And it is.
“Look,” she slips her hand into mine, squeezing my fingers. “Can we just not label this? There’s a lot going on, and-”
“I know that.” I squeeze her hand back. “I’m here, just know that.”
She looks at me as I stand and put my arms around her.
“I wish you’d never left,” she whispers.
“Me too.”
“No, I mean…” she pulls away and looks down. “I mean I really wish you hadn’t left. It’d have been a lot easier.” She looks back up at me. “Who knows where or what we’d be today?”
“I was on a course for disaster and I was going to bring you down with me.”
“Silas, everyone knows what you did for Rowan.” She shakes her head. “But it doesn’t change that you left.”
I tighten my jaw. “Doesn’t change much for your dad.”
She nods, mulling it over. “Well, you know him.”
“I was responsible for that, Ivy.”
She bites her lip, her hands sliding into mine again. “He went on the job, after you told him not to, and after you weren’t going to.”
“He was there because of me though,” I growl, reliving that night again in my head. “I pulled him into all that. I never should have let him near Declan and his poison.”
I look away, glancing out the small round window of the bedroom at the dark ocean beyond. “I told you, I’m bad fucking news, Ivy,” I say quietly.
I turn back to her. “Well, or I was.”
She smirks. “Not bad news now?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“I want to believe that.”
“Do.”
I pull her against me, running my hand up and down the bare skin of her back, drinking in her scent.
“I need time.”
I nod. “I’ll be here, just know that.”
I pause, the grin spreading across my face before I whisper it in her ear.
“Wife.”
She pulls back and shoots me a look. “Watch it, buster.”
I grin.
She smirks at me as she pulls away and reaches for her clothes. “I do need to go.”
“I’ll walk you up the pier-”
“Hey captain Ahab, you home?”
We both freeze at the sound of the voice I know she damn well recognizes as well.
Fucking hell.
Declan.
Her eyes go wide as I whirl to her. “I need you to stay right in here and hide.”
“Excuse me?” she hisses.
“Look, just-” My eyes burn into hers, urging her.
"Let me get rid of him.”
“You told me you were done with-”
“And I am,” I growl. “I’ll explain, just stay the hell out of sight.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Silas
“Evening, Captain.”
Declan’s leaning against the pier post with one foot up on my boat when I step out onto the deck, grinning at me with a cigarette between his lips.
The two goons from before with the black jackets are back, camped out a few feet behind him and watching me like I might do something crazy like grab their boss by the throat again.
It’s not entirely out of the question.
“What do you want, Declan.”
He grins, plucking the cigarette from his mouth and blowing a thin stream of smoke out.
“Thought I told you the other day to be in touch if you need anything, nephew.”
“And I don’t.”
He meets my glare, unblinking, sizing me up.
I have no idea how the grandparents I never met managed to have a kid like Declan with my mother being as good as she was. This look of his - this is his trick; his ace up the sleeve. I spent enough time with scumbags and lowlifes in my lifetime to know that small, weasely guys like Declan who are in positions of power like his don’t get there by accident. In fact, it usually means they’re even meaner, and crazier than the big guy with muscles who’ll just come at you head on.
A guy like Declan hits you from the side, when you’re not even looking for it.
He shrugs, grinning as if to break the tension.
“Well, I do.” He jabs the cigarette at me. “Got a job for you, kid.”
I bark out a laugh. “Well then you’re out of your damn mind.”
Declan chuckles. “Need those sticky fingers of yours thief.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I’m done with that.”
He snorts. “The fuck you are. Nolan told me all about the shit you pulled in Dublin, kid. Your reputation, as they say, fuckin’ precedes itself.”
“I did what I had to,” I say icily.
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that.”
I can feel my hands tighten to fists at my sides. “Fuck off.”
“Shit, lie to yourself if you want, but don’t lie to me, kid. I get it.” He nods at me, his mouth curling into a sneer.