Page 70 of Dark Succession
She certainly was a woman of unexpected talents. Callie moved to the window and glanced at the sky. They were well on their way to dusk, but it would be a good hour yet before they could make a move. “How did you learn to pick locks?”
“Aiden taught me.” She smiled, though it was a touch bittersweet. “He convinced one of the men to teach him, and he passed it along to Teague and me. Though Teague never quite picked it up. I have a natural skill for it, I guess.” She shook her head. “And a tendency to want to be where I’m not supposed to.”
“It sucks being shut out for your own protection.” She’d dealt with that time and again growing up. Even as young as ten, Ronan was considered mature enough to sit in on meetings with Papa, while she was told to go play with her dolls. She’d resented it then, but that resentment only grew the older she got. Even when she’d stepped up to take over the legitimate side of the business, Papa had done his best to shield her from the uglier sides of what being a Sheridan meant. And then Ronan was gone, between one breath and another, and it was left to her to fill the shoes he’d left behind. She didn’t feel guilty about that early resentment, really, but most days she wished she could go back to being that naive girl who didn’t know any better.
“So-called protection. They blind us and then aresurprised when we’re gunned down because we had no way to keep ourselves safe.” Carrigan looked away, her shoulders bowing in. “That didn’t help Devlin.”
“I’m so sorry.”My fault.God, wouldn’t she ever learn that apologizing after the fact wasn’t worth the words that came out of her mouth? “I know that doesn’t mean much now, but I was trying to make it right by coming here.”
Carrigan snorted. “Is that what you were doing?”
“I killed Brendan.” It shouldn’t get easier to say those words, but they still flowed off her tongue. “This is all my fault.”
The woman turned on the bed to face her fully. “That’s a crock of shit.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re worse than Teague is with playing the martyr.” Carrigan sighed. “No wonder he’s head over heels in love with you.”
She’d known he cared. Of course she’d known he cared. He wouldn’t have acted the way he had, or touched her with such tenderness, if he didn’t care on one level. But that didn’t matter now. “Even if he did before, he won’t now. Not when Devlin was killed because of a war I started.”
“You didn’t kill my brother.”
“I might as well have. They were out for vengeance for Brendan’s death.”
Carrigan rolled onto her stomach and propped her chin on her hands. “I can’t say I’m sorry to hear that you’re the one who put that monster into the ground. My father was considering selling me off to him before your engagement was announced. I would have put a bullet in his brain before I walked down the aisle, too.”
“It wasn’t like that.” She wouldn’t have done it if she had any other choice.
“Who cares? It’s done and the world is a better place for it. Teague knows that, same as I do.”
“But—”
“Boston has been a powder keg waiting to be lit for years. With the patriarchs getting older and the heirs a few short years from taking over, there’s a flux coming. That scares people. If you weren’t the match that set it off, someone else would have been.”
“That’s easy for you to say whenI’mthe one who set it off.”
Carrigan sighed. “How about I put this another way? Do you think for a second that my father, proud asshole that he is, would sit back and let your family and the Hallorans create an alliance through marriage?”
She hadn’t really thought aboutanythingbeyond her panic at the thought of being married to a man known for his mistreatment of helpless women. Callie sank onto the chair and actually thought about it. By all accounts—and she’d seen nothing to disprove it in her direct interactions with the man—Seamus O’Malley was just as prideful and violent as Victor Halloran. Judging by how Halloran was reacting to her and Teague’s marriage, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that Seamus would have done something similar. “We can’t know that for sure.”
“Sure we can. I’m an expert on my father. The insult alone would have him out for blood, and the possibility that your two families would crush ours in the middle? Yeah, he’d come gunning for both of you—and he’d strike first, before you had a chance to.” Carrigan rolled on her back. “Or, take it a step further. Maybe if yourfather had refused the marriage offer,thatwould have made Victor Halloran declare war all on his own.”
“But—”
“Really, there’s more than enough blame to go around. No matter which way you swing it, this started before you pulled the trigger. If Brendan’s death hadn’t been enough to start a war, then something else would have happened andthatwould have been an inciting incident.”
Callie opened her mouth to argue, but stopped. The more she thought about it, the more Carrigan’s argument solidified in her mind. She tried to come up with a scenario that didn’t end in war… and came up short. She frowned. “You’re wasted as a pawn in marriage.”
Carrigan laughed. “Try telling that to my father.”
It was a crying shame for such a calculating mind to be relegated to such an archaic role. Callie might have agreed to an arranged marriage, but it had ultimately been her choice. Carrigan didn’t even have that. “I’m sorry.”
“You have a nasty habit of apologizing for things that you have no control of.”
“That doesn’t make me any less sorry. You deserve better than that.” She didn’t have to like the woman to recognize that. But it put Carrigan’s actions in a completely new light. Callie compared herself to a caged bird when she was feeling melodramatic, but she had a lot of freedom. And, one day, she would run the Sheridan empire.
Carrigan truly was caged. If her father was really forcing her to marry a man of his choice—and Callie had no reason to believe otherwise—then she couldn’t blame the woman for escaping every chance she got. Speakingof… “Where did you go the other night? I mean, I assume something went wrong because you ended up here.” She motioned to the room they were currently locked in.
