Page 5 of Irish Vice

Samantha gasps. Whatever she’s imagining, it isn’t right. Isn’t bad enough. Isn’t the truth.

“Birte was prepared for trouble. She asked four strong lads from the village to wait by the church doors, to keep Niall frominterrupting the service. They did as they promised. They kept him out of the church while we were wed.”

I want to close my eyes. I want to shut away the memory of what happened next. But I can’t do it. I can’t look away from Birte on the patio. I have to keep her safe now, because I didn’t keep her safe then.

“We left the church together, Birte and me. The sun came out while we were inside the church, and we were blind at the top of the steps. Niall hollered as he came at me, Irish words that Birte understood before I did. She stepped in front of me. Tried to save me.”

It’s all happening again, as bright as a big-screen movie. And I’m as powerless to make it stop as any ticket-buying jackeen.

“Niall saw her move. He wouldn’t hurt his sister. He spun away. But he slipped on the wet stone, and he fell hard. It was just shite luck that Finn was in the way. That the knife was as sharp as it was. That Finn was looking up at his Da, craning his neck like that…”

Blood. So much blood.

I’ve killed more men that I’m willing to admit. Some of them I’ve wanted to hurt, wanted to make bleed. But I’ve never seen so much blood pour from so small a body.

I shake my head, trying to chase away the image. “Birte held him while he died. Niall saw what he’d done, and he turned the knife on himself. So then Birte held Aiofe while she screamed, while her father died.”

“Oh my God,” Samantha whispers.

I’m almost through now. She knows everything she has to, but I might as well wrap up the rest, bloody bow and all. “Grace practically raised Birte and Niall, watched over them when they were children. After…the wedding, she was the only one who could get Birte to sleep at night. The only one who could calm Aiofe.”

“So you brought them all back here,” Samantha says.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Wasn’t meant to last thislong. But Grace drinks, and Aiofe’s mute, and Birte…” I shrug, gesturing toward the window.

“Seven years,” Samantha says, as if I haven’t already counted out every one of those days.

I have to risk it. I have to look away from Birte. I have to turn to Samantha to say the last bit. “So yes, Birte’s my wife. She’s never shared my bed. Never spent a single night alone with me. But legally, and before the eyes of God, we’re married.” That’s it. That’s the truth. I’m left with only a question: “Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”

3

SAMANTHA

My fingertips tingle as if I’m arguing a case in court. The roof of my mouth is numb. I consciously force myself to inhale as deeply as I can, to hold my breath for a full count of ten before I exhale every molecule of air from my lungs.

This is Braiden. The man I trusted enough to marry. The Dom I’ve allowed to do things to my body I never dreamed I could accept.

I force myself to meet his deep blue gaze. I see pain in the lines around his eyes, a pinched expression so different from how he looked when I found him this morning in the kitchen, happily whipping up breakfast after our night of crazed lovemaking.

“I know you want me to say I understand,” I tell him, as gently as I can. “You want me to excuse you. To say this couldn’t be helped—your hiding Birte from me. You want me to say all is forgiven.”

He’s frozen. Every muscle in his body is stretched, pinned, waiting.

“I can’t,” I say.

“Samantha—”

“I listened to you,” I snap. “Now you listen to me.”

I cross the room to stand beside him. It’s dangerous here. The heat of his body calls to me, the cedar and spice that ransacked my brain three months ago, rewiring everything I thought I knew about myself. I dig my fingernails into my palms as I look out the window at Birte.

She’s sitting where Braiden left her, bundled in her coat and holding her cup of tea with both gloved hands, like a child afraid of spilling. The tumble of her hair matches Aiofe’s. She’s not much taller than the ten-year-old girl I’ve come to know since moving into Thornfield Hall.

“She needs help,” I say. “Both of them do.”

“Doc Kelleher says?—”

“They need a real doctor.” I know Kelleher has his medical degree. But he’s on the payroll of the Irish Mob, better at treating bullet wounds than managing any patient’s day-to-day care. He administered contraception and handled my sprained shoulder, but I wouldn’t come close to trusting him with a shattered mind. “They each need a complete physical. And serious, long-term mental health care.”