Page 114 of Iron Blade

It struck me that Aoibheann and this girl knew more about espionage than I did - the trained secret agent. They weren’t forged with six months of training in a government facility outside of Arlington, Virginia. No, they were sharpened by a lifetime in a world where secrets kept them alive.

“Do you have money that Eoghan can’t track?” She looked over my shoulder, as if to check that the man she mentioned didn’t materialize out of thin air. “Do you have a place to stay? I mean… Aoibheann, we had a plan for you… but…”

She looked at me with a sense of helplessness that I felt. I hated to be the person pitied.

“I have money he can’t track.” All agents did. The cool million he had given me before our marriage was hiding and untraceable.

My heart squeezed, remembering his generosity before marriage. This gift, given free and clear, was now going to be used to betray him.

It took everything in me to remember what I had heard - how he tortured Giovanni Morelli without remorse. How I had seen Aoibheann’s scars, and…

“Oh my God, you were going to escape,” I gasped out. I was slow to understand things, and I wanted to blame it on the pregnancy and stress, but maybe I was just selfish. “That’s why you had this plan. You needed to get away from Alastair. I… I can’t take your spot…”

“You can and you will.” Aoibheann’s whisper-soft voice was suddenly full of authority. She placed a maternal hand on my cheek, forcing my eyes to meet hers. “You will go because the child in your belly does not deserve to grow up in this cursed place.”

The tears I had been holding back fell under her concern.

“Don’t worry about me,” she smiled. “I’ll find another way. But you? You must go now, before they harm you.”

I hadn’t known my mother well. What I did know, I didn’t love. So looking into the eyes of a mothering woman now broke the dam. I think I would have liked her, under different circumstances. Aoibheann would have been the best kind of mother-in-law.

“Aoibheann…” I whispered her name the way a Christian might say the name of the Madonna.

“Go. Go now,” she said, pushing me towards Sinead.

“Come on.” The brash woman said, grabbing me by the wrist. “We have to go before they notice…”

“I’ll go back and cover for you,” Aoibheann said, pecking me on the cheek. “What will you name the child?”

The question halted me in my steps. I hadn’t thought about it.

“I… I…” But I already knew. “Cillian, if it’s a boy. I don’t know for a girl.”

Aoibheann smiled, whispered a “thank you” before she disappeared. Her black skirts rustled in her wake as she went back to the gathering.

Sinead shook her head. “Hope you’re not claustrophobic.”

Chapter forty-two

The Kiss by Fracesco Hayez

Eoghan

An hour had passed. That wasn’t unusual. These gatherings always had a certain division of genders. The men might go to the office to smoke, or into the living room, where they spoke of business. The women tended to congregate in the garden with the children, or in the kitchen.

I had that uneasy feeling that I always got from staring at The Kiss by Francesco Hayez. The painting always drew you in towards the romantic center of the canvas - the amazing kiss between two people. But as your focus widens, and you see the men in the shadowy figures in the back, and the way the man has a foot on the step, ready to bolt, you realize it’s not a love story. It’s a tragedy.

It dawns on you slowly, just like the ballooning dread in my chest filled me, second by second expanding until I was frantic.

My palms were sweaty, when Aoibheann came out of the hallway alone.

“Aoibheann,” I called to her, interrupting the man I was making small talk with as a part of my family obligations. “Where’s Kira?”

Her eyes widened, and she looked around, as if she expected to see her there.

“I don’t know, Eoghan,” she said, her eyes wide, but not quite surprised. “I went to the ladies. Maybe she popped into the kitchen?”

I narrowed my eyes just for a moment. She was hiding something. I knew it. But it didn’t matter right now.

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