Uneased whittled away at my insides. “Ma went there? Why did neither of them ever say anything?”
“Aoife’s a baker,” Tink pointed out, his voice calm. “She was probably in the back, baking.”
True.
“Pretty odd coincidence,” Forrest rumbled.
He wasn’t wrong.
“What else did they ask you?”
Callum’s shoulders hunched. “If a rumor was true.”
“What rumor?”
“That Finn and Aoife were going to get married at St. Patrick’s. I mean, they asked, but it was public knowledge. Father Doyle would have called the banns—”
“There wasn’t time for the banns to be called,” I whispered, my busted knuckles breaking like the Hoover dam as I clenched them tight, blood seeping through my fingers as the ramifications of what he was telling me hit home. “They either told the Colombians, or they triggered that drive-by shooting, Callum. On your word. That rumor they wanted clarifying was their way of scheduling what could have been a mass murder.”
“No! Fuck no,” Callum growled, his shoulders straining again as he straightened up. His arm buckled, but he stood strong, terror on his face as if he knew this was it. He’d done it now. “That ain’t got nothing to do with me. I would never have—” But his pleading fell on deaf ears.
My control snapped.
I rushed for him, fists flying, blood spurting, bones colliding until Callum O’Reilly was no more, and I had another soul on my conscience.