Chapter 39
ROWAN
Mahoney Manor feels different when we walk back in. It’s quieter than when I left, but it doesn’t feel peaceful. It feels like the moment the body knows what the mind hasn’t yet acknowledged. The last exhale before everything changes.
Liam’s warm palm stays at the small of my back as we move through the hallway, solid and grounding. Our footsteps echo off the tiles, the only sound I hear. He doesn’t try to steer me anywhere, but at the bottom of the staircase, he hesitates, as though he’s expecting me to go up.
“I need a word with Patrick.” His jaw is tight, his control razor sharp yet teetering on the edge of something violent.
Something vengeful. I might have been out of his orbit for five years, but I know Liam.
I watched the way his face twisted as he listened to Brian.
He’s got a great poker face, but not even Liam could hide the surprise at hearing what we both heard.
Who is Aisling? And what does she have to do with Liam?
And his mother? Is she the woman I heard on the phone from time to time? Was I ever in witness protection, or was I just a pawn in a family vendetta?
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask Liam what he knows, but it’s clear from his reaction that he’s as clueless as I am.
“Okay.”
His fingers flex once at my spine—as though he’s reluctant to let me go—before he dips his chin, then strides toward the kitchen. If in doubt, it’s where you’ll find the Mahoney men congregating. I’m not sure if they even realize it, but I bet that kitchen table has heard and seen some shit.
I watch him go then turn toward the library.
The door is half open, warm firelight spilling into the hallway beckoning me inside.
Who am I to argue with an evening in front of the fire reading books?
What else am I going to do other than let my mind run riot with questions I don’t have answers for?
Better to distract myself than to submit to torture.
I love it in here. The Mahoneys have gone full-drama library. Floor-to-ceiling shelves, old leather spines, the scent of wood polish and smoke. Two enormous armchairs flank the hearth, a thick, expensive-looking cream rug sprawled across timber floors so dark they almost look black.
Mahoney history probably breathes in the walls, too.
I flop into one of the armchairs and stare into the fire.
I’m not sure even a book can distract me.
Instead, I watch the flames curling around one another, fighting and warming all at once.
I wonder if that’s what this family looks like from the outside.
Aisling.
The name won’t leave me alone.
I palm the burner phone. It feels heavy in my hand, clawing at me. Taunting me. This is Brian’s phone. It’s the one tie I have to him.
I open a browser. I type Aisling, then Ireland. Aisling, the name I’ve heard a few times over the years when Brian’s been on the phone.
Tens of thousands of results fill the screen. So many, my head spins. Not a single one of the top search results are in any way connected to Brian.
I change my search term to Aisling + “Brian Murray”.
That brings up something far more manageable. A small photo attached to a local news article from five years ago.
She’s a pretty thing with a soft smile. Mid to late teens. I rack my brains, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t recall Brian ever talking about a female relative.
Tragic death of local woman in single-vehicle collision.
My stomach drops before I even read it. The article is painfully lacking in detail other than the fact she was Brian’s sister.
It says the roads were wet, there were poor visibility conditions, and she lost control of the car. No other vehicles involved. Emergency services attended the scene where she was declared deceased.
There was no suspicion of foul play, and no charges brought.
I read that line again.
That doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything suspicious, just that no one was caught and nothing could be proven. If that’s true, then why would Brian mention his dead sister and Liam in the same sentence?
I scroll further. There are a handful of follow-up pieces.
One of the links is older, barely a column wide. I click on it. A grainy photo fills the screen. It’s Aisling’s mother outside a courthouse, her face carved from grief. My chest tightens as I read.
“The Mahoneys think they are above the law, but a mother never forgets a debt. If the Gards won’t find justice, I will.”
Cold terror trickles down my spine. She’s calling it a debt, not an accident. Why is she blaming the Mahoneys for Aisling’s death?
Is this the unfounded fury of a grieving mother speaking?
There’s a short obituary, a charity run, and a hurling tournament organized in her memory, pages of comments full of condolences.
Further down the page, there’s an old social media post. When I click it, Aisling’s face fills the screen, soft smile, bright eyes, Brian’s nose and mouth.
The caption under the photo makes my breath stutter.
I’m going to tell him the news tonight. Once he knows, he’ll have to pick me. He won’t let me do this alone.
There’s a comment thread beneath it: a bunch of girls telling her to get her man by any means necessary. Who was her man? And what wouldn’t he let her do alone?
If this was officially an accident… then Brian chose to destroy my life over something the world had resolved… moved on from. There’s a pang in my chest… forgotten.
Did he hurt me because he was hurt? Because the world forgot his sister? How does he think Liam is somehow to blame?
Was he? Or worse, did someone want the world to think that he was? Did Brian kill his own sister and leave breadcrumbs to incriminate Liam?
If it was officially an accident but unofficially it wasn’t, that’s a whole different kettle of fish. And someone would have had to go to great lengths to make it look like an accident. Only people with great power can do that. Power like the Mahoneys.
My pulse pounds in my temples. If she’s talking about Liam, she was obsessed enough to pursue him, to confront him. It has to be Liam she’s talking about, it’s the only way Brian’s continued obsession with him makes any sense.
I rub my forehead. And even then, none of this makes sense. The only person who can shed light on the truth is Brian.
I sink back in the chair, the leather creaking beneath me.
Questions swirl in my mind, ricocheting off each other and multiplying as the glow of the fire stares back at me from the hearth.
My mind starts running scenarios that only Brian can ratify as truth or my overactive imagination.
Aisling driving to see Liam, got involved in an accident, and somehow Brian thinks her death is his fault.
Brian did this for her, for Aisling. He took me because of her. Not because I needed protecting, but because I belonged to Liam. I was leverage, revenge, collateral damage in a war that started long before I was dragged into it.
And yet… Brian cared for me.
At least, I thought he did. Which means he knowingly used someone he cared for as a weapon.
I tried so hard to find affection for him in the gaps between his work trips and his check-ins.
I told myself that the life he gave me was a gift, even if the man giving it made my skin crawl.
But sitting here with Liam, I realize I wasn’t in a relationship with Brian—I was in a long-term interrogation.
My chest tightens. That’s a different kind of monster. Is that what Liam did to him? A shiver slinks down my spine, my fingers cold despite the roaring heat in front of me.
The fire pops, startling me from the growing list of questions in my brain.
Footsteps echo out in the hallway. The library door opens. I don’t look up immediately, but I know it’s Liam. The door closes softly behind him.
“Rebel?” His voice is rougher than earlier.
I lift my gaze. He takes me in—the phone in my hand, the article still open.
His eyes sharpen. “What’s wrong, mo rún?”
My secret. My beloved.
Is it possible I wasn’t enough of a secret all those years ago, and Liam’s love for me is what collapsed my life in on itself?
I swallow. “Did you look up who Aisling was? Or did you already know?”
The question lands between us. He goes very still, his jaw clenching, his nostrils flaring, but he doesn’t look away, he doesn’t shut down. “I looked her up.” He jerks his chin at the phone in my hand. “I see you know what I know.”
“You knew her?”
The fire crackles as he watches me. “I met her once or twice.” His brow furrows. “It’s a small town.” He steps closer. “Did you?”
I shake my head. “It says no charges were brought,” I say quietly.
“That’s what I remember,” he replies. “Single car accident. Bad weather.” He searches my face. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
I hesitate, because I don’t know what I’m looking for. Guilt? Knowledge? I see none of it, only concern, and that’s for me.
“I heard him. We both did. He said you’d pay for what you did. What does he think you did?”
Something dark flickers in Liam’s eyes. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”
I show him the social media post. It only increases his confusion, which settles something inside me. “This was never about me.”
His shakes his head. “It was always about you.”
“No.”
He halves the distance between us.
“It was about you, Liam. I was just the easiest way to hurt you.”
The words don’t feel all that unreasonable. He crosses the rest of the space in two strides and crouches in front of me, hands braced on the arms of the chair, caging but not touching.
“Look at me.”
I do. I can’t look anywhere else but at his beautiful face.
“You didn’t know?” I hate how shaky my voice is.
“Know what?”
“That he tied me to her. That this was revenge.”
His expression answers before his words do. “No,” he says. “If I had known, I would have—”
“What?”
His jaw flexes. “Handled it differently.”
The understatement of the century. That’s Mafia Code for he would have ripped Brian’s intestines out his belly button and tied them into a fucking bow.
Silence stretches between us, thick and heavy and full of questions.
His hand moves to where mine still lie on my lap, and he strokes my bare skin with his thumb. He clears his throat, his face contorting like he’s swallowed something tart. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Did it hurt?”
He blinks. “What?”
“The thinking.” I tilt my head. “Did it hurt? Do you need your fancy doctor friend?”
For a second, he just stares at me, then a huff of incredulous laughter escapes him. “Christ, Rebel. I’m trying to apologize here.” He drags a hand through his hair.
“For what?”
I think I know, but I want him to say it. He deserves to say it out loud and for it to hurt. This man doesn’t apologize easily, but I’m owed, and I’m going to collect.
He shifts closer, his forehead almost touching mine. “I am sorry. I should have told you that the murder you thought you saw was fake before I fucked you. I just…”
“Let your dick do the thinking?”
He ducks his chin. “Yeah. That.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
A faint blush steals over his cheeks. Liam never blushes. Never. “I fucked up, and I’m sorry.”
I smooth a thumb over his scar, the scar he believed for years was there because of me.
Because of a betrayal that never was. Fresh hate for Brian rushes through me.
I don’t care what his reasons are; the man destroyed my life, and Liam’s.
He stole five years from both of us. He deserves what’s coming for him.
Liam captures my hand, stilling me. “If I’d found you inside that pub watching him instead of outside.” His voice drops. “I would have spanked your arse until it was raw.”
Heat blooms low in my stomach. “Don’t threaten me with a good time, Mahoney.” I don’t look away, holding his charged stare with one of my own.
His eyes shift to relief, hunger, that familiar flare of desire crackling louder than the flames flickering next to us.
“Not much scares me, Rebel, but that did.” He caresses my cheek with a painfully tender touch. “You have no idea what that did to me.”
“I heard it in your voice.”
His thumb brushes my jaw.
“This isn’t going to land well, but you don’t get to decide what I can handle, Mr. Mafioso.”
He nods once. “I’m trying.”
“I know.”
Something shifts between us. It’s not explosive, or frantic, but I can’t stand to be this close to him and not touch him anymore. I slide forward in the chair, and he rises with me, pulling me to my feet.
The firelight paints his face in gold and shadow. The room feels warm. He feels warmer, safer. He kisses me slowly like he’s asking for my permission.
I answer, sliding my hands into his hair. His palms settle at my waist, steady and grounding. When he backs me toward the rug in front of the fire, I go willingly.