Page 156 of Override

“Taibhse?” The name breaks as it leaves me.

Something in his shoulders eases. Not completely. His attention still flicks toward the garage entrance, listening for movement I can’t hear.

But when he looks back, the smallest trace of a smile touches his mouth. “In person.”

A breath catches in my throat, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. This is him. Not a ghost. A man.

A real man who somehow crossed the estate and appeared inside my garage without a mask, without a plan, with dirt on his clothes and desperation still written into every hard breath.

He came here. For me. My gaze drops to Ronan. His chest rises and falls.

Relief and guilt collide so violently inside me that I feel sick.

“You killed him.” The words are barely a whisper.

“No.” Taibhse lowers his hands slowly, still careful not to move closer. “He’s unconscious. He’ll wake up.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.” There is no hesitation. No false reassurance offered because he thinks it will calm me. Just certainty.

My eyes remain on Ronan’s face. He looks strangely peaceful, nothing like the man who was standing over me seconds ago. The sight tugs at every habit I have built during our marriage.

I should kneel beside him. Check him. Apologize when he wakes. Explain that I didn’t ask for this. The thoughts come automatically, but they no longer feel like mine. They feel like rules someone else wrote and buried inside me until I mistook them for instinct.

Taibhse turns his head toward the drive.

His eyes hold mine. “But we have minutes at best. Probably less.”

A faint burst of static reaches us from somewhere outside. A radio. Taibhse’s head turns toward the sound. The change in him is immediate. His posture shifts, every line of his body sharpening as he calculates something I cannot see.

When he looks back, he extends his hand.

He doesn’t grab me. Doesn’t close the remaining distance or issue an order he expects me to obey. He simply holds it out between us. Palm up. Waiting.

“Maeve.”

My gaze falls to his hand.

There are scratches across his knuckles and dirt embedded along the edge of his palm. Tiny pieces of the woods still cling to his sleeve. He ran here. The realization lands differently now that I can see the evidence of it.

My eyes lift to his.

“I know none of this makes sense,” he says. “And I know I haven’t earned the right to ask.” His hand remains steady. “But I need your trust.”

Behind him, Ronan lies unconscious on the garage floor. Beyond him is the house where I spent months disappearing one compromise at a time. In front of me is a man I have never met before tonight. A man who knows how I take my coffee.

For one final second, I look at Ronan. At the man I married. At the life I tried so hard to make into something it was never going to become.

Leaving feels impossible. Staying feels worse.

I place my hand in Taibhse’s. His fingers close around mine with careful strength.

Warm. Solid. Real.

Relief moves across his face so quickly I almost miss it. Then another burst of static crackles outside, closer this time, followed by the low murmur of a man’s voice.

Taibhse turns toward the opening. His grip tightens. Not enough to hurt. Only enough to remind me I am no longer standing alone.