Chapter 2

Days later,inside my cell, I stare up at the poorly painted white ceiling, drips frozen in time as though long forgotten.

The air is thick with the smell of sweat and disinfectant, fluxed into something putrid.

It's not the first time I've smelled it. Been to jail back in Ireland. I was stuck alone in a tiny cell for a few days for a fight. Nothing stayed on my record, though. Being part of a gang and having connections helped.

My brother was the only one who cared I was even there. He was all I had.

I was eighteen, and my parents had lost hope of me becoming someone by that point. To them, I was nothing but a lost cause, always feckin' off, embarrassing them. Mother used to tell me a fella like me would never find anyone but a floozie to love him.

Maybe she was right.

I often remember the night she kicked me out of the house once I got out of jail.

I had come home after having just killed someone, blood on my knuckles, my shirt. As soon as I walked in, she was there sitting in the kitchen, the lights off until she turned them on.

I didn't notice the luggage beside her, not at first. But then she told me how she knew I was never going to change and how I was going to destroy my brother's life in the process.

I don't want to lose the only son I have left, she said.

Hearing that had hurt, but she wasn't wrong. I was a feck-up. I'd always be a feck-up.

After I left, I had stayed with one friend, then another, until I had some money saved up from the shite I was doing. By twenty-one, I decided I needed to get out of Ireland and out of my family's life. Where they could be safe from me.

I landed in California, but I wasn't alone. It broke my parents' heart when my brother decided to follow me, but he didn't see me the way they did. I should have told him to stay, but instead, I was happy he was coming with me. Happy that someone in my family actually gave a shite about me.

Now they're all gone.

And I'm alone.

Mom wasn't unkind growing up. I had good parents, but I had become a disappointment, and I don't blame them for hating me in the end.

Because I hated myself too. If I'd been different, Keegan would still be alive.

The door opens, and I look to find Officer Doyle stopping at the threshold.

"She's back, McHale." He lifts a gray brow. "Either go see that poor girl or tell her to stop showin' up."

Worry gnaws at me. Why is she here today? She doesn't usually come for another week. What if something happened after she wrote that letter?

I can't just abandon her. I need to see her.

But the very thought of being around her after all this time…

Hell, I have to stay strong. I can't show her what she does to me: completely unravels every messed-up inch of my heart.

With a groan, I rise. "Fine."

"Man of many words." He laughs.

He's the only one who tolerates me. Not sure why. I barely talk to him. Barely talk to anyone. I prefer to use fists. That's the only language I've ever known.

He slips the cuffs on me, and together we step into the hall, walls of prison cells lining both sides. Taking the stairs, we make it around the bend. He scans his card, opening the double doors before leading me into a room filled with people sitting around white tables.

I don't see her at first, inspecting the vast space like a hungry man starving for air. And when our eyes connect, my heart rips right out of my chest. It's been so long since I've seen her, I'm not even sure if she's real.

My fingers tighten into a fist. All the air completely evaporates from around me.

She's here. This beautiful goddess only has eyes for me, and this immediate possessiveness nabs me whole. I'd do anything for her. Kill anyone who hurts her. It's that simple.

Her chestnut hair spreads across both shoulders, slight waves at the ends, glistening and soft. She's in a light pink blouse, a button popped above her small breasts. I shouldn't even be thinking about them, but here I am, dreaming of us in bed together, her eyes on mine as I wrap my mouth around a nipple and suck.

"Keep it moving." Doyle pushes me from the back.

I hadn't even realized I had stopped walking.

"Mm-hmm." With a grumble for a response, I continue forward.

Her radiant gaze is a blend of peridot and the wild green ocean. A rarity in all her glory. Yet I can't touch or taste her. This is all we'll have: stolen glances and torn hearts.

I should gouge out my own eyes for the things I'm doing to her in my mind, but I've never been a righteous man. Never even wanted to be, not until her.

Her eyes pop as I approach, and there's real mirth caught within them.

I don't want there to be. I don't want her here. She needs to be far away from me.

I grab a chair and settle into it, keeping my expression tight even when every molecule in my treacherous body fights to make her mine.

"Got ten minutes, McHale," Doyle blurts out before he buggers off.

"What are you doin' here?" My voice carries indifference or even a bit of anger.

She shouldn't be in this awful place, making time for me like I'm important.

She clears her throat and fumbles with her fingers on the table. "I'm surprised you showed up. I kinda got used to sitting here alone before someone tells me you're not coming."

Her face grows sad, and I hate myself for it.

"Better go home, love. This is no place for you." My tone softens, and this is how I want to be with her. A man who's never been soft with a damn thing in his life.

Her gaze widens as a result.

It's then I realize what I called her.

It was a slip. A moment of failure.

Because it is something I dare to only call her in my dreams, where she is mine and I am hers.

It's the only place we make sense. Because here, in our world, we never will. I'm darkness where she is light. We don't mix. We don't even exist in the same orbit. Too outside the realm of possibility.

"My place is wherever you are, Devlin." She reaches her hand and grabs mine, but I quickly pull away.

Her nostrils enflame with her anguish and she blinks rapidly, stopping her tears from forming. But I see them, and I know I'm the one to blame.

"You need to stop coming here, Eriu. I mean it. I only came to make sure you were okay."

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"You come around the fifteenth. You're a week early." I run a hand through my hair, brushing it away from my eyes.

"So you do notice when I come." Her lips twitch.

I grind my jaw in return.

"It's fine. Don't say anything. Glad to know you pay attention, even though you like to pretend you don't." She huffs. "Is that easier?"

"Is what easier?"

"Pretending I don't exist."

I ball a hand on the table.

Couldn't pretend you didn't exist if I tried.

But I don't tell her that. It'd be leading her on.

"Why'd you come?"

Her features deflate, real hurt caught in the tendrils of her gaze. "Because I was hoping that if I showed up earlier than normal, you'd wonder if something was wrong and actually show up. Guess I was right."

She looks bloody proud.

I am too. She knows me too well.

"And is there? Something wrong?"

She nods, her brows tugging. "My father, he's been talking to someone." She swallows harshly. "He's gonna marry me off, I think."

God damn it!

"You have to do whatever your father tells you to do."

Her eyes slant with curtained fury. "Is that what you really think? Or is that you running?" She slants her body closer. "What are you afraid of? That we would actually make sense?"

Her fingers feather across the top of my hand, and this time I don't push her off. My skin burns, tingling like it's been dead until this very moment.

"I'm thirty-five. You're eighteen. You even comprehending what you're saying?"

"So you've thought about it?" Her gaze fills with some semblance of hope that I'm about to shatter into pieces.

"No. I haven't. I think it's laughable, really." I chuckle coldly, pushing myself back into the chair. "You're a child. I'm a man. I'd never marry you, Eriu, let alone feck you."

Her mouth parts, and tears paint her lower lashes. I remember my mother's words then, that I'm not good enough for a woman. Never gonna be good enough for her.

"How—how can you say that?" She sniffles under her breath. "Right before you went to prison, we really connected. You told me about your family. Your brother. How much you loved him. Did you forget?"

She swipes under her lashes, and I want to be the one to touch her silky skin, to replace her tears with her beautiful laughter.

But I'm nothing but a damaged, rotten corpse, breathing just to exist. I can't ruin her, and that's exactly what I'd do if we were together. She milks goats, for feck's sake. We're different in so many ways.

I shouldn't even want to be her bodyguard again. Nothing good would come of it.

How long will I be able to fight this attraction? How will I be able to remain unaffected when I'm around her all the time?

Maybe it would be a good thing if Patrick didn't want me back. I could disappear somewhere and forget all about her.

A pang hits my chest at the thought of not seeing her every day.

I used to see her all the time—holidays, birthdays, watched her grow up. Her family is close, and I was a part of it.

I can't be that way anymore. I must let that part of my life go. But what do I have without them? Nothing. That family is all I know.

Patrick owns acres of land in Boston, beautiful farmland with homes he's built for his children and the soldiers who have no place of their own. So he gave them one. Built an underground school for the future enforcers of the generation too, everything connected through intricate tunnels, dorms for the students and more space for anything they need.

It's where I started, and where I taught on occasion before I ended up here. I didn't just teach, I led by example. I've killed more men for the Quinns than I can count, and I'd do it again if they'd let me. At least that would keep me away from her.

"I haven't forgotten the things we discussed," I finally tell her. "But it didn't mean what you thought it did."

It meant everything.

I had never opened up like that before. Not even to my brother when he was alive. No one knew how much I missed him. Not even me. Not until I sat on her sofa and told her stories about him.

And she listened. My God, did she listen. She took every word like it was gold, and after that, she fed me. She can cook like the best of them. The flavor of that curry chicken was like tasting heaven.

She shakes her head, her wounded gaze sinking into my soul. I want to walk out and act like I never saw her. Like I didn't just break her beautiful heart. Like I didn't just hurt someone who doesn't even realize how much she means to me.

"You should go, Eriu. And this time don't come back because you won't see me again."

Defeat flits through her features. "Is your lawyer working on your appeal?"

"Aye. Trying to get me out on some technicality I don't understand."

She breathes a sigh. "How soon will we know if you're out?"

"Don't know." I start to get to my feet.

"Wait!" With one look, she begs me to stay, to take her in my arms and confess every sordid detail of my past.

Would she accept me for who I am? Would she even want me if she actually knew the kind of things I've done?

"Call me. Just call me when you get out. Please, Devlin."

"Aye." I have to agree. It'd be too cruel not to.

Goodbye,mo stoirín.

As soon as I turn around, I hear a small sniffle.

From over my shoulder, I glance back at her. "Whoever he is, he'd be a lucky man to have you."

Then I walk away before I flip every table in this goddamn place and get myself stuck here for eternity.

Well, maybe that actually wouldn't be such a bad idea.