Page 78 of His Forced Irish Mafia Bride

I went back through it in my mind, not trying to solve it anymore, just replaying it with clearer eyes. Patrick. That case had never been clean.

Evidence implicating him had arrived in ways that looked neat on the surface but now seemed questionable. Everything had always moved toward resolution without ever feeling fully resolved. And through all of it, Declan had been there.

He was present in a way that never drew attention, close enough to guide conclusions without leaving a mark. I walked to the desk and rested a hand on its edge. Patrick had been shaped into a role that suited what Declan wanted me to see. A man turned into a traitor so the system could move past him unchanged.

I exhaled slowly.

If Patrick was innocent, or even partially misrepresented, then everything that came after his “betrayal” was suspect.

Declan’s betrayal hadn’t started when I noticed the leak. It had started long before there was even a reason to look for one, back when trust still felt like structure instead of risk, back when Declan wasn’t questionable because he was part of how everything held together.

I straightened slightly. There was no need to keep searching for missing pieces. No need to force separate threads into something complete.

It was already complete, just not in a way I wanted. Ugly, clear, and unavoidable.

Declan hadn’t just interfered with the system. He’d shaped it in ways I’d never stopped to question. A long silence held in the room. I let it sit, then made the decision.

I wouldn’t confront him yet. A confrontation will be too clean for something that had been built over time. He wouldn’t be warned. He wouldn’t be given space to adjust, explain, or slip away from the shape of what was coming.

I turned toward the window again. The city beyond it kept moving, unaware of anything beneath its surface. That was fine. It would make things simpler.

I picked up my coat from the chair and put it on without rushing. There was no urgency left, only direction. When I finally spoke, it wasn’t to anyone in the room. It was to the decision itself.

“Not yet.” The words stayed in the air for a moment before the rain swallowed them. I left the office without looking back. And behind me, the truth echoed like an exploding bomb.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Maeve

I couldn’t stop thinking about my father. Everything kept circling back to him, no matter what I tried to focus on. I didn’t want to think of Sean or the tension that had been building between us for days. All of it faded into the background the moment I started connecting the pieces.

My father was at the center of everything. Every document I opened, every detail that didn’t sit right, every contradiction I came across—it all led back to him in one way or another. The more I looked, the less the old story held its shape.

The answers I was finding didn’t confirm that my father was a traitor. They pointed somewhere else entirely, toward something hidden underneath, something that used him as cover for the real betrayal.

I looked down at the papers spread across my bed. Names were scattered across them: Peter Earl, Stuart Justice, Ian Rush, Gabrielle De Succa.My father sat in the middle of it. Not as the one pulling everything together, but as someone caught inside it.

What if he hadn’t done what they said? What if he’d been framed?

I lowered my head and rubbed my forehead, eyes closing for a moment as I tried to push the thought away, but it stayed. Because nothing was adding up cleanly anymore.

Every answer led to another gap. Every lead stopped somewhere I didn’t have access to yet. It felt like I was circling an answer that refused to fully reveal itself. And with every step forward, the sense of urgency grew stronger.

I needed more than documents. More than reports. More than second-hand versions of events. I needed the truth from someone who’d actually been there when it happened.

My gaze drifted toward the door. I’d already decided what to do, even if I hadn’t admitted it to myself properly yet. If there was still truth left to find about my father, I wasn’t going to get it by staying here and thinking in circles. There was only one direction left that made sense.

I had to leave the penthouse.

***

I didn’t leave right away. That would have been impossible.

Sean’s security team was expecting movement, something fast or emotional. They were trained for impulse, for mistakes made under pressure. What they weren’t prepared for was patience. So I acted normal.

I made tea and left it half-finished on my desk. I opened my laptop, then closed it without doing anything. I walked into the living room and back again, letting the movements look random, like I couldn’t settle.

The cameras would only see what they were meant to see—Maeve, restless but contained. Nothing unusual or urgent.