Chapter 36
Callum
Habromania (n) a form of delusional insanity
My hands are still shaking as she pulls back from my embrace, a huge grin on her face.
I laugh as a wave of relief washes over me, and she leans in to kiss me, her lips lingering on mine.
When we break apart, all of the sights, sounds, and smells of the gardens seem to come rushing back in at full blast, when just moments before, all I could see was her.
I reach for her hand, intertwining our fingers as we walk back down the white marble steps.
Our steps are in sync as we stroll to meet the three stooges at the front of the property.
Maeve leans on my shoulder, resting her other hand on my bicep.
She lets out a heavy sigh. I look down at her, and she meets my gaze with a light in her eyes that has been growing brighter over the past few days.
We’re reaching the front of the grounds when I see Ronan lying spread-eagled in the grass.
Saoirse’s eyes are hidden behind her sunglasses, and she’s reclining on a bench, her head leaning back against the stone wall and her arms crossed over her chest. Orin is leaning against the frame of a nearby stone archway, scrolling through his phone.
He nods his head as we approach and pockets his phone, a knowing grin on his face.
“What have you three been doing? Taking naps?” Maeve asks as we pause in the center of the three of them. “Ronan looks like he’s trying to connect with Mother Nature, spread out for the taking.” Orin chuckles, and Ronan jumps up, wiping the grass from his clothes.
“Hey, I can’t help it if ladies can’t keep their hands off me,” Ronan jokes, winking at Saoirse.
“Yeah, because all the women want a man who confuses being insufferable with being irresistible,” she fires back.
“You could have your hands all over this if you’d just admit you like me,” Ronan gestures to his body as he walks toward her. Orin rolls his eyes, also.
But it’s Ronan’s next comment that rips the veil off this perfect moment.
“Well, glad the contract is out in the open now. Glad she said yes,” Ronan blurts, clapping me on the shoulder.
“What contract?” Maeve says, turning slowly and releasing my hand. I grit my teeth, trying to keep my anger under control.
Ronan and his goddamned mouth.
“It’s nothing. It’s something stupid our fathers wrote up when we were kids,” I confess, glancing angrily at Ronan, who is now standing wide-eyed.
“Clearly, it’s something if Ronan is so relieved,” Maeve retorts, anger rolling off of her. “Turn your ass around. You’re not getting out of this one,” She calls to a retreating Ronan. He turns around slowly.
“It’s really nothing, Maeve. Cal wasn’t going to go through with it. He—”
“Shut the fuck up, Ronan,” I grit out, cutting him off. He’s singing like a damn canary.
“If you’re gonna stop him from talking, then you’d better start. I’m over this secretive bullshit,” she growls.
“Look,” I sigh, running my hands through my hair. “The agreement they made stated that you and I were to be married by the time we were both twenty-five.”
“Oh, how fucking convenient,” she says incredulously. She lets out a single “HA,” shaking her head and peering up at the sky, her hands planted on her hips. “You’re just on another job for daddy, huh?”
“Maeve, listen to me,” I flex my hands. “I told everyone that this,” I point between us, “would only happen if you wanted it.”
“So is all of this just to accomplish the assignment?”
I’m silent for a moment. The hurt in her eyes is because of me, because I didn’t tell her something. Again. I step toward her. She looks at me with disdain, and I can’t take it. I grab her face in my hands, making sure that she’s looking into my eyes so that she can see the sincerity there.
“I told them that this would be a choice for you to make on your own. No pressure. No rules.” I watch as she searches my eyes.
“I would NEVER force you to do something like that. EVER. This isn’t some assignment, Maeve.
The love I have for you is real. I wanted to know that the love you have for me was real, too, and not some fucked up form of Stockholm Syndrome.
” Her eyes soften and her body relaxes. “Know one thing, Maeve,” I say, leaning closer.
“You would have been my wife if it had taken a month, a year, or even ten years. You are everything. I never would have told you about the agreement. I would have fought for you. Every single day. For the rest of my life. The moment I saw you staring at me across the sitting room at your dad's, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stay away anymore.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Callum?” she asks, stepping back and crossing her arms over her chest.
Fuck me. Why didn’t I tell her? I’m an eejit, that’s why.
“I’m sorry, Maeve,” I run my hands through my hair, blowing a long, slow breath in the process. “I never wanted it to be a thing. I’m sorry… honestly. Tell me how I can make it up to you. Please.” I hold her eyes, hoping for something to shift, for the hurt to recede. But it doesn’t.
Shit.
“If I tell you how, then you’ll never learn.
If I tell you how to apologize, then it won’t feel like a genuine apology, Callum.
I will not be placated for the sake of a peaceful household.
This,” she motions her finger between us, “we will not do things just to keep the peace. Don’t keep things from me, and I won’t keep them from you.
It’s a give and take, and if only one of us is giving, then eventually the cup will run dry.
I don’t want to wake up one day resenting you because you treated me like a Stepford housewife.
We are equals, Callum.” She pauses, searching my eyes.
I put my hand over the hand she has on my chest, stepping closer before speaking.
“No more secrets, okay? I promise that if it pops into my head, I will verbalize it. I can’t promise that there are things that arise that even I forgot about, but I do promise to do my best, Maeve,” I tell her, my voice steady and calm.
“Thank you,” she says, her voice a faint whisper.
“I’m sorry,” I say, leaning forward to rest my forehead against hers.
“Oi, I hate to break up the make-up sesh, but we have a train to catch,” Saoirse shouts from the exit, breaking Maeve and me from our bubble. I sigh, holding my hand out for hers, and she hesitates.
If that isn’t a punch to the gut, I don’t know what is.
We get into our vehicles and begin the drive to the next train station. Orin opts to ride in our vehicle this time, and we don’t object. Having him as a buffer right now is probably for the best.
I steal glances the entire ride, but she just stares out of the window, refusing to look at me and remaining silent.
Roughly an hour later, we pull into the parking lot of the station to see that our train is pulling away.
“Shit,” I say, looking over to Maeve. “Looks like we’ll have to drive to Uncail's. I’m sorry. I really wanted you to be able to take the scenic route.”
“It’s fine,” she says with a sigh. “I’m sure the scenery will be just as beautiful from a vehicle window.”
“I love you,” I tell her as I pull her right hand to my lips, the ring on her left hand sparkling in the sunlight.
Damn this country's backwards-ass cars. I want to feel her hand in mine with my ring on her finger. “On the plus side, we’ll get there about four hours earlier than originally planned, so we’ll have time to drive through Wexford, and I can show you where the opera house is. ”
“You know, usually when your plan gets screwed up, it's because you weren’t meant to be there in the first place, so maybe there was some divine intervention,” Orin says from the backseat.
Maeve and I exchange a glance before looking back at him.
He’s spread out across the backseat, the picture of ease, his hands propped behind his head.
We look at each other again before snickering.
“Wow, Or, I didn’t know you believed in that kinda shyte,” I tease, shifting the Rover into park, waiting on Saoirse to tell us the next move.
“Normally I don’t, but hell if it hasn’t happened before,” he says, a bit softer than before. Maeve is looking toward him as he stares out of the window, zoning out. Saoirse pulls up to Maeve’s side of the vehicle. I roll down the passenger window as she comes to a stop.
“First off, this gobdaw is insufferable. How do you listen to him yabber on constantly?”
“You get used to it the longer you spend time with the langer,” Maeve says, and I see Ronan grin behind Saoirse.
“Secondly, Declan knows we will be arriving sooner than expected, but he’s with…
” She pauses, looking from Maeve to me. I nod, confirming she could speak freely in front of Maeve.
“He’s meeting with The Cairbre about a special order.
He said he’d fill us in after dinner.” I pause, considering this news.
The Cairbre is one of the most powerful men I’ve personally come in contact with. No one knows his true identity.
“Alright. I want to show Maeve the opera house,” I tell her. She nods and whips her head around to Ronan, who said something only she could hear. When she turns back to us, her face is flushed.
“Lead the way,” I tell her. She clears her throat and hits the gas.
Maeve looks over at me, and we both laugh boisterously, finally lightening the mood.
I look in the rearview mirror to see Orin out cold.
He hasn’t relaxed in a long time. Here, he can breathe.
The normal threats are lower. This is our kingdom.
The Italians know they’re outnumbered twenty-to-one here.
They’d be complete fools to try something.
18 Years Old
Ronan groaned next to me as he woke from his catnap. I sat in the passenger seat, only taking my eyes off the warehouse to briefly scan our surroundings. Ronan stretched and leaned back into his seat.
“Anything?” he asks.
I shook my head in response, rubbing the scruff on my face with frustration.
“They will show up, and when they do, I’ll finally be able to end this,” I said, not caring if he was listening. I said it for myself to hear, to believe. We’d been here for days, it seemed. We rotated with some of the other men, but at night it was Ronan and me.
“Why don’t you get some sleep, man? Let me take over,” Ronan offered, but I couldn't sleep. Not when we were so close.
“Nah, I’m good.”
“When was the last time you got more than an hour of sleep, Cal?” He asked with concern.
I didn’t respond. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t know the answer to that question.
I knew it had been at least four days, but I didn’t have to tell him.
He knew. The silence hung in the air until, finally…
“Look,” Ronan whispered, sitting up straight in his seat.
We watched as one of Costas' runners walked out of the back of the warehouse, looking around to make sure the coast was clear. The fact that they didn’t have people watching from afar was absurd to me.
We always had men watching, and from the least expected places, too.
The man stepped out and walked to the van parked in the lot, reversing it to the garage door that was now slowly lifting.
A group of more men, maybe six or seven, emerged, walking quickly to the back of the van while someone else drove a pallet on a forklift toward it.
The pallet held what seemed to be a full shipment of drugs. Opioids, no doubt.
I’ve never understood why you’d sell a product that constantly dwindles your clientele.
We dealt in the weapons trade. Guns, explosives, ammunition, modified vehicles, disguised weapons, military-grade weapons, and other specialty items that people couldn’t get elsewhere.
The military-grade and specialty items were the reason the Egan and Collins families were so wealthy.
Generation upon generation of weapons dealing.
It was like the Costas forgot that we have items they could never get their hands on without our connections.
Once the men had finished loading the pallet into the van, they waited. For someone, or something. I didn’t know. It felt like time passed slowly as we watched.
Then, it seemed to freeze.
There were girls, young and skimpily dressed. Their hands were tied behind their backs, and black cloth bags covered their heads as they emerged from the warehouse. Ronan and I sat in stunned silence, each of us holding his breath.
“What the fuck?” Ronan whispered.
“Call your dad. Tell him to have some of our men follow that van to its destination,” I ordered.
“What? You're just going to let them send those girls off to whatever hellhole they’re bound for?” Ronan bit out.
“If you’d shut the fuck up for a second and listen, you’d know what my plan is. Who the fuck do you think I am all of a sudden? You think I’m okay with this bullshit?”
“Cal, that’s not what I—”
“We can do this shit later,” I say, cutting him off. “Right now, we need men following that van. Tell your dad to send more than necessary, not too far behind, and intercept the shipment, the girls, and the drugs.”
My anger rose at the thought of this shit happening right under our noses. I punched the dash, barely registering the pain that vibrated the bones in my hand.
“On it,” Ronan said, using speed dial, but before his dad answered, I had one more demand.
“Keep as many men alive as possible and have them brought to the river.” Ronan merely nodded. I needed to send a message. A big one.