ANMELDENWe came to the lake house in Galway without telling anyone.It wasn't an escape. It wasn't a work trip. It was just... us. For the first time in fourteen years, Declan and I were completely alone. No Claire. No Harvey. No underworld. No threats. No ghosts.The house was small and old, made of dark wood, built right on the edge of the lake. It had a porch that faced the water and a wooden deck where we could sit and hear only the wind and the gentle waves lapping at the shore. Declan bought the place years ago, but almost never came. He said it was a place he kept for when he needed to disappear. I'd never been here before.When we arrived, it was late afternoon. The sky was painted orange and purple. Declan brought in the bags while I opened the windows to let the fresh air in. The smell of pine and lake water filled the house immediately.Neither of us spoke much.We didn't need to.After everything we'd been through—after Richard, after the castle, after the war—words seemed too sma
Maeve started therapy two weeks after we returned to Dublin.She didn't want to go at first. Said she didn't need it. That she'd already survived everything alone for years and would keep going. But I saw the truth in her eyes. Saw the way she looked at Matthew when she thought no one was paying attention. Saw the tremor in her hands when someone spoke loudly near her. Saw the way she closed up every time her father's name was mentioned.I didn't push. I just left the contact of a therapist on the kitchen table one night. A woman Harvey recommended. Someone discreet, who had worked with people from the underworld before. Someone who knew how to keep secrets.Three days later, Maeve picked up the paper."I'll try," she said, not looking at me. "Just to see."I didn't respond. Just nodded.Because I knew that for Maeve, admitting she needed help was already a huge victory.The first session was on a rainy afternoon.I drove her. Matthew stayed with Claire at the house. Maeve was silent
We returned to Dublin almost three weeks ago.The old house in the Highlands no longer exists. Glenfinnan Castle turned to ashes and international news. Richard Ashford is dead. Maeve's father too. The main names in the corruption network were eliminated or are being hunted. The entire Irish underworld is still digesting what happened.And now Declan decided it was time to do something no one expected.He wants to officially make Harvey part of the Callahan family.Publicly.In the underworld.When he first said it, I almost dropped my glass.We were in the kitchen of the house we rented in Dublin. Claire was upstairs, sleeping. The baby moved gently in my belly. Harvey was leaning against the counter, drinking black coffee. Declan walked in, took off his jacket, and spoke directly, as he always does when he's already decided something."I'm going to officially make Harvey part of the family," he said. "Publicly. With witnesses. With the entire underworld watching."Harvey stopped wit
We returned to Dublin on a rainy autumn day.The flight was silent. Declan piloted the private jet he keeps secret. Harvey stayed in the cabin with me, the two of us sitting in armchairs facing each other, not talking much. I looked out the window, watching the clouds pass, my hand resting on my belly. The baby moved from time to time, as if it sensed we were returning to an important place.Claire was safe. Maeve and Matthew too. The war was over. Richard was dead. His empire had turned to ashes and newspaper headlines. But there was still one thing I needed to do. One thing Declan had asked me to do before we tried to build anything new.He wanted to take me to her grave.The real Beatrice.My sister.The woman he buried, thinking it was me.When the plane landed, the rain was light and steady. Dublin looked gray and quiet. We took a car and drove straight to the private cemetery Declan has kept since before everything fell apart. It's a discreet place, surrounded by tall trees, awa
The scandal explodes on a Tuesday morning.I'm sitting on the porch of the house we rented on the outskirts of Boston, drinking tea that's already gone cold. The baby moved twice today. Declan is in the kitchen on the phone with someone from the company. Harvey is upstairs, probably on the computer, as he's been almost every day since we returned from Glenfinnan.It was Harvey who leaked everything.Not all at once. He did it calmly, as always. He chose the right journalists. Chose the right documents. Chose the perfect timing. Three days after Richard died, the first anonymous emails started arriving at media outlets in several countries. Then came the physical packages with evidence. Then the access to accounts and documents no one should have.In less than forty-eight hours, the name Ashford was on every news channel in the world.The first story came out in the New York Times.The headline was direct:"Ashford Empire Built on Corruption, Influence Peddling, and Memory Manipulation
We weren't leaving Boston without closing this last account.After we eliminated Richard's five main accomplices in a single night, the city's air felt lighter. Declan and Harvey wanted to move on. They wanted to go back for Claire and start a new life somewhere far from all of this. But I couldn't.Because there was still one person.Someone who wasn't on the list of the powerful. Someone who didn't receive millions. Someone who wasn't a judge or a senator.He was just a doctor.But he was the one who took me from myself.Dr. Edward Langford.The neurologist who worked with Harvey during those six years. The man who used experimental drugs, hypnosis, and mind-manipulation techniques to erase Evie and build Beatrice. The man who convinced me, day after day, that I was someone else. That my past was a lie. That my feelings were dangerous.He didn't hit me.He didn't handcuff me.He did something worse.He convinced me I never existed.And I wanted him to feel, in his own skin, what it'
I leave the porch still trembling.Not from fear. From anger. From frustration. From a pain I can’t quite name. The conversation with Harvey keeps spinning in my head the entire way to the library. Every time I close my eyes, I see the way he looked away. The way he carefully chose his words. The w
I start to suspect Harvey after discovering the tracker.It isn’t something that happens suddenly. It grows slowly, like a thin crack in glass. At first, it’s almost imperceptible. But the more I think about it, the wider the crack becomes.After we found proof that Richard had installed the tracke
I found the tracker by accident.We were going through the last boxes we brought back from Boston. They contained old documents that Declan had managed to recover from one of his contacts there. Most of them were old papers, bills, receipts, and car maintenance reports that belonged to Richard year
The war had finally reached us.After returning from Boston, we settled into the old house on the outskirts of Dublin. The place was large, isolated, and easier to defend than the mansion in the city. Declan had doubled security. We now had nearly twenty armed men rotating in twelve-hour shifts. Ca







