Chapter 2 - The Silent Audience
Ronan Gallagher swept into the kitchen like a storm, his dark wool coat damp with rain, a drawn pistol in hand, followed by a dozen armed enforcers. What he expected to find was a helpless wife held at gunpoint; what he found was four bruised, disarmed men sprawled across the stone floor, while I sat trembling softly in a wooden chair, holding an unlit candle as if paralyzed by shock. "Marin!" Ronan dropped to his knees beside me, his hands checking me for injuries with a desperate, fierce urgency that made my heart ache. His enforcers quickly secured the intruders, but the lead intruder kept his eyes locked on me, his mouth opening to blurt out the truth. Before he could speak, I caught his gaze with a fleeting, icy glare that promised absolute annihilation, making him choke back the name Thimble. Ronan was beside himself with confusion, demanding to know how four professional mercenaries had been subdued. I pointed meekly toward the cellar door, claiming that the estate's retired head guard had intervened before slipping away into the storm. Ronan, desperately relieved and fiercely protective, pulled me into his arms, swearing to burn down whoever had dared breach our home. But as he led me upstairs to our private suite, I knew the clock was ticking: the confirmation hearing was only weeks away, the traitor inside the Gallagher syndicate had taken their first shot, and my buried past was officially clawing its way back to the light.
