Page 32 of Shattered Empire (Shattered World)

It didn’t pass my notice that my childhood home was in O’Malley territory. I doubted it was a coincidence, either. My mother knew where we needed to go. Not that it had helped much.

“I wasn’t the leader at the time,” Sully said as we exited the SUVs. “My father was. When Aine mentioned your mother’s name, I immediately recognized it from a file my father had stashed away in his desk. I thought it odd when I found it a few years after I took his place. Not that there was a file, but that it had been hidden in a false bottom of a locked drawer I never found the key for.

“At the time, I paid little attention to it,” he admitted. “I had a rising mutiny on my hands, and the IRS and FBI were coming down hard on my transport business. But the file gnawed at me.” He stopped to fetch a key from his pocket. It was covered in worn butterflies and flowers, the coating nearly gone from the test of time. “Then I came here.” He handed me the key.

With trembling hands, I took it from him. They key that I once used dozens of times after coming home from school. The porch was worn but maintained, with no sign of rot or disrepair. It was like stepping back in time. The shadows of my past pushed in on me. The cage around my heart squeezed tightly, my chest heaving as the memories of that fateful day resurfaced. A tsunami of emotion swept up, bubbling to the surface, disturbing the calm waters of my soul.

“We laid out each piece of evidence where it was found,” Aine whispered gently from beside me. “The crime scene photos weren’t tainted. Maybe something will help jog your memory.”

The muscles in my neck tightened as I gritted my teeth against the painful sweep of despair flooding over me. The walls I’d built over time were crumbling, and grief threatened to overwhelm it. I thought about my mother’s death every day for years, but I never expected to be back here, confronting my most painful memories in the house where I was the happiest.

A warm hand on my shoulder centered me, dragging me up from the depths of despair. Tears painted my face. I turned the key, the lock disengaging easily, and the door slid open noisily.

The air was slightly musty, and dust settled on every surface. Elias refused to allow me to bring any of my mother’s belongings when he took custody of me. Everything was left behind, except the book I managed to hide beneath my faded, oversized hoodie.

I stepped inside, the cherry wood floor creaking slightly beneath my weight. Everything was exactly as it had been the day I was taken away. From the tipped over bookcase to the blood-splattered walls. My mother put up one hell of a fight that day. Carefully, I treaded through the house with ginger footsteps. Afraid to disturb the past. As if I would somehow change it.

The kitchen had always been the center of this house. My mother often spent hours in here, dreaming up new recipes and teaching me to bake. It was our favorite activity on nights when we both felt restless. She had dreamed of opening her own bakery one day. Dreamed of giving us a life of freedom.

It wasn’t until I discovered her past that I truly understood what she had meant.

I ran my hand along the cool marble of the island, my eyes drifting closed as I let the past overtake the carefully constructed barriers of my soul.

“Do you know the most important ingredient in making cookies?” my mother asked me as I stood on my little stool at one side of the island, flour dusting my face and hands as I worked the gooey dough into balls.

“Love.” My nose scrunched as I smiled at her. She smiled back softly.

“Always love.”

“Who do you love, Mommy?” I asked, placing one of my misshapen balls of dough on the stone cookie sheet. “Do I have a daddy you love?” She reeled back slightly, as if the words I uttered had slapped her. Sadness was etched in every line of her face, and her eyes swam with a pain so deep it made me want to cry.

“You do have a daddy I love.” Her voice was hoarse, full of regret. “Very much.”

“Can I meet him?” The thought of meeting my daddy sent a thrill of excitement through me. Timmy and Mary had a daddy and a mommy who took them camping and tucked them in to bed. They both looked happy. Maybe Mommy would be happy if I had a daddy here.

“Maybe one day,moy a chroí.”

I preened at the Irish nickname. My heart. I had a daddy somewhere. Someone Mommy loved. Where was he?

Tears welled in my father’s eyes as I walked him through the house, recounting memory after memory as best as I could. Over time, Elias had conditioned me to forget these memories. They became tainted with the blow of a hand or the crack of a whip. Even now, as I conjured them to the forefront of my mind, hoping to give my father a glimpse into our lives before her murder, the phantom pain swept over my skin.

“We had hidden areas all over the house,” I whispered as I opened a small hatch at the end of one of the cupboards. Just big enough to fit my eleven-year-old frame. “She never told me why, just that when the time came, she would utter our safe word, and I was to find the nearest one.”

“What was your safe word?” my father asked quietly.

“Mo réalta,” I murmured.

“My star.” It came out choked, hoarse, and full of pain. “I used to call her that all the time. My beautiful star.”

“Where were you that night?” Sully asked, his voice soft, as not to disturb the quiet contemplation that settled over the room. “We didn’t find any evidence of a child living here.”

My laugh was small and breathy. “You’d never find it if you didn’t know where to look.”

I led them up the staircase at the front of the house, my fingers trailing up the dark cherry wood of the railing, the steps creaking under my weight as I ascended to the last place I’d seen my mother alive.

“You cheated.” My eyes narrowed at my mother, a pout forming on my lips. “You win every time.”

My mother smiled. It was soft and comforting, but there was a hint of mischief behind the emerald green that caused the gold tint in her eyes to light up. They looked otherworldly against her porcelain freckled skin and fiery red hair.

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