For years, I built a monster out of Cillian. I shaped my anger around his name. I walked into his company with revenge stitched into my bones, only to find every ounce of my life up until him had been a lie.
Cillian doesn’t rush me. He lets the silence settle, and when I start shaking he moves closer, not with dominance or controlbut with something steadier. He slides onto the mattress beside me and pulls me into him carefully, mindful of the bandage across my chest, one arm braced behind my shoulders so I don’t strain the wound.
“You’re allowed to grieve the version you had,” he murmurs against my hair. “Even if it wasn’t true.”
“I don’t know who I am without it,” I admit. My voice sounds thin in my own ears. “If he didn’t lose her to you, if he didn’t stand there shattered by some external enemy, then what was he? What did I build my loyalty on?”
“A lie,” he answers plainly. “A convenient one.”
I clutch at his shirt and stare at the wall beyond his shoulder.
“When you told me to leave,” I say slowly, “I thought you’d seen it all. I thought you’d discovered every message, every half truth, and that you finally saw what I was. I didn’t realize you were reacting to one piece of it.”
He pulls back just enough to look at me. “You vanished.”
“You told me to pack.”
“I expected you to fight me.”
“I would have,” I reply, meeting his gaze. “If I’d only been fighting for myself.”
His eyes shift to my stomach, then back to my face.
“I didn’t disappear into some quiet life,” I finally tell him, and my voice is steadier now, anchored by the fact that our daughter is still here, still alive inside me. “I burned my phone in a metal drum behind the quay and watched the plastic melt until therewas nothing left to trace, then I changed names twice in eight days and kept moving every twelve.”
His eyes narrow slightly.
“I stayed in one hostel, two rented rooms, and the back office of a woman in Limerick who knew my mother’s maiden name and didn’t ask questions she didn’t want answered,” I continue. “I cut my hair, dyed it darker, bought clothes that didn’t look like mine, and used cash until it hurt.”
“You were being tracked,” he says.
“Yes,” I answer. “He found the first trail in under a week. I saw the car before he thought I did, so I ran, dropped my bag under a skip, climbed through a tailoring shop, and left town in someone else’s apron.”
He watches me closely, the intensity in his gaze shifting from anger to something closer to respect.
“I embedded in a private compliance and risk firm that audits freight insurers and port operators. Officially, they map exposure. Unofficially, they track criminal bleed-through into legitimate infrastructure.”
His hand tightens slightly around mine. “You walked back into logistics.”
“It’s what I know,” I reply. “I corrected a senior analyst during the interview and lied about where I trained, and they hired me in two days.”
“And you did this pregnant.”
“Yes, I tracked him from the inside,” I explain, choosing not to feed the disbelief in his voice. “Payment flows. Shelldirectors. Construction fronts. I saw him burning through outer crews and escalating faster than before, which meant he wasn’t consolidating territory. He was preparing for something decisive.”
His jaw sets.
“Three days before I came back, a subcontractor audit flagged payments routed through Galway to a consultant who doesn’t exist on paper but does exist in bomb scenes,” I say. “Keane.”
Cillian goes still.
“I pulled the chain, cross-checked passports, and found the same engineer linked to Eva’s car,” I continue. “Then a broker summary dropped into our monitored calls.”
I meet his eyes directly.
“Priority contract. Byrne principal. Window soon. Payment doubled if completed before quarter close.”
His voice lowers. “They were accelerating.”