Page 18 of His Forced Irish Mafia Bride

I froze.

“If this gets worse,” he said, “people will die.” It wasn’t a threat; it was a fact. He stepped closer. “I’ll handle this.”

I looked at him closely, at his shaking hands, at the exhaustion carved into his face, at the fear he was no longer hiding, and I understood something I didn’t want to understand. He couldn’t handle this.

My voice came out lower than I’d expected. “How much danger are you actually in, Dad?”

He didn’t answer, and that silence was worse than anything he’d said so far.

***

Sleep never came that night, so I gave up around three in the morning and sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the dark window like something would appear if I looked long enough. The night was too quiet, that kind of quiet that makes every small sound feel too sharp—old pipes ticking inside the walls, a car passing somewhere far below, nothing steady enough to hold onto.Marry me.

It kept coming back like pressure in a pipe threatening to crack. Sean hadn’t sounded like he was asking, and that was the worst part. He’d sounded like it was already decided and I didn’t have any choice.

“This is insane,” I muttered to myself.

But the longer I sat with it, the more it stopped feeling impossible, and that thought annoyed me more than anything else. I got up and started pacing barefoot across the room, back and forth, like movement could fix this. My life was already messy—work at Murphy’s, arguments with Dad, rent that never felt fully under control—and this “proposal” wasn’t supposed tosit inside it.Seandidn’t sit in it. He belonged somewhere else entirely, with money, power, and men who didn’t ask twice.

I thought about the way people reacted when he walked into Murphy’s, how the room adjusted without anyone saying a word, how even the loudest people got careful. I hated that I remembered it so clearly. I hated that he’d said this marriage would protect me and my father. Most of all, I hated that I believed him. I pressed my palms against my eyes until they hurt.

Dad’s face came back to me—the way he looked when he couldn’t answer me properly, the way fear sat behind his voice even when he tried to hide it. Sean had made sure I couldn’t ignore the danger to my father anymore. If I walked away from this, collectors would keep coming after my father, and Sean would have no reason to protect him. The idea of marrying Sean O’Connor made my chest tighten. I’d belong to him, live in his world, wake up and know everyone around me answered to a man who looked at me like he’d already planned the rest of my life.

Panic came fast after that thought, but then another thought hit me: Dad alive, safe. I stood in the middle of my warring thoughts until I couldn’t breathe properly. By sunrise, I was already dressed, and I’d made my decision.

***

I almost turned around twice before I reached the building, the construction site rising above the street like something unfinished and permanent at the same time, steel cutting into a gray sky, machinery moving like clockwork. People noticed me as soon as I stepped through the gates. I hated the attention immediately, but I kept walking anyway.

A worker near the office trailer straightened when I got close. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Sean O’Connor.”

The change in his expression confirmed he was here before he even spoke. “Top office,” he said.

I climbed the metal stairs, each step feeling louder than it should’ve been. This was a mistake, and I knew that, but I kept going anyway, because Dad’s face kept pulling me forward.

At the top, the office door was half open, voices inside, low. I stepped inside. The man standing in front of the desk looked up first, then Sean. Everything in the room changed when our eyes met.

He was behind a desk covered in blueprints and papers, sleeves rolled up, ink visible on his forearms, calm in a way that didn’t belong in a place like this. He wastoocalm, like nothing around him could surprise him anymore. His eyes landed on me and stayed there, not surprised, not curious, like he’d already accounted for this moment, and I hated that.

“I’ll be back. I think Al needs my attention,” the other man said.

The door closed behind him, and a heavy silence settled in the room that made the space feel smaller than it was. I stayed standing because I didn’t want to sit in front of him, not with everything unsaid hanging in the air.

Sean leaned back slightly in his chair, watching me intently. “You found me.”

“Don’t sound pleased about it,” I said.

A faint shift at the corner of his mouth, almost nothing. “I’m deciding whether I should be.” That calm again, always that calm, and it scraped at something in me.

“You don’t get to act like this is normal,” I said. “You cornered my dad and threw out marriage like a command, so you don’t get to sit here like we’re discussing business.”

“Wearediscussing business.”

I let out a short laugh. “Of course we are.”

“You came here knowing what this is.”