Page 16 of His Forced Irish Mafia Bride

Wait a minute. What the fuck! What the actual fuck did I just hear?

No, no, no, no.

I must be mistaken. I must be hallucinating.

His words moved through me slowly, like something dragged under water, heavy and delayed.Marry me. The parking lot stayed the same after he said it, but to me everything shifted, like the ground had tilted without warning.

I could feel the impact build in my chest, not as sound but as pressure, something close to an explosion that never fully released. Everything in me tightened at once. I stared at him, waiting for a chuckle, waiting for him to say it was a joke. But he didn’t laugh. He was dead serious.

Sean O’Connor looked back at me the same way he had at Murphy’s, cold and controlled, like he’d already made his move and was waiting for the world to catch up. That steadiness made it worse because I wasn’t steady at all.

Patrick found his voice first. “No.”

It came out rough, carrying something close to fear underneath it, but Sean barely looked at him. “You don’t have any choices left,” he said.

My head snapped toward my father. “What is he talking about?”

Patrick grabbed my arm. “Maeve, we’re leaving.”

I pulled free immediately. “No.”

My heart was loud now, too loud, beating in my throat and hands and everywhere else. “You don’t get to do that,” I said. “He doesn’t get to stand there and talk about marrying me like it’s some business deal, and then you drag me away without explaining what’s happening.”

Patrick flinched, but Sean didn’t. He just watched, like I was the only new variable in a system he already understood.

Patrick stepped closer and lowered his voice. “This isn’t the place for this.”

“Then make it the place,” I said.

“Maeve—”

“No.” My voice broke. “No more vague answers, no more acting like I’m a kid. You will tell me what’s going on, and you’ll tell me right now.” I pointed at Sean without looking away from my father. “Who is he to you?”

Silence. Patrick looked exhausted suddenly, like something in him had been carrying this weight for too long.

Sean spoke before my father did. “He knows who I am.”

My eyes moved to him. The calm in his voice unsettled me more than anything else he’d done.

Patrick dragged a hand over his face. “Sean—”

“You should have handled this years ago,” Sean said. Something shifted in my father’s face, something I didn’t like seeing there. Guilt came first, heavy and immediate, and my stomach dropped because I understood something I didn’t want to understand.

This wasn’t new, and it wasn’t random. There was history here, long before me, buried deeper than anything I’d been told about my father’s past.

Sean checked his watch. “You have until tomorrow night.”

My father went pale. Fear settled in properly now, not vague or imagined, but real. Sean looked at me before he turned away, and the weight in that look didn’t have a name yet, but it lingered.

Then he walked toward the SUV waiting at the curb. There was no hesitation, no urgency, just certainty. The door opened before he reached it.

I watched him leave, and something ugly settled under my ribs as the SUV pulled away. The silence it left behind felt heavier than anything he’d said. I turned slowly toward my father.

My voice came out low, shaking but controlled. “What did you drag me into?”

Dad didn’t answer. He started walking away instead. I followed him. He kept moving, so I kept following, even when he walked faster, like speed could end this conversation. I caught up to him down the block.

“No,” I said again, “you don’t get to walk away from this.”