Page 7 of Desperate Measures

It didn’t mean I didn’t love them or the rest of my family.

But deep down, I wanted more than just the role I’d been given.

The dutiful daughter.

The one who had everything handed to her.

It was like everyone else saw me as the perfect picture, the one who had it all together, who didn’t need anything.

The truth was, I was scared to admit how much I was suffocating under the weight of that image.

But here I was, feeling small, invisible in a world where I was supposed to shine.

I felt like I was drowning in my own mediocrity—standing on the sidelines of my own life, watching everyone else move forward while I remained unnoticed.

The harder I tried to bury that bad feeling, the more it threatened to consume me.

I wanted to go tonight to try to fit in with the grownups, because I knew I didn’t fit in with the kids. Not anymore.

I was stuck in that in between place, and it sucked ass. I wasn’t sure where to go, what to do, or how to even begin finding what I needed to feel like I was really real.

The worst part? It wasn’t just the suffocating weight of the pressure or the expectations—it was the quiet, gnawing feeling that nobody saw me for me.

No one ever had. Not really.

And that realization was one I couldn’t escape.

It was always “set a good example, Michaela,” or “watch your cousins and your sister, Michaela.” But I wanted more than that.

I wanted a seat at the adult table.

I wanted to be taken seriously.

I wanted someone to see me.

I wished that someone was Liam. But I’d been sent back inside to watch movies with the rest of my cousins and my little sister because all they would ever see when they looked at me was a kid.

When was it going to be my turn?

Chapter 1-Liam

Two months ago.

“Why the fuck should I, Maggie?” I snorted.

What the fuck am I doing here?

I was in some judge’s house my sister had in her pocket at ten o’clock on a Wednesday night. New York wasn’t my hometown, but it was where I lived now.

Only, it’d been about a month since I set foot on U.S. soil. I just wanted a stiff drink and my bed, in that order.

But there I was, wondering what the fuck was going on? My redheaded sister looked at me with eyes cold as a shark’s. Maggie was only five years older than me, but she acted like she was my mother sometimes.

Not that I remembered a thing about the woman who bore me. Drugs and alcoholism ended that life far too early for that. Or maybe it was just living with my dearly departed bastard of a father that had finished her.

Regardless, I was here now. Waiting for the head of the O’Doyle family to tell me what the fuck she wanted,

Maggie looked thin. Too thin. The weight of the crown she wore had done something to her over the years. It made her hard.