____________

Saoirse

 

 

 

Diarmuid: I need to see you tonight. Please.

 

Diarmuid’s text burned a hole in my phone. It’d been days since I’d seen him and I missed him like a hole in my soul, like a hunger that would not go away. But I couldn’t bring myself to see him right now.

It wasn’t just about the college brochures. It was my guilt over hiding what I had been doing for my father.

After I ran from Diarmuid’s car, I called my da, crying. I’d managed to convince him to let me out of his business once I’d set up the manufacturing process and trained his staff. It could be taken over by almost anyone once they were trained properly.

I just had a few more days to go before I was free of any obligations to my da. I’d stashed away the money he’d paid me, almost ten grand. It was less than what I’d make for the year, but it was enough. Enough for me to move out of my da’s home. To figure out what was next.

Then maybe Diarmuid wouldn’t be so hesitant to be with me. Really be with me.

I could stop lying to him.

I just needed a few more days.

I texted Diarmuid back.

 

Me: I might have to work.

 

Diarmuid: I’m coming over there right now to get you. I’m not taking no for an answer.

 

I let out a huff. When Diarmuid got like this—all alpha and controlling—there was no denying him.

I guess I didn’t have to be at the lab right this second. I could go later now that my da had bought me a car.

 

Me: Fine.

 

In less than ten minutes, Diarmuid texted to let me know he was waiting at our usual corner. Jesus, he must have been speeding or something to get here so fast. He must be excited to see me.

But when I climbed into the passenger seat of his truck and closed the door behind me, Diarmuid said nothing. He didn’t even look at me, his dark brows pulled down over his eyes.

“Hey,” I said, all shy.

It’d been five days since we’d seen each other. He was even more beautiful than I remembered, his shoulder-length hair pulled back in a disheveled ponytail. Even with those dark circles under his eyes as if he’d not been sleeping well. His knuckles on the hand that held the wheel were white, his shoulders pinched up around his ears.

He accelerated down the street as if we were being chased.

I slammed back into my seat. Okaaaay.

He still hadn’t said anything by the time he marched me down his driveway and into his house.

I dropped onto his living room couch expecting him to do the same. But he didn’t. He paced across the carpet, running his hand through his hair, causing pieces of his locks to fall out of the ponytail.

I frowned. “What the hell is up with you?”

He stopped pacing and stared at me as if he didn’t know who I was.

I let out a huff. “If you’re going to not speak to at all you can send me back home.”

“You dropped this in my truck.” He threw a crumpled ball of plastic at me.

I picked it out of my lap and uncrumpled it.

My heart stopped—literally fucking stopped—in my chest.

It was the baggie with Diarmuid’s selkie tattoo on it. The one my father gave me. The one I’d lost.

“I can explain,” tumbled out from my mouth.

“You better fucking explain.”

I sucked in air. Never talk to the cops.

Diarmuid was a cop.

How the hell could I explain this without giving everything away?

I looked up at him, my mind whirring. Shining in his eyes was fury, underneath was bitter disappointment.

He knew.

He knew everything anyway.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“You’re sorry.”

“I was going to tell you…”

He let out a long breath that sounded like a hiss. “Tell me now. I want to hear it from your fucking mouth.”

I swallowed. He never swore around me unless he was pissed. Diarmuid was extremely pissed.

“I was helping him. Using my chemistry knowledge to…” I couldn’t say it.

“Say it.”

I shook my head.

“Own what you did, Saoirse.”

“I helped him cook meth. But just once.”

Diarmuid let out a pained cry and fisted his hands into his hair.

My breath went all short, like I was drowning. This was it. This was when I lost Diarmuid forever.

“And the selkie?”

“He saw my doodle on a piece of paper of your selkie tattoo.” My voice became quieter and quieter. “He thought it would make a great logo…”

Something broke inside of Diarmuid, I saw it in his eyes.

My father had taken something special between Diarmuid and me and he’d tainted it. And it was my fault.

My own heart shattered and tears welled up in my eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was going to quit. End of this week, I swear.”

I pressed my face into my hands. I fucked this up. I fucked up so bad.

I felt Diarmuid’s presence as he bent down to kneel before me. I wanted to cry out when he slid his hands onto me.

“Saoirse,” his voice was soft, softer than I deserved, “everyone deserves a second chance. You deserve a second chance.”

I sniffed and lifted my face to look at Diarmuid. “You really believe that?”

He brushed my cheeks with his thumb. “Yes.”

My hopes began to lift. Maybe there was still room in Diarmuid’s heart to forgive me. Maybe in time he could forgive me enough for us to be together?

“Even if it means making a sacrifice. A…difficult choice.”

I sniffed. “What does that mean?”

Diarmuid’s face turned hard, cold. And my hope turned to wood and splintered in my chest.

“You deserve a second chance,” he repeated. “But your father has run out of chances. I’m sorry, Saoirse. But it’s over for him.”

My blood froze in my veins, turned brittle and snapped. “What are you talking about?”

“At this very moment, the Garda are converging on the farm where his operations are being run. He’s being arrested, taken to prison for a very, very long time.”

No.

My da.

My only family left.

I shoved Diarmuid back, scrambling away from him and over the back of the couch. “What have you done?”

“I did this for you,” Diarmuid said. “I won’t let him take you down with him.”

I shook my head over and over. No. Not my da. I just got him back. He was a bad man but he was my da.

I spun and raced out the front door, grabbing Diarmuid’s truck keys on the side table as I went. I ignored his yelling behind me as I tumbled out the front door.

I wrenched open the driver’s side door of the truck, slid inside and slammed it shut, locking it behind me. Diarmuid slammed up against the vehicle, banging on the window and demanding I open it.

Right now, I could barely hear him. I could barely think of anything else other than getting to the station.

My da.

He needed me.

I yanked the seat forward so I could reach the pedals and reversed out of Diarmuid’s driveway, narrowly missing a car that swerved and beeped at me. I jammed it into drive and hit the accelerator. As I drove down the familiar street, I adjusted my rearview mirror so I could see out the back properly. In it I saw Diarmuid running after me, getting smaller and smaller.

My heart let out a whine. But I kept driving.

I was breathing heavily, my mind racing as I drove to the station where Diarmuid worked.

I parked illegally on the footpath and tumbled out of the truck.

It was a fucking zoo. There were photographers and reporters everywhere, all clamoring to get a piece of my father, who was being led from an armoured van into the station by a group of Gards.

“Da,” I screamed through the crowd, trying to get to the only family I had left.

He didn’t hear me.

He couldn’t hear me over the crowd of animals, all yelling at him, all wanting their pound of flesh. Shut up, shut up everyone.

“Da,” I screamed again.

I tried to push my way through the crowd. But it was too thick and too deep. They were vicious animals who pushed back. I got an elbow into the side of my ribs, and I let out a cry as pain throbbed through me.

My da disappeared inside the station, a man in a suit striding out to address the crowd. He waved his hands for silence.

“My name is Niall Lynch, and I’m the head of the drug squad here in Limerick.”

Lights from photographers’ cameras flashed as the crowd pressed in as if to hear him better.

“I confirm that we have raided a large property twenty minutes north of here that was being used as a drug manufacturing plant. We have arrested Liam Byrne, notorious head of one of the largest drug syndicates in West Ireland.”

“Mr Lynch. Mr Lynch,” reporters began to yell out. “What gave you the tipoff? What was the value of the drugs that you found? How big was the operation?”

Mr Lynch waved at the crowd to be silent again.

“I’ll answer your questions one by one. I’ll start by saying that this win for the people of Ireland is due to the tireless efforts of the drug squad and especially to the information gathered by one of our top people, Garda Diarmuid Brennan, who was doing some recon work for us.”

No.

It couldn’t be.

Diarmuid was working for the drug squad?

He… He used me.

He betrayed me.

“Saoirse!”

Someone grabbed me from behind and spun me.

Diarmuid was standing there, holding me. How the hell did he get here so fast? He must have flagged down a vehicle or something.

“Saoirse, let’s get out of here.”

“Let go of me.” I tried to yank my arm out of his.

“Saoirse, dammit.” He grabbed me around the waist, hauling me out of the crowd. “Not here where the reporters can hear you.”

I let him drag me to his truck, parked up on the sidewalk halfway down the block.

He pressed me up against the passenger door, his fingers on my face, pushing back my hair, begging with me, pleading with me. “Saoirse listen—”

“I’m not listening to you. You used me. Everything you said to me was a lie.”

“You don’t really believe that.” He grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him. “Look at me. Tell me you don’t think what I feel for you is the realest fucking thing on this planet.”

I saw the pain there in his eyes, the anguish and the love.

I tore my eyes away, not wanting to believe, not wanting to let him in again where he could hurt me.

“Liar! You’re working for the drug squad, that man just fucking said so. Was that why you slept with me? Because you wanted info about my father?”

“No, Saoirse. Let me explain.”

“Leave me alone,” I screamed, shoving him back. “I hate you, I fucking hate you.”

I ran from him, ignoring his calls for me to stop.

And my heart broke. Not just for my da, who I’d lost, but for the man I thought I loved who had turned on me.