Page 21 of Vengeful Secret

“You can’t sleep, can you?”

He knows me all too well.

I take a breath. “No, I really can’t. It’s just... Da, you know? I can’t help thinking about how strange all of this is, how I’m the one you’re calling boss.”

“Aw, Gray, I’m sorry, it just... it’s like habit, you know?”

“I know.”

He doesn’t mean any harm by it, and he doesn’t think my father is any less the boss than he did before. It doesn’t mean he thinks I’ve taken over completely, it’s just an easy way to show respect.

But it’s weird, coming from Thomas O’Malley, the boy I’d played racquetball with all during high school. Hell, he’d cried on my shoulder when his first girlfriend cheated on him with the head of the football team, and he’d laughed so hard when I keyed said football star’s car that he’d nearly pissed himself.

I’m not his boss, and I don’t want to be.

I’m used to feeling in control, and with everything that’s happened recently to my family and now this with Sutton, I feel helpless. Useless. I haven’t been able to prevent any of it, and with Sutton, I’d even stupidly gotten involved where I didn’t have to.

Feeling helpless is the worst feeling in the world to me, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I’d like to say it was making me feelbetter to talk to Thomas, but really, I’m feeling just as gutted as I did before.

“How’s he doing, your da?”

“Fine. Better every day.”

I’ve said that same phrase a hundred times over the last few weeks.

It’s true, Da's cardiac rehab is going great, and he’s been able to move back into the house, but he’s still a shell of his former self. He’s in a hospital bed with a heart monitor and an IV. It’s not like he can even stand up.

Marisol has taken over taking care of him because Da refuses to deal with a nurse every day.

“It has to be hard, seeing your Da like that.”

“He’s not helpless.” But I know better. He’s just as helpless as I am, if not more so because he’s vulnerable to attack.

But even if Thomas O’Malley is my best friend, I can’t admit that to him. He’s still part of the Burke clan, and I can’t even reveal to our own men how bad things are. As far as they know, I’m acting boss only for a couple more weeks.

“No, of course not,” Thomas says quickly, as if he may anger me. And maybe, any other day, when I’m not emotionally and physically exhausted, it might have angered me. As it stands right now, though, I don’t think anything can make me mad.

Most of what I’m feeling is tired. Tired and hurt, and it’s Sutton along with everything else.

Nothing seems real these days, nothing seems solid, and if there was one thing I could count on before, it was that the Burke family was solid.

Right now, we feel fractured, and I hate that feeling more than even feeling helpless, I think.

After what happened with Da and then right after, Paige’s kidnapping and rescue, we’ve all been reeling.

Murphy’s doing a number on our family, and I can’t help but think it all stems from Declan’s marriage to Murphy’s daughter, Bree.

It’s not like I blame Declan, though. I can’t blame anyone for falling in love. God knows I lost my head when I fell in love with Sutton five years ago.

I find myself wishing I’d been able to talk to Declan more, been able to open up, but he has his own responsibilities now. He has his own family, apart from us, and it feels like everything is slipping away. Declan, Kael, Paige...

Maybe I’m bitter because I once wanted that with Sutton. Maybe I’m bitter because I still do and tonight proves that.

And she was so close, in my arms. I was inside her, but she still seems so far away.

She rejected me, told me in no uncertain terms that she’s no longer interested in what I have to offer.

And what do I have to offer, anyway? A life of uncertainty? A relationship in which I can’t even announce that we’re together because she'll be a target?

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