Chapter 8
ROWAN
This room is designed to demand compliance. It doesn’t exist by accident; it wasn’t improvised.
Someone anticipated resistance and removed it preemptively.
Everything here answers to them, to him, to his rules, including me now too.
Sure, isn’t this just how Liam operates? I’ve seen it with my own eyes over the years when he was younger. Control, not chaos. Only this version of him is more surgical, more lethal.
Locks on the outside of the door, bars on the single window that’s probably made of plastic, and there’s nothing I can use as a weapon, or to help me escape.
Even the power outlets on the walls have been removed and filled in leaving an outline on the otherwise bare plaster, so I can’t even try putting something in the socket to start a fire.
The décor is neutral, and the minimal furniture is visibly bolted down. It’s not quite a dungeon, but it’s not screaming plush guest bedroom vibes either.
The more I look around, the more fear and panic threatens to seize every cell in my body. I force myself to breathe because if I don’t, I might cry. Or scream. My jaw aches from clenching.
I just need to bide my time. Channel my patience and wait for everyone to leave me the fuck alone so I can turn on my burner to check in with Brian. And by extension, his bitch of a boss. Brian always said it was about control, strategy, protection, laying low and staying safe.
I’ve never loved him, not the way I loved the man currently holding the key to this room.
But I owe Brian my life. Every time his name flashes on my screen, I have to remind myself that my heartbeat belongs to him because he was the one who made sure it didn’t stop five years ago.
It’s a heavy weight to carry, a debt that’s kept me in his bed the times he’s been around to claim it.
And just in case the murder I saw didn’t keep me away from Liam, Brian showed me papers.
A “dead man’s switch” file he called it, filled with dates, coordinates, and Mahoney shipments.
He told me if I ever made contact with Liam, he’d hit “send” to An Garda Síochána, the police, and watch the Mahoneys burn from a jail cell.
He said it was to keep me safe, but for a long while now, I’ve seen it as another thread of control.
But he never just moved me because he was afraid I’d be found; he moved me because his boss, the woman with the nasal voice I’d hear sometimes in the background of our calls, “didn’t like the energy” of my last flat.
I’ve heard a name, too—Aisling—whispered like a prayer or a curse during Brian’s calls for years. He told me he was protecting me, but the way he said her name made it feel like it might be something more.
As far as I know, he’s never made a decision without his boss’s sign-off.
Even if he likes to pretend he’s the one holding the leash, it’s always seemed to me like she has his balls in a vise.
She must be pretty high up in the police.
It’s impressive and deeply satisfying to me that a man like Brian is under the thumb of a ball-busting woman. Even if it annoys me sometimes.
I take another look around the room. Of all the bars in the world for my first love to walk into… he had to pick mine.
My heart stutters. I don’t know what to do.
Part of me wants to call Brian and tell him where I am, but there’s something stopping me.
A long-buried instinct that yearns to find out why Liam thinks I betrayed him.
He’s so adamant, and I’m so confused. I’m also scared that by being back in Ireland, the murderer who I saw might find out and come for me and Liam.
No, it’s unlikely. The Mahoney place is locked up tight with security everywhere. Designed to keep people out—and me trapped.
I shudder. What I need is time. Time to figure out the truth, to work on getting through to Liam and proving my innocence in his court of judgment. To find a way to keep Brian onside and in the dark, for now. It’s a lot of plates to keep spinning, but what other choice do I have?
Too-perfect compliance raises flags, though. Having tested my limits when I first met him, I know from lived experience that he gets overbearing when he’s suspicious. Once, I had to pay for a new door to my flat when he broke it down to make his point.
I complete my turn in the middle of the room, taking in my prison. Sorcha gives me a kind smile, but her posture and words don’t match. And she’s positioned herself between me and the door. Is it intentional? Or does she not even realize how deep Mahoney’s gotten his claws into her?
“Could do with a lick of paint, hey?” She seems friendly enough, but I don’t have the luxury of trusting someone, trusting anyone, especially when they’re so close to the man who kidnapped me and wants me to suffer for something I truly have no memory of.
At my silence, she shifts her weight. “What do you need? What can I do for you?” Her tone suggests she’s being genuine, and what I really need is to get the hell out of here, but her assessing gaze tells me she’s not here to rescue me.
I’d give anything to have an ally, but this woman? She’s not it.
I’m not sure how to play it, but I know I need to make sure she doesn’t suspect me of lying about my former relationship with Liam.
I clear my throat and channel Erin Walsh: my timid, wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly persona.
Muscle memory from a worse time. The version of me that Brian says doesn’t get people hurt.
“If it’s not too much trouble, I’d love some water, and maybe a sandwich?
” I flash her a half-smile. “He wasn’t overly concerned with my growling stomach on the way here. ”
She nods, her gaze flitting around the room as she grows pale. Her comment downstairs about being in the kidnapping business makes me wonder what her experience is with the Brothers Grimm. When her stare lands back on my face, she tips her head but doesn’t break eye contact.
In another life, Rowan wouldn’t back down, she wouldn’t even flinch at this woman’s probing stare, but Erin? She’s meek and soft, so I drop my line of sight to her shoes as I take a step back from her.
“You really don’t know who he is?”
I shake my head.
I can admit confusion, I can admit fear, but I can’t admit recognition. Denial means survival, no matter how nice she might be to me.
“He didn’t let me grab any of my things.
I…” My shoulders fall. “He plans to keep me here for who knows how long? I don’t even have anything to wear to bed.
” Tears fill my eyes, and I’m not entirely sure that they’re fake.
“Or a toothbrush, toothpaste. Deodorant…” My voice breaks.
It’s ridiculous. It feels pathetic, but he’s taken everything from me in one swift movement, right down to my personal hygiene.
He has intentionally stripped me of my dignity, seized every morsel of control that he could, knowing exactly what losses would hurt a prisoner the most. A flutter of anger threatens to set me off, but somehow, I tamp it down.
“You poor thing.” Sorcha takes a step toward me, but I startle and jump back, catching the backs of my thighs on the bed and plopping onto my arse.
She holds her palms up to me and creates more space between us. After a nibble on her lip and another glance around the room, she nods. “Okay.”
I’m not sure what’s okay, but nothing about this situation feels in any way okay.
“I’ll go grab you a bite to eat and some toiletries.”
I don’t answer, and she lingers for a beat before heaving out a sigh and leaving me alone with my thoughts for the first time in a few hours.
I twist my hands in my lap, wet my lips, and resume my mental documentation of the room the way Brian taught me when he first brought me into the witness protection program.
I cross to the window and press my fingers lightly against the bars. There’s no give in them, not even a fraction. They’re fixed deep into the frame. A structural addition.
I step it out—bed to door, door to window, bed to bathroom. I count the paces, cataloging it all.
Erin panics. Rowan plans. But every time I stammer for Liam’s benefit, or inject softness into my voice and body for his family, the lie feels like a weight on my lungs, a performance that leaves my chest tight and my muscles twitching for the release of a scream.
If someone ever comes for you, the most important thing is to remain calm.
I almost snort out a laugh, but I’m afraid the walls have ears. The thought makes me check. I don’t see any cameras mounted on the walls, and there are no flashing lights in the smoke alarm or the built-in wardrobes.
I think of Brian’s voice, cold and clinical, warning me that the Mahoneys are like “rabid dogs.” They don’t care about collateral damage, Erin. I glance over my shoulder. Thankfully, I’m still alone. My heart skips a beat or two. I need to use this time to my advantage.
The drawers are all empty. There are no notebooks, no crossword puzzles, nothing. Fuck. Even the most budget hotels come with a Bible. But here? Everything is securely bolted down. There’s nothing loose, nothing breakable, nothing I can turn into a weapon, or use as leverage.
If it wasn’t for the imminent threat to my wellbeing, my life has the potential to get overwhelmingly boring.
My lips curve into a smirk. One thing I’ve learned about living in England is they don’t have the same sense of dark humor us Irish have.
More than once, I’ve said something and been met with blank stares or shocked faces.
If things were different, it’d feel good to be back on Irish soil for the first time in half a decade, but anxiety has my body in a chokehold.
While Sorcha was here, I wanted her to go, but now it’s just me, waiting, I want her back. My breathing quickens. Twisting my hands in my lap has made them achy and sweaty, and nervous energy races through my veins.