Page 101 of His Forced Irish Mafia Bride

Sean closed one of the files halfway, like he was thinking of how to say it.

“Your father found out what happened with the weapons deal,” he said. “Father Michael set it up. The deal was meant to go wrong. He wanted Hugo Fernández to turn on the people involved. He wanted chaos. He wanted my family removed from power.”

My stomach dropped.

I closed my eyes and opened them again.

Sean kept going. “Patrick found out it was planned. And then Father Michael gave him a choice.”

I already didn’t like where this was going.

“Take the money and stay quiet,” he said. “Or speak and lose everything.”

“And he chose money?” I asked, but my voice was quieter than before.

Sean shook his head slightly. “No,” he said. “He chose you.”

I swallowed once, then twice, but it didn’t help. Because the problem wasn’t in my throat; it was everywhere else. I thought about Father Michael. About the way he’d looked at me. The way he spoke like nothing was ever wrong.

Sean moved slightly beside me, and I noticed something different in him, too.

His jaw was tight, like he was holding something down. I realized then that this wasn’t just my family history. It was his, too. What happened with Hugo Fernández didn’t just touch my family.

It had also hurt his. I looked at him properly for the first time since we’d started reading. He didn’t look away. And I understood something I didn’t want to.

We weren’t just uncovering the truth together. We were standing on opposite sides of the same damage. I exhaled slowly, and my voice came out lower than I’d expected.

“This changes everything,” I said.

Sean nodded once. “It will destroy everything that came before it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Sean

I didn’t wait after that. There was nothing left to debate.

Maeve still sat at the table, but I felt the change in the room.I picked up my phone and made the call.

My voice stayed steady. “Bring him in,” I said. A pause followed. “Not at the church,” I added. “Somewhere private.” I leaned slightly against the table while I spoke, my mind already moving through options.

I needed a place with no public access, no outside interference. And no exits I could not control. I ended the call and set the phone down.

Maeve was watching me. I didn’t need to look directly at her to know it. “What do you mean, bring him in?” she asked.

I looked up. “We’re not going to him,” I said. It sounded simple, but it wasn’t. I turned back to the table and started clearing space. I stacked the files and closed what I no longer needed.

“You’ve done something like this before,” she said quietly.

“Yes,” I said.

There was no reason to hide it. I’d done even worse than this. The room felt smaller as I worked, like everything was narrowing into place.

Maeve stayed seated, but her attention was active. I could see it in the way she watched me.

I stopped for a moment and looked at the layout in front of me. A controlled space, my space. I could do it here. I picked up the phone again.

“This will happen here,” I said. A short confirmation came back, and I ended the call.