Page 97 of His Forced Irish Mafia Bride

Her eyes drifted inward for a second, not away from him, but away from the room, like she was connecting something I hadn’t been shown yet. Father Michael noticed. His shoulders stayed controlled, but there was tension in how still he became.

Maeve looked back at him slowly. “You’re lying,” she said.

The silence that followed was immediate and heavy.

Father Michael didn’t answer at once. And in that delay, the mask he built started to show its cracks.

***

Father Michael left without saying anything else, and the door closed behind him with a soft click that felt too controlled to be accidental. For a moment after he was gone, neither of us moved or spoke. The silence he left behind felt heavier than the silence he’d arrived with.

Maeve was the first to break it.

She didn’t use words at first. She walked past me and lowered herself onto the edge of the sofa, sitting like she’d already decided where she needed to be. I watched her settle there. She still wasn’t looking at me, and that told me enough on its own.

“You were right about him,” I said. My voice sounded flat in the space he’d just left. Maeve let out a slow breath through her nose. It carried no relief, no agreement, only something measured and contained.

“I didn’t know I was right until he started talking,” she said. That made me stop for a moment. She finally turned her head and looked at me. Her expression stayed steady and focused, with no confusion left in it. “I saw him at my father’s house,” she said. “I wasn’t there for him. I saw him by chance.” Her hands stayed on her knee, still without relaxing. “He didn’t think anyone noticed him.”

I let those words stay in the air for a moment.

Maeve leaned back slightly and kept her eyes forward. “At first I thought it might mean nothing,” she said. She stopped, then corrected herself. “No. That wasn’t true. I knew it meant something. I just didn’t want to admit it.”

That correction came out quieter than everything before it. I stepped a little closer and stopped where she could still see me clearly.

“What did you notice?” I asked.

Maeve turned toward me again and studied my face for a moment before speaking. “Things didn’t match when I compared them,” she said.

I stayed quiet and let her continue.

“Dates. Reports. The way people described my father now compared to before the betrayal. It didn’t line up. It felt like parts of the past were missing or replaced.”

I didn’t respond yet, but I understood what she was getting at.

Maeve kept watching me as she spoke. “I think someone changed the records,” she said. The room felt different after that, not quieter or louder, but more focused.

“So you think someone altered what happened,” I said.

Maeve didn’t answer immediately. Then she said, “Yes.”

Clear and certain. I turned slightly as I thought it through. Father Michael’s visit was no longer isolated. Patrick’s supposed betrayal was no longer isolated.

Declan was no longer isolated. Everything was starting to connect toward the same point. Maeve kept speaking, but I was already seeing the pattern forming behind her words. Everything was connected, and the shape of it started to come into view.

Maeve didn’t stop there. Once she started, it was like something inside her had already committed to the direction.

“I keep thinking about the way people react when I mention my father,” she said. “It’s not normal. It’s not even consistent. Some people speak like he was guilty. Others speak like he disappeared before anything could be proven.”

She shook her head slightly, like she was trying to straighten something that refused to align. “And Father Michael…he reacts like he knows more than he’s allowed to say. Not like he’s guessing. Like he’s managing what he’s letting out. I think someone shaped the version of my father that survivedin everyone’s memory,” she added. “Not just what happened to him. What people are allowed to believe about him. That’s why I went to talk to him. For confirmation that I wasn’t imagining the pattern.”

I took a slow step back, just enough to break the intensity of the space between us. I didn’t speak for a moment. I allowed everything to settle.

Everything Maeve said. Everything I’d already suspected. Everything now fit too cleanly to ignore. The room felt quieter, but not calmer.

There was no more room for half-truths between us. “Declan confirmed he framed your father,” I said. “If you think Father Michael was involved, we’ll look into him.” Her eyes held mine. That was enough.

I turned slightly toward the window, already mapping what came next, what needed to be pulled apart first, how to track down the four people Maeve identified. Whatever was built to hide the truth is going to be taken down completely. No fragments left.