Page 52 of A Monster Is Coming

“Niamh ran away from her father. He clearly saw who you were, and I’m guessing he knew what was going on, and yet he didn’t kill his daughter.”

This made me stop and I turned to glance over at The Butcher.

She held her hands up as if in surrender. “Don’t look at me all judgey. I’m just saying, a guy who has no qualms in beating and whipping his daughter, why didn’t he kill her? He clearly doesn’t love her, because if he did, Niamh wouldn’t have run away.”

“Maybe he does love her, and she ran away because she couldn’t stand the beatings.”

“True, but even the bounty hunters were ordered to keep her alive. In my experience, that is odd. There is always a bounty dead or alive, or even located. Finn Byrne was explicit in his instructions. He wanted his daughter back or located, and he wanted her in one piece. She had to be breathing.”

Now that she talked about it in that way, I did find it odd. Especially considering he’d held a gun to her head.

“You don’t think he was going to kill her?”

“A man like Finn Byrne doesn’t negotiate. Even if you do have his son. I’ve met a lot of Finn Byrnes in my time and as far as they’re concerned, they can have more children. We know he’s got a lot of kids, and it wouldn’t be hard for him to father another one, or two. At the same time in doing my research, Finn doesn’t like his daughters. None of his daughters or their mothers are seen by him, yet, Niamh is different, why?”

I had no idea. I didn’t get a chance to ask any more questions as Ivan stepped out.

“We need to talk,” Ivan said. “Keep an eye.”

The Butcher put two fingers against her temple and saluted Ivan, who didn’t even bat an eyelid at the action. I expected Ivan to take us back into Niamh’s room, but we walked further down the corridor, going to a quiet room. I’m not sure how Ivan knew it was vacant, but we stepped inside, and he closed the door behind us.

I stood there, looked at him, waited, and he ran fingers through his hair as he glanced around the room. My patience was fading, and I want him to tell me what the fuck was going on, but as always, he was silent. I didn’t know what to say.

“You and Niamh are going to get married,” Ivan said. “I’m going to make all the arrangements and within the next month, you’ll be married. You don’t need to go back to Pickle Quest. You can return to your section and continue as normal.”

“Is that it?” I asked. “You expect me and Niamh to work this shit out? I lied to her.”

“And I’ve already started to mend the pain, but there is only so much I can do. It is now up to you.”

“For fuck’s sake, Ivan, what is going on? Tell me what you know about her. Tell me why this is important to you!”

I didn’t like feeling out of the loop and all I got for my rant was Ivan smiling. “I guess The Butcher has been whispering in your ear.”

“She has a point,” I said, gritting my teeth. I didn’t like it being insinuated that I was being manipulated. Anything else, I wouldn’t even question, but there was no getting away from the truth. “Why didn’t Finn kill Niamh?”

I didn’t even want to think about anything bad happening to Niamh. She didn’t deserve to die. She was a kind woman, caring, considerate, sweet, and I didn’t want to think of her as dying or dead.

“She’s his daughter?” Ivan asked.

“You and I both know a man that treats his daughter like that is no man at all. Damn it, Ivan, tell me, or is this going to hurt her? The truth is, you’re giving me a wife, and you’re going to let her die on me.”

Ivan stared at me, and slowly I saw the monster appear before my eyes. It was strange, because there were no changes. It wasn’t like he suddenly became a big scary monster. It was in the eyes.

“Niamh was never supposed to lose her child. I’m a lot of things, but I will not allow children to be used as pawns. I didn’t think Finn Byrne would come for his daughter.”

“Then tell me why he did,” I said.

None of this was making any sense.

Ivan glanced around the room. “The Byrne name has a long line of strong men and strong women. Finn, himself, and Niamh’s grandmother were direct descendants of the Byrne name.”

I hadn’t followed the name or family tradition. As far as I knew, Finn was the only living descendant of the family line. It was why they were so hell-bent on having a son, which was why we had his son.

“It would seem Finn’s mother was called Niamh Byrne, and she didn’t like the bastard her son had become. As it happens, before she died, she decided to go and see all of Finn’s children, boys and girls. She happened to stumble onto a young girl, little Niamh, who was probably about five at this point. From what my sources tell me, Niamh’s grandmother didn’t even approach as such. She approached as an older lady, intent on seeing the truth of her grandchildren.”

I didn’t know why Ivan was telling me this as if it was some kind of bedtime story.

“As you can imagine, kids can be kids, and that means they can be cruel. Niamh Sr., was seeing that this evilness within her family line was in her son, as it was in his sons and daughters, and then one day, she happened by a small apartment complex, where little Niamh Byrne was outside, playing with her dolls. Or what she could call dolls, whatever the fuck Niamh was playing with. Probably daisies in the grass. I don’t know. Either way, on that day, Grandmother saw something in Granddaughter that made her change her will.”

---