Page 57 of His Forced Irish Mafia Bride

She turned the corner ahead of me. I waited a few seconds before I followed with enough distance to make it look like I was heading somewhere else entirely.

She didn’t rush. Didn’t check behind her. She knew the building in a way I didn’t yet, and it showed.

She stopped near a storage alcove, keys lifting slightly as she chose a cabinet without looking. That told me more than it should have. I slowed when I reached the junction, pretending to hesitate, like I was deciding between directions. Then I stepped forward at the exact moment she turned back toward the hall.

“Sorry,” I said quickly.

She looked at me with that same steady expression. “You move around a lot.”

I let a small breath out, like I was mildly embarrassed. “I’m still getting familiar with the penthouse,” I said. “Just…learning the layout.”

Her gaze dropped briefly to my hands, then back to my face, like she was noting things without needing me to explain them. “Mm,” she said.

She didn’t move away immediately, which was better than I’d expected, so I stayed where I was a fraction longer thannecessary. If I timed this right, I wouldn’t need to ask more questions today.

I just needed to make sure I existed enough in her space that she started answering them later. She didn’t leave my mind after I left her. That was the problem. I kept seeing her in fragments—keys, cloth, the way she watched the door like it had history pressed into it.

I slowed down near the stairwell and tried to reset my focus. It didn’t take. Instead, her words replayed in my head.You won’t be the last.

That wasn’t a warning; it was an observation. And that distinction stayed with me longer than it should have. I moved again, but this time I wasn’t really walking toward anything. My attention stayed behind me, stuck in the space she’d occupied in Sean’s office.

People like her didn’t say things just to fill the silence. I reached a quieter corridor and stopped without deciding to.

The building felt different when it wasn’t busy. Less like a structure, more like something breathing in controlled patterns. That thought made me uncomfortable, so I pushed it aside. I tried to return to what I was actually here for.

Sean.I exhaled slowly, once, forcing my attention to steady. I told myself to focus on the investigation again, but the direction of my thoughts had already shifted without permission.

Because now the question wasn’t only what people had done in Sean’s past. It was how long people around him had been watching it happen. And how much of it he’d never stopped to question. I started walking again.

If Teresa had worked here back when that big betrayal happened, watching without being noticed, then she’d seen things I didn’t know to look for yet. And that meant the past Iwas chasing wasn’t just behind Sean. It was still walking through his present, unnoticed, in plain sight.

I found him without planning to. That was the only honest way to put it. One moment I was still inside my thoughts, still carrying Teresa’s words in the back of my mind and wondering how I could get her to open up about the past, and the next I was moving through the penthouse with a focus that had formed too quickly to question. Sean didn’t look surprised when I entered the office.

That was the first thing I noticed. He’d already known I was coming. I could feel it in the way he held himself, like the space had adjusted before I stepped fully into it.

I didn’t slow down. I didn’t soften anything. I didn’t even know why I was asking.

“Who’s Gabrielle?” Just like that. No greeting, straight into action.

His eyes lifted to me immediately. He didn’t pretend not to understand. I stepped farther in, stopping at a distance that wasn’t careful but wasn’t careless, either. Just enough space to keep control of myself. The air between us felt different anyway.

“I want to know if you’re sleeping with her,” I said.

He didn’t answer immediately. That pause did something I didn’t like. It made my question sit there fully, without interruption, like it had been allowed to exist on its own terms. When he finally spoke, it was simple.

“No.”

I blinked once, not because I hadn’t heard him. Because I had.

“Nothing is happening between us,” he said. “And nothing is going to.” There was no softness in it. No attempt to guide how I should take it.

It landed as fact, not reassurance, and somehow that was worse. Because it didn’t feel like he was trying to convince me. Itfelt like he was closing something that had never actually been open. I held his gaze.

My fingers stayed still at my sides, but I was aware of them in a way I didn’t like. “So that’s it?” I said finally.

He didn’t answer that. He just watched me. I should have left it alone. That would have been the sensible thing. The clean exit. The moment where I took the answer I’d come for and stepped back before anything else could happen. But I didn’t move.

Instead, I stayed exactly where I was and watched him longer than I needed to. Sean noticed immediately. Of course he did.