PART 2 I Caught My Boyfriend Cheating… Then ...

PART 2 I Caught My Boyfriend Cheating… Then I Married His Mafia Boss Father

PART 2

“What happened?” Ronan asked.

The whiskey in my blood urged me toward a dramatic answer. Something sharp and memorable. Something that would make the entire room turn and admire how beautifully I had been wronged.

Instead, I looked down at the amber liquid trembling in my glass.

“Your son happened.”

Ronan’s gaze moved to Jade.

She crossed her arms. “Finn was in bed with another woman.”

A faint stillness settled over Ronan’s face.

“Who?”

I laughed, though there was nothing funny in it. “You don’t want to know.”

“I asked because I do.”

“Meredith Shaw.”

The tall man behind him stopped pretending not to listen.

Ronan did not blink. He did not swear or demand clarification. He simply looked at me for a long moment, as though the answer had confirmed something he had hoped was not true.

Then he turned to the man beside him.

“Declan, have the upstairs room cleared.”

Declan gave a brief nod and walked away.

Jade leaned closer to me. “We don’t have to go anywhere with him.”

“I’m not kidnapping either of you,” Ronan said.

“I didn’t say you were.”

“You were thinking it loudly.”

For the first time, Jade looked uncertain whether to be offended or impressed.

Ronan’s attention returned to me. “You need water, food, and somewhere quieter than this. After that, you can leave through the front door, the side door, or a window if it makes you feel more independent.”

“I don’t think I can climb through a window.”

“That is why I listed it last.”

Something dangerously close to a smile touched his mouth.

It disappeared so quickly I might have imagined it.

The upstairs room turned out to be a private dining space overlooking the main bar through smoked glass. It had a long walnut table, six leather chairs, and a small fireplace that gave off more atmosphere than heat. Someone brought water, coffee, bread, and a plate of roasted potatoes without being asked.

Ronan sat across from me. Jade remained at my side, one hand resting near my elbow like she expected me to slide out of my chair.

Declan stood by the door.

“You can sit,” I told him.

“I’m comfortable.”

“You don’t look comfortable.”

“That’s just his face,” Ronan said.

Declan’s expression did not change. “I’ve been told.”

Jade hid a smile behind her glass of water.

My phone began vibrating against the table.

Finn.

His name filled the screen, vanished, and appeared again.

I turned the phone facedown.

Ronan’s eyes followed the motion, but he did not tell me to answer. He did not reach for it or ask to see the messages. That small restraint made me notice how many other men would have done exactly that.

“When did you arrive at Finn’s apartment?” he asked.

I frowned. “Why?”

“What time?”

“A little after nine.”

“And Meredith saw you?”

“She was in his bed. I assume her vision was working.”

“What did you bring with you?”

Jade looked at him sharply. “What kind of question is that?”

“A specific one.”

I pushed the plate away. “Fresh pasta. Vodka sauce. A key.”

Ronan leaned back slightly. “A key to the apartment?”

“Finn had one made for me.”

“When?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“Did Meredith see it?”

“I don’t know. It was in my purse.”

His gaze lowered to the black leather bag hanging from the back of my chair.

A pulse of unease broke through the whiskey haze.

“Why do you care about the key?”

Ronan was silent for a moment.

“Because Meredith resigned from Callahan Development this morning.”

I stared at him.

“What?”

“She sent a resignation email at six twelve. Effective immediately. She also failed to return a company laptop and several physical files from our acquisitions division.”

Jade’s expression hardened. “Are you saying she slept with Finn to steal company documents?”

“I am saying I don’t know why she was there.”

“She was there because your son is an unfaithful idiot,” I said. “Not everything is a conspiracy.”

“No,” Ronan agreed. “Most things are disappointing for very ordinary reasons.”

There was no defensiveness in his voice. No attempt to excuse Finn by making Meredith’s presence part of some larger plan.

He folded his hands on the table.

“Finn had access to information Meredith wanted. That does not erase what he did to you. It may explain why she chose tonight.”

The fire clicked softly behind him.

I tried to picture the bedroom again, but the details had begun rearranging themselves. Meredith’s startled face. Finn reaching for the sheet. A dark jacket hanging over the chair. Her shoes placed neatly beside the bed, as if she had planned to stay.

“What files?” Jade asked.

“Property records. Old financial reports. Documents from projects completed before Finn joined the company.”

“Why would he have those?”

“He shouldn’t.”

My phone vibrated again.

This time a message appeared beneath Finn’s name.

Please let me explain.

A second followed.

Meredith isn’t what you think.

I let out a breath that shook on the way up.

“They always say that,” I murmured.

Ronan’s eyes darkened. “Sometimes the sentence is true. It is rarely useful.”

I turned the phone off.

For the next half hour, Ronan asked nothing else about Meredith. He made sure I ate two potatoes and half a slice of bread. He told Jade that his driver would take us anywhere we wanted, and when she said she trusted her own car more than his, he accepted it without argument.

By the time we left, the alcohol had settled into a heavy exhaustion behind my eyes.

At the bottom of the stairs, Ronan placed his hand lightly against my arm.

Not possessive. Not intimate.

Just enough to stop me.

“Do not go back to Finn’s apartment alone.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

“If he has anything belonging to you, send someone else.”

“I can handle Finn.”

“I’m sure you can.”

His voice softened.

“That doesn’t mean you should have to.”

For one strange second, the bar seemed to fall silent around us.

Then Jade called my name from the doorway, and the moment broke.

Outside, the wind had sharpened. Ronan stood beneath the awning while Declan pulled a black sedan toward the curb.

“You don’t have to watch us leave,” I said.

“I know.”

“Then why are you?”

“Because you have had enough people fail to pay attention tonight.”

I looked at him, uncertain what to do with an answer like that.

So I got into Jade’s car without replying.

During the drive to my apartment, she glanced at me every few blocks.

Finally, she said, “I know you’re emotionally compromised, but I need confirmation that you understand Ronan Callahan is dangerous.”

“People say he’s dangerous.”

“People also say winter in Chicago is cold. That doesn’t make it gossip.”

I rested my forehead against the window.

“He gave me potatoes.”

“Yes. That is how the truly terrifying ones operate.”

Despite everything, I laughed.

The sound hurt, but not enough to stop me.

My apartment was above a florist in Lakeview, three rooms with crooked floors and radiators that hissed like they had personal grievances. I had lived there since culinary school. It was too small for parties and too expensive for its plumbing, but it was mine.

The door was closed when we reached the top of the stairs.

It was not locked.

Jade caught my wrist before I could touch the handle.

“Did you leave it like that?”

“No.”

She pulled me behind her and took out her phone.

“I’m calling the police.”

I should have agreed immediately. Instead, I stared at the narrow strip of darkness beyond the door.

Nothing moved inside.

No footsteps. No voices.

Only the faint ticking of the kitchen clock.

The police arrived twelve minutes later. Two officers searched the apartment while Jade and I waited in the hallway. No one was inside. Nothing obvious had been taken. My television remained on its stand. My laptop was still on the desk. The emergency cash in the ceramic flour jar had not been touched.

But someone had opened every kitchen cabinet.

Recipe books lay across the floor. Old boxes had been pulled from the top shelf. The drawer beneath the oven hung open, its contents scattered across the tile.

In my bedroom, the wooden chest that held my father’s belongings had been unlocked.

The lid stood open.

I knelt beside it while one of the officers asked whether anything was missing.

At first, I thought the answer was no.

My father’s watch was there. His college ring. Three letters he had written to my mother before they were married. The faded photograph of him holding me at Navy Pier when I was five.

Then I saw the empty space beneath the letters.

“My notebook,” I said.

Jade crouched beside me. “Which notebook?”

“My father’s.”

He had owned dozens, but the one in the chest was different. Brown leather, stained along the edges, filled with recipes he had collected during the last years of his life. He was not much of a cook, but he loved writing things down—ingredients from restaurants, meals he wanted to try, notes about how my mother made soup.

After he died, I had kept it because his handwriting made him feel close.

The officer asked me to describe it.

I did.

He wrote everything down, though his expression told me he considered the missing notebook more sentimental than valuable.

Maybe he was right.

Still, as I looked at the open chest, I remembered Ronan’s questions.

What did you bring with you?

Did Meredith see the key?

A coldness moved through me that had nothing to do with the October air.

I called him.

He answered before the second ring.

“Lara?”

The sound of my name in his voice made my throat tighten.

“Someone was in my apartment.”

Silence.

Not surprise.

Silence.

“What was taken?”

“My father’s notebook.”

“What kind of notebook?”

“Recipes, mostly. Notes. Family things.”

“Is anything else missing?”

“No.”

“Are the police there?”

“Yes.”

“Stay with them.”

“Ronan—”

“I’m coming.”

He ended the call.

Jade stared at me.

“What?”

“You called him before you called Finn.”

“Finn is the reason I was drinking.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

I knew.

I pretended not to.

Ronan arrived ten minutes later, still wearing the black jacket from the bar. Declan followed him up the stairs carrying a tablet and looking even less amused than usual.

One of the officers recognized Ronan.

The shift in the room was immediate but subtle. Backs straightened. Questions became more formal. Ronan did not use his name to dismiss them or take control. He listened, gave his contact information, and asked whether the building had cameras.

The florist downstairs had one facing the back entrance. Declan went to retrieve the recording.

Ronan found me sitting at the kitchen table with a blanket around my shoulders.

He pulled out the chair opposite mine.

“Tell me about your father.”

The request caught me off guard.

“Why?”

“Because someone ignored everything in this apartment with obvious financial value and took something that belonged to him.”

I traced the rim of the untouched coffee Jade had made.

“His name was Thomas Vale. He was an accountant.”

Ronan’s expression changed.

It was small. A tightening around the eyes. A pause too long to be accidental.

“You knew him.”

It was not a question.

Ronan looked toward the officers in the next room.

“Yes.”

The single word opened something beneath my feet.

“How?”

“He worked for my father.”

“My father never worked for the Callahans.”

“He did not talk about every client.”

“He told my mother everything.”

“Not everything.”

Anger cut through my exhaustion.

“You don’t get to sit in my kitchen and turn my father into another one of your secrets.”

Ronan accepted the words without flinching.

“No,” he said quietly. “I don’t.”

“Then tell me the truth.”

“He reviewed the financial records of several Callahan projects nineteen years ago. My father suspected money was being moved through subcontractors. Thomas found evidence that he was right.”

I stared at him.

“My father handled taxes for small businesses.”

“After he left us.”

“He never mentioned your family.”

“He had reasons.”

“What reasons?”

Ronan’s jaw tightened.

“Someone inside the company learned he was asking questions. Thomas became concerned about what might happen if he continued. My father offered protection. Thomas refused it and walked away.”

I stood so quickly the chair scraped against the floor.

“My father died in a car accident.”

“I know.”

The room seemed to contract.

Ronan rose, but he did not move closer.

“The accident happened six years after he stopped working for us,” he said. “There was no evidence connecting it to Callahan Development.”

“No evidence?”

“I looked.”

“Why?”

“Because I owed him that much.”

My hands had begun shaking again.

Jade appeared in the doorway. “Lara?”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

She came to my side.

Ronan remained across the table, a dark, immovable shape beneath the kitchen light.

“Did Finn know?” I asked.

“Know what?”

“Who my father was.”

Ronan hesitated.

That hesitation frightened me more than any answer.

“I don’t believe so.”

“That isn’t a no.”

“I never told him.”

“But he could have found out.”

“Yes.”

I pressed my palms to the edge of the table.

Two years earlier, I had met Finn at a charity event where my catering company had provided desserts. He had complimented the pear tarts, asked for my number, and returned the next morning claiming he needed another dozen for a meeting.

I had thought it was charming.

Now every detail felt rehearsed.

Declan entered with the tablet.

“The florist’s camera caught someone using the back stairs at eight forty-seven,” he said.

“Can you see the face?” Ronan asked.

“Hat and glasses. Female, judging by height and build.”

He placed the tablet on the table.

The footage was grainy and colorless. A woman in a long coat moved through the alley with her head lowered. She carried nothing when she entered.

When she left twenty-three minutes later, a rectangular object was tucked beneath her arm.

My father’s notebook.

“Is that Meredith?” Jade asked.

“I can’t confirm it,” Declan said.

I watched the clip again.

Something about the woman’s walk felt familiar. Controlled. Precise. Her right shoulder dipped slightly with each step.

I remembered Meredith crossing a ballroom at the Callahan holiday party, a champagne glass balanced in her hand.

“It’s her,” I whispered.

Ronan looked at me.

“You’re sure?”

“No.”

I hated the uncertainty in my own voice.

“But I think it is.”

The police took a copy of the recording. They advised me to stay somewhere else for the night and promised to follow up in the morning.

Jade offered her couch.

Ronan offered nothing.

I noticed that.

He waited until the officers had gone, then said, “You should stay with Jade.”

“You think?”

“Yes.”

“Why not put me in one of your guarded mansions?”

“Because you do not know me well enough to sleep under my roof.”

Jade’s eyebrows lifted.

Ronan continued, “And because after tonight, you need choices that remain yours.”

That answer unsettled me in a different way.

While Jade packed a bag for me, I stood alone in the kitchen. The broken order of the room made it feel like a place someone else had lived in.

Ronan joined me.

“I am sorry,” he said.

“For which part?”

“All of it.”

I turned toward him. “You didn’t cheat on me.”

“No.”

“You didn’t break into my apartment.”

“No.”

“Then stop apologizing for your son.”

“I wasn’t.”

The quiet certainty in his voice made me look up.

He met my eyes.

“I was apologizing because your father’s past reached your door, and I knew enough to understand the danger without knowing enough to prevent it.”

Outside, a train groaned along the elevated tracks.

“Was my father afraid of you?” I asked.

Ronan looked toward the scattered recipe books on the floor.

“At first.”

“And later?”

“Later, he trusted me.”

“Should he have?”

A long pause followed.

“Yes.”

It was not arrogance. It sounded more like grief.

Before he left, Ronan wrote a phone number on the back of a florist’s receipt.

“This reaches me directly.”

“I already have your number.”

“That reaches the phone I use for people who want buildings, donations, and favors.”

“And this one?”

“This is for people I answer.”

I should have handed it back.

Instead, I folded the receipt and put it in my purse.

The next morning, Finn arrived at Jade’s apartment carrying flowers.

Of course he brought flowers.

White roses, arranged in brown paper, as though betrayal became tasteful when presented by a florist.

Jade opened the door, saw him, and immediately tried to close it again.

Finn caught it with his hand.

“Please. I need five minutes.”

“You had two years,” she said.

“Jade.”

“No.”

I stepped into the hallway behind her.

Finn looked terrible. His hair was uncombed, his shirt wrinkled, his face pale from a sleepless night.

Once, seeing him like that would have triggered every tender instinct I possessed.

Now I felt only the dull ache of remembering that person.

“Five minutes,” I said.

Jade turned to me. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

She pointed at Finn. “I’m standing on the other side of this door with a cast-iron pan.”

“I believe you,” he said.

“You should.”

She let us into the living room and disappeared toward the kitchen without actually going far enough to stop listening.

Finn placed the roses on a side table.

“I made a mistake.”

“A mistake is putting salt in coffee.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

His eyes dropped.

“It had been going on for three weeks.”

I had not asked.

The answer hurt anyway.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“That is such a lazy thing to say.”

“I was angry. Confused.”

“At me?”

“At my father. The company. Everything.”

“And Meredith happened to be nearby?”

“She understood what it was like to work for him.”

I almost laughed.

“Your father gave me potatoes last night. I’m finding it difficult to picture him as the cause of every bad decision in Chicago.”

Finn’s head snapped up. “You were with him?”

“He came to the bar.”

“And you went somewhere with him?”

The jealousy in his voice was so immediate, so absurd, that something inside me finally hardened.

“You don’t get to ask me that.”

“Lara, you don’t know what he is.”

“I know what you are.”

He recoiled.

For one second, I regretted the words.

Then I remembered the white sheets.

Finn walked to the window, dragging a hand over his face.

“Meredith was looking for something.”

“My father’s notebook?”

He turned around.

The shock on his face was genuine.

“What?”

“Someone broke into my apartment and stole it.”

“When?”

“While I was discovering your creative approach to commitment.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Did Meredith ever ask about my father?”

“No.”

“Did you?”

His silence answered before he did.

“Lara—”

“Did you know Thomas Vale worked for your family?”

“I found his name in an old file.”

The room went very still.

“When?”

“Last year.”

“And you never told me?”

“I didn’t think it mattered.”

“You found my dead father’s name in a Callahan file and decided it did not matter?”

“It was an expense report from nineteen years ago. His signature was on it. That was all.”

“Why were you looking at records from nineteen years ago?”

Finn glanced toward the kitchen.

Jade had stopped pretending to make noise.

“My father asked me to organize archived project files.”

“Ronan said you weren’t supposed to have them.”

His expression changed.

Only slightly.

But I saw it.

“What else are you not telling me?”

“Nothing.”

“Finn.”

“Meredith said there were irregularities in some of the old projects. She thought my father had hidden money.”

“And you believed her?”

“She showed me documents.”

“So you gave her access.”

“I was trying to understand what was happening.”

“In bed?”

His face reddened.

“That wasn’t part of it.”

“No. That was just your personal contribution.”

He took a step toward me.

I stepped back.

The movement stopped him more effectively than any shouted accusation could have.

His voice dropped.

“I loved you.”

I looked at the man I had planned to surprise with homemade pasta.

Maybe he believed what he had said. Maybe some people thought love was proven by intensity rather than care, by how desperately they wanted to keep someone after failing to value them.

“I loved you too,” I said. “That is why this hurts. It is not why I am staying.”

His eyes shone.

“So that’s it?”

“Yes.”

“You won’t even let me explain?”

“You explained enough.”

I opened the door.

Finn stood there for several seconds, looking like he expected the world to rearrange itself around his regret.

It did not.

He left the flowers behind.

Jade threw them away before the elevator reached the ground floor.

Over the next week, my life divided into two separate worlds.

In one, I returned to work.

I ran a small catering kitchen with three employees, one unreliable delivery van, and a waiting list that looked more impressive than my bank account. We prepared a retirement dinner, a baby shower, and an anniversary party for a couple who had been married forty-two years.

I chopped onions. Rolled pastry. Corrected invoices.

I did all the ordinary things required to prove that heartbreak had not stopped time.

In the other world, Ronan called every evening.

Never without reason.

He told me the police had found no fingerprints in my apartment. He confirmed that Meredith’s company credit cards had not been used since her resignation. He asked whether my father had kept a safe-deposit box or rented a storage unit.

Our conversations should have felt like interviews.

Instead, they became something stranger.

He remembered which days I had early deliveries. He learned not to call during dinner service. Once, after hearing a mixer shrieking in the background, he waited three hours and called again.

“You could have left a message,” I told him.

“You would have answered while working.”

“Probably.”

“You already have ten fingers. There is no reason to become ambitious and reduce the number.”

I smiled before I could stop myself.

“You worry in a very bossy way.”

“I do most things in a bossy way.”

“At least you’re self-aware.”

On Friday, he asked me to meet him at Callahan Development.

I nearly refused.

Then he said Declan had found something connected to my father.

The company occupied six floors of a steel-and-glass building overlooking the river. Finn had brought me there twice, both times after hours. I remembered polished hallways, expensive art, and employees who became alert whenever the elevator doors opened.

Ronan’s office was different from what I expected.

It was large but restrained. Dark shelves. Old maps. A scarred wooden desk that looked as if it had survived several generations of arguments.

A photograph stood near the window.

Ronan, much younger, beside a smiling woman with auburn hair. Finn stood between them at perhaps ten years old, holding a baseball glove.

“My wife,” Ronan said when he noticed me looking.

“She was beautiful.”

“Yes.”

There was an entire history inside that answer.

“How long has she been gone?”

“Eleven years.”

“I’m sorry.”

He inclined his head.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

It was the first time I understood that Ronan’s control was not the absence of feeling. It was what remained after years of carrying feelings too privately.

He gestured toward the desk.

A photograph lay in the center.

My father stood outside an unfinished building beside three men in suits. One was Ronan. Younger, leaner, but unmistakable.

On the back, my father had written a date.

Beneath it were four words.

Ask Ronan about Harbor.

“What is Harbor?” I asked.

“A project that never existed.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“It was a name your father used for the financial records he collected. He believed someone was diverting money from construction budgets into private accounts.”

“Who?”

“He never told me.”

“Why not?”

“Because he did not yet have proof.”

Ronan opened a folder.

Inside were copies of expense reports, bank statements, and handwritten notes. My father’s writing appeared in the margins.

Numbers circled in blue ink.

Dates connected by arrows.

“He gave these to you?”

“Only copies. He kept the originals.”

“In the notebook.”

“That is my assumption.”

I sat down slowly.

“So Meredith stole it because she knows what Harbor means.”

“Possibly.”

“And Finn helped her.”

“We do not know that.”

“He gave her files.”

“That was reckless. It does not prove he knew she intended to enter your apartment.”

“You’re defending him.”

“No.”

Ronan sat across from me.

“I am separating what I know from what I fear. It is a habit that has kept me from making certain mistakes.”

“And caused others?”

His gaze held mine.

“Yes.”

There was no anger in the answer.

I looked back at the photograph.

“My father trusted you.”

“He did.”

“Then why didn’t he give you the originals?”

“Because trust is not the same as surrender.”

Something in me eased.

It was the right answer.

Not the comforting one. The honest one.

“Did you ever find out who was stealing?”

“No. The transfers stopped after Thomas left.”

“And now Meredith starts searching through old files.”

“Yes.”

“Why now?”

“That is what concerns me.”

A knock sounded at the door.

Declan entered carrying a thin envelope.

“This arrived downstairs for Ms. Vale.”

“No return address,” Ronan observed.

“It was delivered by courier. Paid in cash.”

Declan handed it to me.

My name was typed across the front.

Inside was a single sheet of paper.

No greeting.

No signature.

Only an address and a sentence.

Your father left more than recipes.

Beneath the words was a date.

The following afternoon.

Ronan read it over my shoulder.

“You’re not going.”

I looked at him. “That sounded like an order.”

“It was.”

“You were doing well until now.”

“Lara.”

“I’m not hiding while someone else decides what I’m allowed to know about my father.”

“This may be designed to draw you out.”

“Then we make sure I’m not alone.”

His expression hardened.

“No.”

“You don’t get to decide.”

“I am aware of that.”

“Are you?”

He walked to the window, stared down at the river, and released a controlled breath.

When he turned back, some of the command had left his posture.

“What are you proposing?”

“I go to the address. You stay nearby. Declan can bring half of Chicago if that helps you sleep.”

“It will not.”

“That sounds like a personal problem.”

Declan studied the ceiling.

Ronan looked at me for a long moment.

Then, against all expectation, he laughed.

It was low and brief, but real.

The sound changed his face completely.

“Thomas used to say that,” he said.

“What?”

“That my inability to control every outcome was a personal problem.”

Despite the unease crawling along my skin, I smiled.

“I think I would have liked him.”

“He was infuriating.”

“So am I.”

“I had noticed.”

The address led to a private records facility near the river, a narrow brick building squeezed between a printing company and an architecture studio.

Ronan arrived separately.

At my insistence, he remained across the street with Declan while I entered alone.

Inside, a gray-haired clerk asked for identification. When I gave him my name, he disappeared into the back and returned with a small metal box.

“This was placed in our care eighteen years ago,” he said.

“By whom?”

“Thomas Vale.”

My breath caught.

“He left instructions that it be released to you upon presentation of identification and a numbered key.”

“I don’t have a key.”

The clerk slid a photocopy across the counter.

It showed a small brass key with a round head.

I recognized it.

For two years, it had hung on Finn’s key ring.

He told me it belonged to an old storage locker he never used.

“Has anyone tried to open this box before?” I asked.

The clerk consulted his computer.

“One person presented the correct key nine days ago.”

My mouth went dry.

“Did you give them the box?”

“No. The identification did not match the beneficiary’s name.”

“Who was it?”

“I’m not permitted to release that information.”

I looked through the glass door.

Across the street, Ronan was already moving.

He must have seen something in my face.

The clerk continued, “The individual left when asked to provide additional documentation.”

“Was it a man?”

He hesitated.

“Yes.”

“Finn Callahan?”

The clerk looked down.

He did not answer.

He did not need to.

Outside, Ronan met me on the sidewalk.

“What happened?”

I held out the photocopy of the key.

“I’ve seen this before.”

His eyes moved over the image.

“Where?”

“Finn had it.”

Ronan went completely still.

“He’s had it since before we started dating,” I said. “I noticed it the first time he drove me home.”

Declan took out his phone and stepped away.

Ronan stared at the records building.

“Finn told me he found my father’s name last year.”

“He lied.”

The words were quiet.

Certain.

A moment later, Declan returned.

“The facility keeps exterior security footage for three years,” he said. “They found the recording from the first time someone came asking about Thomas Vale’s box.”

“The first time?” I asked.

Declan’s gaze shifted to Ronan.

“When was it?”

“Two years and three months ago.”

I stopped breathing.

Finn and I had met two years ago.

Declan held out his phone.

The image on the screen showed Finn entering the building with the brass key in his hand.

The date in the corner was six weeks before he walked into my catering event, tasted one of my pear tarts, and asked for my number.

Ronan looked at his son’s face on the screen, then at me.

His voice was gentler than I expected.

“Lara, your relationship with Finn did not begin by accident.”

END OF PART 2 – LIKE, SHARE AND COMMENT “THE ENTIRE STORY” IF YOU WANT TO READ THE FULL STORY