Page 7 of Irish Vice

“Where are you going?” he asks before I reach the door.

“To pack.”

“You’re leaving?” He sounds astonished.

“I can’t stay with a lying bigamist.”

“I’m not a bigamist,” he says.

Technically, he’s right. Father Brennan wasn’t a real priest. My marriage is a fraud.

“Fine,” I say. “I stand corrected. You’re just a liar.”

I make it to the hall before he calls out, “I’m a liar who killed for you last night.”

I turn back to look at him. He’s standing between the table and the window, his weight evenly distributed on his feet. He’s calm. Confident. Certain I won’t go anywhere.

Hedidkill a man last night, a man who pointed a gun at my head. And he tortured his victim first, trying to find out who targeted me.

Braiden didn’t care that he was covered in blood. Didn’t care that he was grazed by a bullet, that his arm is wounded even now, bandaged beneath his dark tartan shirt.

He saved me.

But he didn’t find out who sent the killer. If I leave this house, I’ll be as vulnerable as the woman-child sitting on the patio. The second I step outside Thornfield’s gate, anyone can come at me—including the paparazzi who’ve been swarming like starved goldfish since the story of my graduation night became public.

I’m a liar who killed for you last night.

The words hang between us. Absurd. Unanswered.

I can’t go. I can’t stay.

Before I can figure out how to respond, Braiden’s phone trills. The ring-tone is U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday”.

I’ve heard it before. I’ve seen the cold shock on Braiden’s face. I know he won’t let it go unanswered.

Sure enough, he taps the screen and says, “Kelly.” But he cuts off whoever’s on the other end. His voice goes thick with his Irish accent and he says, “I’ll be with ya in a second.”

Pressing the phone against his chest, he makes a half-hearted attempt to keep from being overheard. “Don’t go,” he says.

It’s an order. Another one of his rules. But I don’t think I can play his game ever again.

“Please,” he says.

Andthatbreaks something inside me. That’s the opposite of the voice he’s used before, the crack of authority that sends me—literally—to my knees.

I don’t have any good options. Stay with a liar who is steadily breaking my heart. Escape to a world where someone wants me dead, where I’m front-page news for every tabloid in the country, where I’m in danger of losing my law license andmy job and my independence because of all the mistakes I made eleven years ago.

I look past Braiden, through the window to where Birte sits in the cold March sun. She’s huddled in her coat, in her strange white dress, in her flimsy slippers. Beyond her is a low stone building—the pool house. It’s safely behind the front gate. It’s not under this roof. It’s a port in a storm, the best I can come up with on short notice.

“I’ll be in the pool house,” I say.

He opens his mouth to argue.

“That was a statement, Braiden. Not the start of a discussion. Take your call. And here’s a new house rule: Don’t come in there without my express permission.”

I leave before I can see his reaction.

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