She keeps her eyes trained on the fire. “I’ve known him since I was a kid. He’s older than I am and he was… Well, I suppose he had his eye on me since I was a teenager.”
“So he’s a pedophile,” I snap, trying and failing to control my harsh tone.
She doesn’t shy away from the word, though.
In fact, she actually has the gall to offer up an explanation for it. “He never touched me when I was underage.”
“Jesus, Saoirse,” I growl. “You don’t have to act on an instinct in order to qualify for the title. A pedophile is a pedophile whether he touches an underage girl or not. He preyed on you.”
She smiles, but it’s a dark, joyless smile. Twisted and lonely. “He did do that, yes. He still does.”
I glance at her hand again. She has it covered, but I can still see those scars as clear as day.
“Is that why you did that?” I ask, jerking my head towards the evidence.
“What makes you think I did?”
“Saoirse.”
“Cillian,” she retorts.
“Don’t fuck with me.”
She takes a deep breath and shakes her head. “Tristan is in the Kinahans’ pocket. One of their dirty cops. He had connections back then. He has more now.”
I wait for her to finish the story, my skin crawling with foreboding.
“He told me that my involvement with you made me a wanted woman, and the only way to save myself and my father…” She gulps, lips trembling, before finishing, “…was to marry him.”
I stare at her in shock.
Thirteen years of wondering why.
And there it is: the truth.
So simple.
So ugly.
“Is that why you turned me away that day?” I ask. “Is that why you said all those things to me?”
She hesitates for a second. “Yes.”
That’s all it takes to unleash a flood of anger in my chest.
“Fuck!” I roar. I hurl a stick into the fire. It sprays furious sparks up into the canopy overhead.
“Cillian!” she cries out. Something about her voice forces me back to calm. “I was eighteen. I was scared and alone and I felt… I feel responsible for my father. I couldn’t risk his life by leaving.”
“So you stayed and married a fucking monster.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
She looks at me with surprise. “And?”
“What kind of husband was he? Is he?”