Chapter 50
ROWAN
For the first time in years, I’m not sleeping with one eye open, with my nervous system balanced on a knife edge while waiting for Brian’s next “reset protocol” or a text demanding a check-in. I’m just… here. Existing.
The missing posters came down after Liam got word to Willow that I was alive. She’s under strict instructions not to cause a scene when he brings her to visit. Which probably means she absolutely will.
I shift on the mattress, Liam’s high-thread-count sheets feeling soft and cool against my skin. He’s a heavy, warm weight beside me, his breathing rhythmic and deep. My fingers find his cheek, tracing the uneven ridge of the scar that runs the length of his face.
For years, he believed this was a badge of my betrayal and abandonment, and my heart squeezes at the pain he must have felt every day when he looked in the mirror.
“You’re thinking out loud.” Liam’s voice is a sleepy rasp. He catches my hand, pressing a kiss to the inside of my wrist.
“We never really talked about everything that happened with Brian.” It’s a whisper. “Not the real version.”
Liam tenses, but he doesn’t pull away. I take a breath, letting the truth I’ve carried like a stone in my chest finally fall out into the dawn space between us.
“I didn’t leave because I stopped loving you, Liam.
Brian told me the people I saw were coming for you next.
He said if I stayed, I was signing your death warrant. ”
“He played us both.” Liam grunts, his fingers tightening around mine. “He wanted me to believe you’d sold me out for a better offer. That letter… the mind games he played, sending me the postcards, it was all designed to turn me into a monster. To make me hate you.”
“He caused all of it.” I sit up slightly, shifting my weight. “He turned me into a ghost called Erin, and he tried to turn you into a man who only knows how to bleed people. He wanted the Mad Dog to be the only thing left of you.”
My heart squeezes again, threatening to fracture in my chest. I reach out, framing his face with my hands.
“The world might need the Mad Dog to keep them afraid, Liam. Your brothers might need that legend to help run this empire. But in this room? I don’t need the monster.
I just need the man who remembers I take honey in my tea, and how I like my eggs in the morning. ”
Liam lets out a long, jagged exhale, leaning his forehead against mine. “I’m a work in progress, Rebel. Generations of the Mahoneys didn’t exactly leave me with a ‘feelings’ manual.”
“I know.” My thumb brushes his jaw. “That’s why I think we need outside help to unpick the stitches. Not just for us, but for everything those five years did to our heads.”
Liam huffs a rough, incredulous laugh. “A Mahoney on a therapist’s couch? Patrick would think I’m away with the fairies.”
“Patrick isn’t the one who had to spend five years pretending his heart was dead,” I counter gently. “If we’re going to be a partnership, we have to be there for all of it. Not just the parts that involve blood and vengeance.”
Liam is quiet for a long time; the only sound is our heavy breathing mingling together in the bed.
Finally, he pulls me down into his arms, tucking my head under his chin.
The smell of sandalwood, and the faint lingering scent of the strawberry shampoo he went out of his way to find for me, tickles my nostrils.
“I told Darragh once that we were like the Sopranos without the therapy.” His voice vibrates through me. He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “I guess you’re suggesting we turn into the Sopranos with the therapy.”
I can’t help it, and a genuine, melodic laugh escapes me—the kind of sound Erin Walsh was never allowed to make.
“Does that make me Carmela?”
“God, no.” Liam grunts again, and in the growing light, I finally see a smirk touch his lips. “You’re the Rebel. And God help the therapist who tries to put you in a box.”