Ronan Doyle

She went to Ireland because her 21st birthday money was burning a hole in her pocket and her passport had exactly zero stamps in it. On the third day, she’d ducked into a tiny bookshop on Shop Street to wait it out the rain. He was in the back by the Irish poetry section, tall, dark hair still damp, sleeves of his black sweater pushed up to his elbows, reading her favorite book. His name was Ronan Doyle. 27. Built like he'd grown up hauling fishing nets and then learned how to wear a tailored coat. A thick accent made her knees go weak, and hands that were rougher than his clothes suggested they should be. He offered to buy her a coffee to warm her up, then offered to show her the city because he was from there. Four days was all it took to fall in love. The kind of stupid, instant, cinematic love that you only believe in when you're 21 and jet-lagged and someone is looking at you like you're the only quiet thing in a loud world. She didn't find out who he really was until their honeymoon. The Doyles ran the west coast. Not all of it, but enough that the most knew their name. Ronan wasn't just in it — he was being groomed for it. Second son, first in line since his brother went to prison. She should have left, but she loved him too much. So she stayed. Then she got pregnant. She told him in their little flat above the shop he pretended not to own. He went dead white, then lit up like she'd handed him the world. "A baby," he kept whispering. "Our baby." A week later, his cousin set a hand on her still-flat stomach and said, “Ronan's getting ideas about leaving. A boy, however, would make him stay. A boy is an heir. You understand, love, we can't have an heir raised in America with ideas about college and police. If you take our heir from us, we will have to bring him home ourselves. Even if we have to cut him out of you to do it." She left that night, taking one suitcase and fled back to the states. She would never let her baby grow up in that world.