Page 92 of His Forced Irish Mafia Bride

I looked around the room quickly. My team had control of the space. No one was still fighting. It was over.

I looked back at her. “You’re safe.” A simple statement. No softness added to it.

She kept looking at me for a moment. I couldn’t read everything in her expression, but I didn’t need to right now. A voice started speaking behind me. I lifted a hand slightly, and they went quiet.

I adjusted my position so Maeve was no longer exposed to the rest of the room.

Maeve looked down for a moment, then up again, like she was checking if this was real or just another trap. I stayed close, but I didn’t rush anything.

Outside, movement ran outside the building. Reinforcements were arriving too late. I didn’t turn toward the noise.

I didn’t need to. “Hold the perimeter,” I said into comms. Then I went silent again. Only Maeve and I mattered in that moment.

Everything outside the room faded into background noise. Maeve shifted her weight and stumbled slightly.

My hand moved without thought and steadied her by the arm. She didn’t pull away.

That detail stayed with me more than anything else in the room. Behind us, the room kept returning to order. My men moved through the space, securing it, clearing the last signs of resistance.

Maeve kept looking at me. I didn’t let go of her arm yet. Not because she couldn’t stand on her own.

Because the moment still felt unfinished. Outside, the building stayed unstable. Inside this room, everything was under control. Everything had narrowed down to this point, and nothing could interrupt it now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Maeve

I woke up before sunrise. For a few moments, I stayed where I was and stared at the ceiling. The room was quiet. There were no footsteps outside the door, no distant voices, and none of the usual sounds that came from a building full of people moving around.

The silence should have felt comforting. Instead, it was strange. A dull ache ran through my shoulder when I rolled onto my side. It wasn’t enough to stop me from moving, but it reminded me of everything that had happened the day before.

I sat up slowly and let the blanket fall into my lap. The bedroom looked exactly the way I’d left it.

The room gave no sign that anything unusual had happened. That was the part that felt wrong. Only a few hours earlier, armed men had forced me into cars and taken me across the city. Now I was back in my own bed.

Back behind secure walls, in a room that looked untouched by any of it. I sat on the edge of the bed for a while before standing. My body felt heavy. Sleep had given me rest, but it hadn’t removed the exhaustion.

I rubbed my face and let out a slow breath. The memories returned immediately. I remembered the cars, the restraints, and the voices speaking around me. I remembered hearing Samuel Anton’s name and realizing that none of it had happened by chance.

I closed my eyes for a moment. Those memories stayed with me, but they weren’t the ones I kept returning to. My mind went back to the moment that door opened. The moment Sean walked into the room.

When I opened my eyes again, the memory felt clear enough to touch. It felt recent, as though only minutes hadpassed instead of hours. I crossed the room and stopped by the window. The floor felt cool beneath my feet.

Outside, the city was beginning to wake up. Traffic lights changed. Cars moved through the streets. Morning light slowly spread across the buildings.

Everything looked normal. Everything looked exactly the same as it had the day before. Yet it didn’t feel the same. Somewhere between being taken and being brought home, something inside me had changed.

I couldn’t explain it yet. I only knew that it was true. I heard the door open behind me, but I already knew who it was. A moment later, something touched down on the table near the couch.

When I looked over, Sean stood there with a medical kit in his hand. Neither of us spoke. He nodded toward the sofa. “Sit.”

I walked over and lowered myself onto the cushions. Sean sat beside me and opened the kit. His movements were steady and familiar as he sorted through the supplies and reached for my arm. The bruises looked worse in the morning light.

His gaze rested on them for a moment before he picked up a bottle of antiseptic and a clean cloth. His gentle touch caught me off guard. He cleaned the scrape along my forearm without speaking. His attention stayed on the injury while he worked.

I watched him. Dark circles sat beneath his eyes. His suit jacket was gone and the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up. He looked exhausted.

His hand paused when he reached the bruise on my shoulder. The mark stood out clearly against my skin. For a moment, he just stared at it. Then he reached for another bandage and continued working.