Chapter 38
Sean
Iwake to the unfamiliar sensation of peace.
Not the forced stillness that comes with exhaustion or the chemical numbness of alcohol—actual peace. The kind that settles into your bones and makes you believe, just for a moment, that the world isn’t the violent, unforgiving place you’ve always known it to be.
Ciara is pressed against my side, her head on my chest, one arm draped across my stomach. Her breathing is slow and even, the rhythm of it anchoring me to this moment, to this bed, to this life I’m still learning how to live.
The morning light filters through the curtains, softer than it has any right to be. Dublin doesn’t do soft. It does gray and rain and the kind of cold that gets into your marrow and never leaves. But today, somehow, feels different.
I don’t move. Don’t check the time or catalogue the dozen things I should already be doing. I just lie here and watch her sleep, marveling at the fact that she’s real. That she’s mine.
Her dark hair is spread across the pillow, tangled from sleep and from the hours before when I’d buried my hands in it and held on like she was the only thing keeping me tethered to the earth.
There’s a faint bite mark on her neck, and I feel a flash of something primal and possessive at the sight of it.
Mine.
The word echoes in my head, fierce and absolute. Not in the way I’ve claimed territory or power or control over the years, but in a way that feels deeper, more fundamental. Like she’s written into my DNA now, impossible to separate from who I am.
I’ve spent my entire life taking what I want without apology. But Ciara? She’s the one thing I didn’t take. The one thing that was given.
The world can wait while I watch her.
Ciara stirs against me, her fingers flexing against my ribs, and I hold my breath, not wanting to wake her. But her eyes flutter open anyway, dark and heavy-lidded, and she looks up at me with a sleepy confusion that quickly clears into something softer.
“You’re awake,” she murmurs, her voice rough with sleep.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Liar.” She shifts, propping herself up on one elbow to study me. “You’ve been awake for a while, haven’t you?”
I shrug, noncommittal. “Maybe.”
“Watching me sleep is creepy, you know.”
“I’ll add it to the list.”
She smiles at that, a small, private thing that makes my chest tighten. Then she leans down and kisses me—slow and unhurried, like we have all the time in the world. And maybe we do. Maybe that’s the point.
When she pulls back, she’s still smiling. “What time is it?”
“No idea.”
Her smile widens, and she collapses back onto the bed beside me, her head finding its place on my chest again. “I like this version of you.”
“The sober version?”
“The version that doesn’t have somewhere else to be.”
I wrap my arm around her, pulling her closer. “I don’t.”
“Liar,” she says again, but there’s no heat in it. Just quiet acceptance.
She’s right, of course. There’s always somewhere else to be, something else that needs my attention. Connor will be calling soon if he hasn’t already.
I push the thought of Connor away. Not now. Not yet.
“Hungry?” I ask instead.
She tilts her head to look up at me, amused. “Are you offering to cook?”
“I can cook.”
“Can you?”
“I’ll have you know I’m perfectly capable of—”
“Making toast?”
“Among other things.”
She laughs, the sound bright and unexpected, and it hits me like a punch to the gut. I’ve heard her laugh before—small, careful things that felt like concessions. But this is different. This is unguarded. Real.
I want to make her laugh like that every day for the rest of my life.
“Okay,” she says, sitting up and pushing the blankets aside. “Show me these culinary skills you claim to have.”
“You’re mocking me.”
“Absolutely.”
“You’ll be eating your words, soon, missy.” I leap out of bed and move to the living room, where I plug my phone in to charge before turning to the kitchen.
“We can just eat whatever Millie made,” Ciara says, joining me, still dressed only in my tee.
“Rude,” I say and start pulling pans and food out of cupboards.
Twenty minutes later, I’m staring at a frying pan that’s smoking slightly despite my best efforts. The eggs are... well, they’re not great. One is borderline acceptable. The other looks like it lost a fight.
Ciara is perched on the counter, bare legs swinging, drinking a cup of tea. She’s been watching me with poorly concealed amusement for the past ten minutes, offering absolutely no help.
“You’re enjoying this,” I say, scraping the better egg onto a plate.
“Immensely.”
I turn to glare at her, and she grins—wide and shameless and so fucking beautiful it makes my ribs ache.
“How do you like your eggs?” I ask, resigned.
“Edible.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“I know.”
I abandon the ruined egg and focus on salvaging what’s left. Toast. Tea. Jam. Simple things. Things even I can’t fuck up too badly.
Ciara slides off the counter and moves over to the toaster, taking over that particular task without comment. She moves around the kitchen like she belongs here, like this is already routine, and I realize with a jolt that I want it to be.
I want mornings like this. I want her in our kitchen, teasing me about my terrible cooking. I want the mundane, ordinary intimacy of building a life together.
It’s such a simple thing. Such a normal thing. And yet it feels impossibly out of reach for someone like me.
“Stop thinking so hard,” Ciara says.
“I’m not.”
“You are. I can see it.” She taps my forehead lightly. “You get this little crease right here when you’re spiraling.”
“I don’t spiral.”
“Sean.” She says my name like a reprimand and a comfort all at once. “You’re allowed to just... be happy. You know that, right?”
I look at her, at the open honesty in her face, and something in my chest cracks open. “I’m trying.”
“I know.” She steps closer, wrapping her arms around my waist and resting her head against my chest. “But you don’t have to try so hard. Just be here. With me.”
I pull her closer, burying my face in her hair. I could get used to this. To her. To us.
“I’m here,” I say quietly.
“Good.”
We stand like that for a long moment, the burnt eggs and mediocre toast forgotten. For the first time in longer than I can remember, I’m not thinking about what comes next. I’m not thinking about the next second with booze, or the next minute, or the next hour.
I’m just here.
My phone rings, and I roll my eyes.
Connor’s name flashes on the screen as I cross over to it.
Ciara glances at it, then at me. “You should answer.”
“Do I have to?” I groan but then slide my thumb over the screen anyway.
“Took you long enough,” Connor says, his voice dry. “Thought you might be dead.”
“Not yet.”
“Good to know. We need to talk.”
“I’m busy.”
“With what? Domestic bliss?” There’s amusement in his tone, but it’s edged with something sharper. Business.
“So, talk, then. Did you and the other bosses get together and plot your moves against the Russians?”
“Don’t be glib,” he snaps. “The Bratva have been persuaded to cut Ryan loose.”
I lean back against the counter, my free hand gripping the edge. Ciara is still watching me, her expression carefully neutral, but I can see the tension in the line of her shoulders.
“Where is he?”
“Gone underground.”
“As expected.”
Silence on the other end. Connor doesn’t need to say anything else.
“How’s Ciara?”
The question catches me off guard, but I don’t let it show. “Fine. She’s here.”
“Good. Keep her close until it’s done.”
“I will.”
He hangs up.
I set the phone down and pull her into my arms, holding her tight enough that I can feel her heartbeat against my chest. We stand there in the kitchen, the morning light spilling across the floor, and I let myself have this. This moment. This peace.
Because soon enough, we’ll have to leave it behind and do what needs to be done.
But not yet.
Not yet.
Ciara pulls away first and starts clearing the plates while I watch her. The way the morning light catches in her hair. The fact that she’s wearing my shirt and nothing else, and I’m finding it increasingly difficult to focus on anything that isn’t her.
“You’re staring,” she says without looking up from the sink.
“I’m appreciating.”
“That’s a nice way of putting it.” She glances over her shoulder, smiling.
She takes my hand and leads me to the living room, pulling me down onto the sofa beside her. I reach for the remote and turn on the TV. An old movie I’m not interested in flashes on the screen.
Ciara tucks herself into my side immediately, her legs curling under her, her head finding its natural place on my shoulder. I wrap my arm around her and settle back into the cushions, trying to remember the last time I did something this mundane.
I can’t.
“This is nice,” she murmurs after a moment.
“It is.”
“You sound surprised.”
“Maybe I am.”
“Can I ask you something?” Ciara says suddenly, her voice quiet.
“Anything.”
She’s silent for a moment, her fingers tracing absent patterns on my chest. “Do you ever think about what your life would be like if you weren’t... this?”
“This?”
“An O’Neill.”
I consider the question, turning it over in my mind. “No,” I say honestly. “I don’t. Because I can’t imagine what being a non-mafia boss’s son is like.”
She giggles. “Yeah.” But then she goes serious. “You never got to choose.”
“Neither did you, but do you ever think about what your life would be like if you weren’t Donal O’Byrne’s daughter?”
Her expression shutters, and I know I’ve hit something raw. But she doesn’t pull away.
“All the time,” she admits. “I think about what would have happened if my mother had taken me with her when she left.”
That grenade lands there, covered in Ciara’s vulnerability as she gives me a part of her past that I had no idea existed.
“She left?” I press gently. Left, died… sometimes it’s the same thing.