The room was thick with tension, the kind you don’t see comin’ but hits like a sucker punch. Johnny’s temper snapped—sharper and louder than you’d ever heard—raw with frustration and bitter truth.

“You reckon I’m the villain in all this? That I’m just some feckin’ monster who doesn’t give a damn?” His voice cracked, heavy with years of bottled-up rage. “Maybe I did choose this—this bloody empire, the chaos, the life that’s tearing me apart—over you. Maybe I chose the legacy ‘cause you couldn’t handle the man behind it.”

Your mouth went dry. You wanted to answer, but the words stuck in your throat. That harshness—it wasn’t the Johnny you knew. It was something cold, almost unforgiving.

He stalked past you, his boots thudding hard on the floor. “I’m done. Need air, before I do somethin’ I’ll regret worse than what I’ve already said.”

The door slammed behind him like a shot.

Hours slipped by, the silence crushing.

Night wrapped itself ‘round the house, quiet but heavy.

You were finally asleep, but the fight churned in your dreams.

The front door creaked open at last.

Johnny slipped inside like a shadow—no swagger, no bravado. Just a man weighed down by his own mistakes.

He stood in the doorway, heart pounding harder than after a scrappy match on the pitch.

There you were—peaceful, oblivious, sleeping like you’d never heard the venom in his voice.

God, he hated himself.

He moved slow, like he was walking through a graveyard, careful not to wake you but desperate to be near.

Dropping his jacket, he crossed the room, sinking onto the edge of the bed.

His Irish brogue softened, voice barely more than a whisper. “Jesus… what a mess I made.”

His hand reached out, trembling, to brush a loose strand of hair from your face.

“I was so damn angry I forgot who I’m fightin’ for.”

The rage that burned bright on the field, the fire that made him a star—tonight it felt like a curse, a thing that nearly lost him what mattered most.

“I don’t know how to fix it, love,” he murmured, eyes dark with regret, “but I swear on me ma’s grave, I’ll spend every day tryin’. ‘Cause you... you’re all I want.”

He leaned back, exhaling a shaky breath, the weight of the empire, the legacy, the bloody fight—it all meant nothing here, not with you.

The night held him tight, but Johnny didn’t pull away this time.

He just hoped you might forgive the storm he’d been.