Page 54 of His Forced Irish Mafia Bride

I turned slightly away from her. “I’m not joining hands with other families,” I repeated. My voice was firmer now. Final.

Gabrielle exhaled softly, almost disappointed. “You’ll run out of time to ask for help,” she said.

I didn’t answer. If I did, I would start considering it again, and I didn’t need that.

She held the silence for a moment, then let it shift. “I know what you’re thinking,” Gabriella said. “Those deals…the Japanese brothers, the Norwegians, Romario…they all ended badly.” A pause. Her voice dropped slightly.“And I brought them to you.” I didn’t move. “I know how they ended,” she added. “And I’m not asking you to forget that.” Silence returned, but it wasn’t the same as before.

“I’m not pretending I didn’t get those wrong,” she finally said. “I did. But you can’t use that to refuse an alliance now. Anton is a real threat. What I’m telling you about him isn’t tied to those failures. It’s not part of them.”

I finally looked at her fully, and she didn’t flinch.

“I know my past deals failed,” she said again, quieter now. “But you’re not rejecting this because you think you don’t need help.” She stepped closer to the table, just enough to hold her ground. “You’re rejecting it because it’s me.”

I didn’t answer.

She exhaled once. “And that’s fair,” she said. “You don’t have to trust me. You don’t even have to like me being here. But don’t let what I got wrong in the past stop you from seeing what’s in front of you now.”

I didn’t move. Because the problem wasn’t whether or not she was wrong.

It was that she was right. But I still didn’t answer her.

***

Gabrielle was gone. Maeve’s last look lingered in my mind. She’d looked cold and final in a way I didn’t want to sit with. It shouldn’t have mattered.

But it did. I moved past it the way I always did, without stopping. Declan was already outside the office when I returned from her room.

“You’re quieter than usual,” he said.

“I’m fine,” I replied. I didn’t stop walking. The door closed behind me, and the office settled into its usual shape.

Maeve’s voice kept echoing in my thoughts. I sat down and opened the business files on my computer.

Operational history and clearance records. Movement logs and decision chains I’d already reviewed more times than necessary. Files that made me think about the papers I’d just seen on Maeve’s bed. Declan stepped up to the desk without waiting.

“Back on review cycles?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He leaned against the wall, watching without interfering.

I started with a closed operation cycle from years ago—standard routing and approved transfers, the final confirmation stamps. Everything aligned the way it always had.

At first. Then I slowed, and not because something was wrong.

A transfer chain moved from entry to exit with no visible friction. No hesitation points. No secondary verification delays that normally sat between stages of that kind of movement. I scrolled back. Nothing was missing; everything was accounted for.

But the spacing between actions felt tighter than I remembered.

Declan shifted slightly behind me. “That’s been audited before,” he said. “Multiple times.”

“I know,” I replied.

His voice stayed calm. “No irregularities were flagged.”

I didn’t answer immediately.

Because that was correct. It had been correct every time it was reviewed. But now, watching it again, the transitions felt compressed, like steps had been tightened just enough to remove hesitation from the process entirely.