along. “So, I’ll go in at ten and sit at the bar, not a table. Pretend to already be sloshed. Hopefully, they will refuse to serve me.”
“Hopefully,” I mutter. “But if they don’t, order food, do anything you can to delay the drink in front of you. Take a flask of water, call it vodka.”
He gives me a scathing look.
“What?” I say with a shrug. “I don’t know, do I?”
He’s still staring at me like I suggested he juggle Molotovs. I roll my eyes and lean in, lowering my voice even though the kitchen is empty.
“We stack the deck. You go in looking wrecked. I go in through the window. You control the conversation. You give him bait, not whatever mad shite he tries to drag out of you. If he asks for names, you give him ghosts.”
He nods. “Dead men. Exiles. The ones who can’t be touched anymore. We let him think he’s got a vein, and when he bites down, he cracks a tooth.”
He’s quiet, thinking. The tremor in his fingers has eased, but it hasn’t gone. I slide my palm over his hand, pressing down.
“Or we take the easy way out and tell your dad.”
His gaze shoots up to mine with a flash of annoyance. “Never,” he hisses. “At least, not anymore. This is my mess, and for once in my fucking life, I’m going to clean it up. He has threatened my wife, made you leverage. He will die screaming.”
The thrill that slices through my blood is hard to deny. “That’s the O’Neill spirit.”
He gives me a look that could wilt a houseplant but fuck it. He is fired up, and he won’t crack, not even in the pub surrounded by alcohol.
“I believe in you,” I murmur.
He closes his eyes briefly. “Are you sure about that?”
I squeeze his hand. “You’ve got this.”
I hold his gaze until I see the moment it lands. A small click you can’t hear, only feel. Then I stand, take our empty mugs to the sink, and rinse them out. “We find out what he wants, how far he is willing to go to get it, what he already knows and then…”
“Then I remove his eyeballs and shove them up his dick.”
“Ouch,” I murmur with a soft smile.
He glares at me for ruining his threat, but that’s the thing. He might be less than a week sober, but his threats are promises. Especially when it comes to me.
I’m not sure how I feel about that. Any normal wife would be ecstatic, but I’m an arranged wife who didn’t even know her husband before I was promised to him.
It throws his motives into doubt. So far, I seem to be the only thing stopping him from drinking, and I can’t help but wonder if that’s why he cares.
But as we walk back upstairs, I know that isn’t true. He stopped himself. For me, yes, but the second one was for himself.
I don’t sleep so much as hover. He drops fast, heavy, the kind of exhausted that only comes after going ten rounds with a ghost and winning by an inch. I lie naked on my side and watch his chest rise and fall as he sleeps.
The violence is gone.
The wretchedness smoothed out.
Six days sober. One day married.
Somewhere in the chaos, I stopped seeing the spare.
I started seeing the man.
The thought terrifies me. I wasn’t meant to fall.
But I have.
At some point, dawn sneaks under the curtains, that Irish gray that pretends to be light.
I slide out of bed and stretch until my spine pops, then walk to the en-suite.
A hot shower does wonders, but I have no clothes except the ones I was wearing yesterday.
My gun goes at my spine. My phone in my backpack, and I’m ready.
He stirs as I sit and stare out at the grounds. “What time?” he mutters, voice sandpaper.
I glance at the clock. “Seven. We’ve got a few hours yet.”
He nods and closes his eyes again. I let him sleep.
But when my phone buzzes in my backpack, he is upright and alert as I pull it out and stare at the screen.
“Unknown number.”
“Answer it,” he says gruffly.
I nod and put it on speaker. “What do you want?”
“Where is he?”
“Good morning to you, too,” I drawl.
“I’m not in the mood for pleasantries, Ciara. Where the fuck is Sean?”
“Who knows,” I say, locking my gaze with my husband. “I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”
“Liar,” he snaps. “You left the penthouse together. So where is he?”
“Not with me.”
“Look, I’m done playing games. Connor’s men are good at dodging a tail. The two of you are ghosts right now, but I will fucking find one of you, sooner or later. I don’t care which, but I’m sure you hope it’s not you.”
Dodging a tail. I didn’t even notice yesterday. Fuck.
Sean’s grim expression suggests he didn’t either. Although it makes sense that Oisin would have eyes on us. We are both too preoccupied with our own shit that we are letting this idiot run rings around us.
“Look, Oisin. You know my husband better than I do. I don’t know his haunts.
All I know is that he isn’t here… at my father’s estate.
” I shrug as Sean gives me that look again.
Oisin has zero clue, and to be honest, if he is dumb enough to try to attack my dad’s house, then he deserves to be strung up, and his head displayed on a pike outside the gates.
“You expect me to believe you split up?”
“I don’t care what you believe. He got out of the car, and I haven’t seen him since.”
“I know you’re lying, and I will cut your fucking tongue out.”
Sean lunges towards me, but I hold the phone away, my other hand up, shaking my head.
He stops his approach, but he is trembling with rage.
“How pleasant. Well, I’ve told you all I know. Good luck finding him, although I’m sure it won’t be too hard.” I hang up, and Sean growls. “We need to move, quietly, and separately.”
“Not a fucking chance,” he snarls.
“I’ve literally just told him you aren’t with me. If he has eyes on this house, he will know we are up to something if he sees us together.”
His gaze hardens, but he cools off slightly. “I’ll take one of the cars. You can hide in the back. Non-negotiable. I’m not letting you loose on the streets of Dublin by yourself to be snatched and tortured.”
“Fine,” I say. “Get ready.”
He looks stunned that I agreed, but then he nods and starts pulling on his clothes. He knows the sooner we get this over with, the sooner the threat is eliminated.