21. Saoirse
Saoirse
Confessions
Oh, my God. Someone help me.
I can’t react, not while I’m in the car.
“Take me home!” I fiddle with my phone and type off a quick message, telling the sales agent to shut the office. “I don’t need to check the list of potential buyers today.”
I don’t give a reason. Calm down. Breathe.
I use the noise cancelling headphones to drown out any attempt at conversation. I need to be alone with my torture chamber of a memory. It’s the only place I can process what just happened.
When I’ve calmed down, I realize that I peed a tiny bit in my panties.
Oh, my God. Is that fear or loathing?
I’m going to have to think of something else to say other than “Oh, my God”. I’ve gone into some kind of shock. My fingers shake as I fish the mirror compact out of my purse and open it.
My pupils are so large my eyes look black. The rose tinted lip balm I rubbed on my cheeks has pooled into two red splotches.
Be still my beating, spasming, fluttering heart.
Pressing my hand over my chest, I take a tiny gasp of air.
What I need is a brown paper bag. Maybe cupping my hands over my mouth and nose will work.
Head down. Pretend it’s a sneeze.
I saw Finn. In the flesh.
He’s back from the dead. An t-anam.
I know it’s him, even though he looks nothing like the beautiful young boy from six years ago.
He’s a man now, not beautiful, but ruggedly handsome. His expression? Grim and brooding as he stared at the building site information. And his body? Oh, my God. Was he created in a laboratory? Pieced together from action movie stars and male models.
He’s built like a machine. A magnetic instrument made to rip and wreck anyone who dares succumb to his attraction.
Finn wasn’t shocked to see me. In fact, he looked happily surprised at first, before his emotions got hidden behind an impassive mask.
That means he knows my offices are close by here. Duh. Byrne Properties seemed like a grand business name until a few minutes ago.
It was definitely Finn at the cemetery, watching me from under the pines.
Maybe he’s dead and haunting me? But ghosts don’t get tattoos and carry an undercurrent of violence with them.
Nails dig into the flesh of my palms as my fighting spirit rises.
I’m driving past you in a brand new Bentley. Who’s the pawn now, Finn O’Shea?
Does he even remember what he wrote to me in that farewell letter? Because I could swear he has no idea how much I hate him. He looked as if… he expected me to run into his arms like one of those old Hollywood movie endings.
Little does he know that if I’d had a bottle of water in the car with me, I would’ve lobbed it at his head. Or a can of corn. Or a hand grenade.
Fucker.
***
All the different ways I can get revenge stop me from falling asleep.
Hire someone to kill Finn. Kill Finn myself. Invite Finn to view a house on the market and then blow it up with one hundred pounds of dynamite.
Finn. Finn. Finn. Argh! Get out of my head!
My tossing and turning are hectic enough to make Declan grumble.
“Ah, Saoirse, quit moving around. It’s ants in your pants you’re acting like.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself. I check my phone. Only nine p.m.
“I have something on my conscience, Dec. I need to get it off my chest.”
He doesn’t expect me to confess to him. “Get Rian to drive you to St. Brendan’s—he’s probably in the theater watching GAA. Father O’Malley might still be in the confessional.”
I lean over to give him a kiss on the cheek. He opens his eyes and shoots me a suspicious look.
“What’s gotten into you?”
Time for me to turn on the charm. “Mmm, maybe this heavy weight on my conscience is because I want to fuck you…”
He gives my leg a pat. “I have to do a workout at the gym before Mass at six. But it’s a raincheck I’ll be taking from you, pet.”
I’m not going to confess my sins. I need inspiration on how to get revenge.
That’s a truth I must keep to myself. It keeps me warm like a protective blanket whenever I think about the million ways to punish the man who thought of me as a pawn in his chess game.
Only Feargal is in the home theater. Rian is probably over at Helena’s trying to patch things up.
“Drive me to St. Brendan’s, Feargal?”
He sees that I’m dressed casually—tight, black, high-waisted yoga pants and small white cotton tee-shirt under a blue plaid pea coat, oversize platform sneakers, hair hanging loose—not exactly a church outfit.
“I’m going to light a candle for my Mam! To pray for her soul. I don’t have to wear my Sunday best for what I’ll be doing, Feargal!” I must be antsy to offer an explanation freely.
Wearing pants to church is frowned upon, but I’m seriously in no mood for judgment. I’ve already lost count of all my lies.
A flicker of a smile tilts the corner of his mouth. “Sure, Mrs. M.” He flicks off a text and runs out to bring the car around.
I need to stay present. Gnawing my thumbnail and staring moodily as the nighttime lights of Queens slip by isn’t going to look like I have nothing to worry about.
“Go.” I tell Feargal before shutting the door. “I’ll call you when I’ve finished.”
He gives me the nod and drives away. I don’t feel lonely. I’m relieved.
Something is bottled up inside me, bursting to get out.
After checking that the confessional is empty, I stick a twenty in the box and take a candle. Going through the motions of lighting it with a taper and placing it close to where I pray brings me some small measure of comfort.
I kneel, close my eyes, and pray.
I finish the prayer as always by saying, “A Mhuire Naofa, a Mháthair Dé, guí ar ár son na peacaigh, anois agus in uair ár mbáis. áiméan.”
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
There was a time when I didn’t include myself among that description—us sinners—but I’m way past it now.
My dearest mother. Beloved by both a Byrne and an O’Shea, and I never even knew.
Torn between two men in love with the Connemara lass with amber eyes and long black hair. But Mam’s parents chose the eldest, wealthiest man for their daughter to marry. The heir to the Byrnes crime syndicate.
My dear old Da.
While Eamon O’Shea took his broken heart, crawled away into a pub, got fat, and died.
I can’t blame the old folks for choosing the richest suitor. They grew up with stories of An Gorta Mór at bedtime.
“This is where I first met him.” I check over my shoulder to make sure I’m alone before correcting myself. “This is where he first saw me.” Finn. Heir to nothing and no one now.
The blood-stained boy.
I can’t talk to anyone about this, so I have to talk to myself.
“Holy Mother, forgive my sins.”
I whisper my deepest secrets to the quivering candlelight. Only when I’m done confessing sins is it time for me to tell the truth.
“I saw Finn today, Mam. If you’re listening up there in heaven, maybe you could find a way to help me?”
The words burst out of me like a festering wound. I vomit them out in a husky whisper.
“He’s not like your two suitors, Ma. Finn’s such a ride. It’s not fair. It’s sickened I am.”
I feel better for having vented my tantrum. “I have to bring him low, Mam. Equal the score.”
Smack his handsome mug sideways. Rake my nails down his chest.
Kick him square in the balls. I swear seeing him today made me so mad.
I’m at church. What’s the thinking? I can’t wish for violence in this sacred spot.
“Forgive me, Mam, but I really want to punish him. I should check when the confessional is available and ask for advice…”
Leaning heavily on the railings, I stand up and sigh. “I really need a shrink.”
“It’s not a shrink you’re needing, Saoirse, but an exorcist.”
I cry out and have to hold onto the railings to stop me from collapsing. Fear and shock build up the pressure in my bladder again, but this time I manage to hold it in.
I turn. It’s him. Finn.
It feels strange for us to reunite like this. The baseline of my emotions shift and waver, unsure of how he wants me to react.
How he wants me to react. What the fuck? I’m not that stupid girl barely out of her teens anymore.
I don’t choose my words carefully, but go in guns blazing. Unthinking, no forethought, and fuck the danger.
“It’s hunting me you’re fecking doing?!” It comes out far louder than I want, more of a scream than a question.
Mouth, dry. Knees, shaking. All that poise I’m so fond of showing off flies out the window.
He moves closer, heavy and deliberate, like he’s taking his time to savor the moment. He looks like a gangster, his clothes and the tattoos on his hands and wrists read as dangerous.
“Sure, I’ve been looking for you, darlin’.” His voice drags over gravel.
I take a step backward, but the railings block my way. Fear recedes, replaced by hate.
“Pff. Don’t pretend I’m a needle in the haystack. There’s got to be something wrong with your eyes if you couldn’t find me.”
He knows where I’ve had to live for the last six years.
“Ah, don’t you worry, darlin’. I know how to find things.”
He’s less than a yard away. Less than a foot. Six inches. Finn brings his face close to mine.
I can feel his warm breath when he says it.
“It’s not a needle, you are. More like a thorn in my side. So, Saoirse… Has my memory been needling your conscience?” There’s that cocky fucking grin I haven’t missed one bit. “Or have you missed my prick?”
I’m not going to engage in his stupid word games. His Irish charm can get fucked.
Inching to the side, I eye the exit. If he’s here and not there, I can make a run for it. “Everyone said you were dead, Finn O’Shea, and yet no one mourned you. Just like your poxy uncle.”
Darkness blanks out his storm-gray eyes. His body presses against me, to let me know I’m not running away any time soon.
I’m close to passing out; my adrenaline levels are so high. I’m having a physical reaction to his body touching mine. He’s so much taller and stronger than me.
I feel the feminine energy flowing through me in response to his masculinity. It mounts quickly, evolving into arousal. The faster I pant, the hotter I get.
Only by chewing my bottom lip hard can I force myself to stand up to whatever he’s trying to lay down on me.
“That’s a powerful lot of hate for you to be carrying around for a dead man, Saoirse.”
It’s an answer to prayer that he chooses to remind me of how much I hate him.
I’m inspired to spit in his face and aim for his crotch with my knee.
Finn sees it coming a mile off. All he does is pivot his hips to block my knee. As for my spit, my mouth is too dry to produce much more than a puff of air.
Laughing like the devil he is, he kisses me. And he’s too powerful to resist. It’s like he’s starving for me, and devouring my lips is the only food he craves.
I should be trying to bite him, but I don’t. Denying my excitement would kill me, I think.
He pulls back, but it’s only so he can stare at my face. His gorgeous eyes move from my widow’s peak to my brow, and down to my sharply etched cheekbones. When he reaches my red-slicked lips, he kisses me again.
He speaks, moving his mouth against me. “It’s a sacrifice I’ll be needing, Saoirse.”
His tattooed fingers lock around my throat so I can read them.
MORE. PAIN.