Page 107 of His Forced Irish Mafia Bride

I’d learned to live with it. This was different. This wasn’t someone turning on me. It was someone I’d trusted for years standing inside the system that destroyed everything and calling it necessary.

Maeve moved slightly beside me. She was no longer leverage to be used against her father. She was here, in this room.

And she was the only thing that felt stable. She turned her head slightly. Our eyes met.

No questions or fear in them. Maeve stood up slowly. I watched her, but I didn’t stop her.

She didn’t leave the room. Instead, she moved a few steps away from me and toward the window, like she needed space without leaving completely. Outside, the city kept moving as if nothing had changed. Normal life continued in the distance.

That normalcy felt far away now, like something I could no longer return to even if I tried. I spoke without looking at her.

“You shouldn’t be part of this.” My voice came out lower than I’d expected.

She didn’t answer immediately. When she finally did, it was simple. “I already am.”

That stopped me for a moment, not because it was surprising, but because it was true.

I looked at her properly then, and I saw something I’d been avoiding seeing clearly. She wasn’t inside this world by accident anymore. She’d been pulled in, yes, but she was still standing steady in it.

Still thinking clearly. Still asking the right questions. That mattered more than I wanted it to. More than it should have.

I stood up slowly and moved closer to her. Not close enough to pressure her, only close enough to speak without distance between us.

“The past is finished,” I said.

She looked at me and stayed quiet, waiting.

I continued, “You helped me bury it.”

I’d always needed her help, even when I didn’t want to admit it.

Maeve turned back toward the window. She looked out for a moment, thinking.

I could see it in her still hands. In the small change in her breathing when something crossed her mind. I didn’t interrupt her. For once, nothing needed to be fixed immediately.

Only what came after this mattered now. And she had become part of that future.

“Come,” I said quietly.

I already knew she would follow me. For the first time in a long while, I wasn’t moving toward the past. Only toward what came next.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Maeve

I chose St. Brigid’s Church for a reason. I didn’t tell Sean. I didn’t tell anyone except my father. I sent him only one message.

Meet me at St. Brigid’s Church at eleven.

I arrived early. The church was quiet when I entered. It was empty and still. My footsteps echoed as I walked down the aisle.

The air smelled of wax and old wood. Sunlight passed through stained glass and broke across the floor red, blue, and gold, like the building was trying to cover what it had seen.

I sat in one of the pews and waited. At exactly eleven, the door opened behind me.

I didn’t turn. I already knew who it was. Slow footsteps moved down the aisle and stopped beside me.

My father sat without speaking. We stayed like that for a long time. Silence used to be his way of control. A way to end conversations without words.