Page 55 of His Forced Irish Mafia Bride

I opened another file. Same structure, different operation, same pattern. A decision point that should have required more processing time had been resolved almost immediately on record. Declan moved closer to the desk.

“You’re re-reading completed work,” he said. “You’re going to start seeing distortions if you keep layering new context onto old outcomes.”

“Maybe,” I said.

He nodded once, like that settled it. “That’s all it is,” he repeated.

I kept going anyway. Another file. Another chain. Another movement sequence that now felt slightly too precise when compared against how similar operations normally resolved. It was subtle. Almost invisible. But it repeated.

“You should move forward,” Declan said. “Anton’s active systems are what matter right now. Not archived structure.”

I paused. That made sense. It had always made sense. But I stayed where I was a moment longer before I closed the file.

Not because I agreed. Because I was beginning to notice something I’d never been meant to.

Declan exhaled quietly behind me. “That’s better,” he said.

I opened a current operations folder. New data. Active movement. Real-time tracking.

I focused forward, but the rhythm from the old files stayed behind my eyes, too clean to ignore. Declan moved behind me.

“You’re over it?” he asked.

“No.” I didn’t look at him.

The answer came too clean. Too fast. Then, suddenly, I could see her…Maeve.

Gabrielle standing too close to me earlier. Maeve’s face when she saw it. That pause she didn’t give me permission to interpret, but I did anyway.

I didn’t know what was happening. But I knew Maeve was in my head. I needed a drink.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Maeve

She was already there when I turned the corner outside Sean’s office. I’d seen her before.

Not once or twice, but enough times that she’d become part of the penthouse. She was always carrying a cloth and a set of keys, moving and never lingering.

I slowed slightly as I approached, but not enough to make it obvious. She looked up, and her eyes swept over me once, quick and efficient. Then they returned to the lock she was polishing.

“You’re the new one.” It wasn’tt a question.

I smiled. “I suppose I am.”

The key turned and the door opened.

“You won’t be the last.” She pushed it inward.

I waited for a moment, then said, “Maeve.”

That me got a brief glance. “Teresa.” There it was. A name.

“Nice to meet you.”

Teresa gave me a noncommittal grunt and stepped into the office. I followed as far as the doorway.

The room smelled faintly of polish and old paper. She began wiping down a cabinet. Methodical. Unhurried. The movements of someone who’d done the same thing ten thousand times.