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“I am yours and you are mine,” she whispered and then smiled at me with her beautiful smile. Full of grace and wonder and strength. Poppy Byrne was just getting started and I was the luckiest man on earth to be by her side.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ronan
We took everything downstairs so I could put on some pants.
At my dining room table Poppy explained to me what she found.
“He’s been following her?” I asked.
“More than followed. He’s been…watching her. For years.”
“And they had a relationship?” I tried to imagine something more terrifying than Bryant and Caroline in love, but I was hard pressed to see it.
Poppy nodded, eyes twinkling as she sipped her coffee. The girl loved gossip. “It’s actually a little sad. He lost her to Lane and he never got over her.”
“Or maybe he never got over losing,” I said.
“I like my version better,” she said with a pout.
“And all of this happened while I was sleeping?” I asked.
“Well, we’re not done yet,” Poppy said. “You need to talk to Bryant.”
This part was difficult. I was a man who got assurances with blood. The deals I made were with violence. This… blackmail? Trusting Caroline. I didn’t know how to trust it. If I could.
“Trust me,” Poppy said. “I know it’s hard, but trust me. This is how we get out from under Bryant.”
I looked down at her face. And she saw in my hesitation something I couldn’t even put a name to.
“Do you want to?” she whispered. “Do you want to be free of him?”
“I’m a Morelli, Poppy, I’ll never be totally free.”
She nodded. “But working for him. With him. Taking that place at his side that he seems so hell-bent on giving you? Do you want that?”
I’d been fighting so hard to get out of this cage and now that I was really about to be free, I felt fear leaving that cage.
“I don’t know who I am without violence. I’ve been in it for too long. The blood on my hands…it’s permanent, Poppy.”
“I don’t believe that,” she said and stood. “But I can’t…” Her voice broke and I hated myself for hurting her. For giving her a second of doubt.
I realized, at once, how Poppy was some combination of all the women in my life.
Loving like Sinead. Clever like Caroline. Fierce like Niamh.
“I love you,” she said. “And I think you’re so much more than the weapon people have made you. And I’m yours no matter what you decide but if you could see yourself the way I see you, this wouldn’t even be a question. I can’t make this decision for you.” Poppy said and stroked my face.
She left me to do what only I could do.
I thought about Jacob saying he didn’t want to kill again, but that if anyone hurt Zilla, he’d kill them. I’d understood those words the minute he said them. I didn’t want to be anyone’s weapon. Not anymore. But I would be her shield forever.
Did I want to stop being a weapon?
Did I want to stop fighting a war that wasn’t mine?
The answer was yes. The answer was please. The answer was so complicated I didn’t know how to say it out loud. I thought of Niamh and I felt guilty for finding love. For wanting a future, while she was here with her chilblains and 1970s kitchen. The way she held herself still and clung to all her mistakes and never gave herself a moment of comfort or kindness, her unhappiness made her sacrifice worthwhile. And I’d been about to do the same to Poppy.
But if Poppy wanted me not to fight.
Then I wasn’t fighting.
* * *
I made my way across the back lawn, wondering if Bryant would have wised up since the last time I broke into his house, but no security came to greet me. No bullets stopped me.
I grabbed another apple from the kitchen, didn’t bother hiding from the maid who dropped her little dust mop when she saw me. Bryant was already in his study, behind his desk.
He smiled when he saw me and I tossed the thumb drive onto the desk.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Everything the senator did for you.”
“The idiot kept it on a thumb drive?”
“Insurance, I imagine. We’re done.”
“Done?” Bryant got to his feet.
“You got what you paid for. We’re done.”
“You’re turning down my job offer?”
“Aye.”
“Is this a fucking joke?”
“No. Not a joke. We have copies of everything on that thumb drive. Come after us and we’ll release the information to the FBI and every journalist in New York City.”
“Are you threatening me? How very Morelli of you.”
I turned and walked away from my uncle. Which predictably, he didn’t like.
“That bitch you married—”
I turned on my heel, aware that he was trying to provoke me and I didn’t care. I took two steps around the desk before he could shout for one of his bodyguards. I punched him across the face and the old man folded like paper back into his chair.
