Page 85 of His Forced Irish Mafia Bride

Declan didn’t rush to fill the silence. He leaned back slightly in his chair as if the conversation had finally reached a point where there was no point in hiding anything. “Alright,” he said. “Since we’re past pretending.”

He tapped the table once with two fingers before continuing. “You want motivations.”

I didn’t respond, so he went on.

“It’s not complicated,” he said. “You think it is because you’re outside it, but inside it’s only structure.”

I kept my eyes on him, and Declan nodded toward the folder

“Patrick Callahan,” he said, “wasn’t totally clean. You already know that. People at that level rarely are.” He paused, watching me carefully. “He had something he shouldn’t have had,” he continued. “Information, access, something that had been buried for years. I found it before anyone else did.” His gaze stayed on me. “So I made a decision.”

“Which was?” I asked.

He gave a small shrug. “To use it.” He said it without hesitation, like it was the only natural outcome.

I leaned forward slightly. “And Anton?”

Declan let out a slow breath. “That’s not the point,” he said. “Well, it is the point, just not the way you’re thinking about it.” He shifted in his seat, still calm, still controlled. “I don’t need Anton as an ally,” he added. “I need him as leverage. Pressure outside the structure for when the inside starts to give way.” His eyes stayed fixed on me. “You’ve been holding everything together,” he said, gesturing loosely toward the building around us. “Me, the structure, the movement, the flow. All of it has been running through your name. Systems like this don’t stay still; they change direction.” He looked at me directly. “You’ve stayed in this position too long.”

The way he said it carried no emotion, only certainty. “That’s where Anton comes in,” he said. “Not as your problem. As the point where this starts to move toward someone else.”

I stayed quiet and watched him, and Declan continued in the same steady voice. “When things are ready to break,” he said, “they need somewhere to go. Stability has to form on the other side. One structure ends, and another replaces it.” He gave a small nod, almost thoughtful. “And I will be the one there when it happens.”

The silence returned to the table after that. I didn’t say anything when I picked up the phone. I kept my eyes on Declan while I dialed.

One ring passed, then another, and his expression changed before anything else. The confidence he’d been carrying through the entire meeting started to slip, replaced by awareness that the situation was no longer in his control.

“Sean,” Declan said, his voice sharper now. “Don’t—” The call connected before he could finish.

“Secure room,” I said into the phone. I ended the call and placed the phone down.

Declan reached inside his jacket and drew a gun. He immediately turned it toward me. The room felt different in an instant, as if every part of it had narrowed to that single point between us.

He held the weapon steady and spoke. “Sit back down.”

I stayed where I was. I looked at him properly, paying attention to how he was standing, how his weight was balanced, how his arm was positioned. He’d handled a situation like this before, just not with me.

“You’re not going to use that,” I said.

His jaw tightened. “You think I won’t?”

I took one step forward. The gun stayed on me, but his stance gave away something small. His control wasn’t as clean as he wanted it to be.

“Shooting me won’t make this better for you,” I said. His grip changed slightly after that, just enough to show it had landed.

The door behind him opened, and two of my men entered without hesitation. Declan turned his head for a brief moment. That was enough. The weapon was taken from him before he could bring it back up. He fought it for a second, but themovement broke quickly. The guards forced him to the floor and held him there.

One man kept him pinned while the other secured his arms. Declan looked up at me from the floor, breathing hard, trying to understand how quickly everything had closed in. I walked closer and stopped in front of him.

“You’re done,” I said. Something in his expression changed then—not panic, but frustration that came too late to matter. The two men pulled him up. He spoke again, this time directing his words at them instead of me.

“Wait,” he said quickly. “Listen, this doesn’t need to get messy. There’s a procedure for this. You don’t have to take it this far.”

One of my men looked toward me, waiting for instruction. They had him restrained, with his arms locked and his head angled forward so he couldn’t see anything beyond the floor. Declan tried to speak again, but one of the men increased the pressure on his hold and stopped him before the words could form properly.

After that, Declan stopped resisting. His body stayed under control, but his focus was still active, still trying to adjust to what had just happened. I stayed where I was for a moment and watched him take in the reality of the situation without the rush of adrenaline that had been carrying him earlier. Then I walked back toward the desk and picked up the phone again.

“Terminate all internal access connected to Declan. Freeze every linked account and cut the network clean.”