Page 57 of The Secrets We Share

I drop a hand to her shoulder and squeeze, letting her know I’m still here, anchoring her. “You seem to know a lot for someone who supposedly just learned he had granddaughters?”

He takes me in for the first time since we entered his office. The gentle gaze he uses with Keira hardens. It’s my first glimpse of the man behind the grandfather title. He’s Patrick Donahue, and his reputation precedes him. He’s the ruthless head who waged war against the mafia and won. He pushed out the Bratva and stopped the Yakuza from gaining a foothold in the city. He’s been king of the boroughs for years, laying claim to anything useful and throwing scraps when needed. It’s no wonder Dom’s desperate to hold something over his head. It's too bad for him; the very pawn he intends to manipulate hates everything about him.

“Harkin, I presume? My men tell me you’re the reason both of my granddaughters aren’t brainwashed by their father.”

Keira snorts before she says, “There’s not a chance in hell I would have given in to his demands to join his fucked up little family. And just so we’re clear, and on the same page, I have zero intention of letting you use me to get back at him either.”

“You’re so much like your mother,” Patrick says, a rough, raspy laughter pulling from his chest.

“You know, I’m getting fucking tired of hearing that from people. How could I be like either of my parents, considering neither was around to raise me.”

“Nature versus nurture. You have her fierceness and stubborn attitude. I can already tell.”

“So, are you just like him? Did you know about the two of us? Did you know your daughter had twins and placed one with a pretentious family in California while the other struggled to make it to eighteen? Did you hate that half our blood came from him, enough to leave me on the streets to starve?”

He lets her hurtful words hang in the air, filling the room with an emotional charge ready to erupt and cause devastation to all of us trapped in the small space

For someone in his later years, he moves stealthily from his seat around the desk in seconds. He drops in the chair to Keira’s left, giving her his entire focus, before he reaches out and grabs her hands to hold in his.

“You may have been wrong about your mother still being alive. But there is more to her story and yours that you should know.”

TWENTY-SIX

KEIRA

Everything’s A Lie - Klergy, LEXICON ect.

Ihave a sinking suspicion this conversation will break the last shred of hope I still have swimming around. It’d already taken an asteroid-sized hit with the news that my mother wasn’t, in fact, still walking around the city. As nervous as I was for the possibility that I might get to see her again, no matter the anger that boiled within me at her possible reasons to stay away, hearing him confirm what my logical brain knew all along was like losing her all over again.

But now wasn’t the time or place to let that fully process. I’d let Domenico fill in the blanks of my mother’s past, but his side would always be skewed. I needed more information to corroborate his stories or even dismiss them. I’d take what they had to say and paint my own picture of what I felt was the truth. At the end of the day, the only one who knew the unfiltered truth of it all was dead, and she hadn’t left behind a crumb to go by.

“Tell me what you think you know about me and my mother. I’d love to hear it.” I can’t help the strong sarcasm thatsnakes through my tone. I’m annoyed that this little impromptu gathering isn’t meeting my expectations.

“Your mother thought she was sneakier than she was. Or maybe my household was further locked down than she imagined. She never came to me with the news that she was pregnant, but the housekeeper caught on quickly. Hard not to when your life revolves around caring for those in a household.”

“You’re telling me your staff ratted out my mother? You knew the entire time she was expecting and just let her hide it?”

“I was a very different man decades ago. Family was important, but my time and energy were always focused elsewhere. The girl’s mother, your grandmother, had already passed. God rest her soul. But no, the woman in question didn’t tell me. Not until—” He pauses, looking over my shoulder.

I follow his gaze, noticing a large framed photo on a small table. It’s too small and too dark to make out the people clumped together, but it must be family, my family.

He shakes off whatever reverie pulled him from his story and continues, “Not until after your mother disappeared.”

“You mean when she ran. Went into hiding, trying to get away from everything.” I didn’t even know half of it, but I couldn’t deny that if my mom had left everything behind, there was a good enough reason. She abandoned her sister, the comfort of being well off and taken care of, and a boy she must have at least believed she loved. From everything I’d experienced in the last year, I’d bet all that I owned on her doing it out of love and preservation for the both of us.

“Your mother probably thought the worst would happen if she came back here with a baby bundled in her arms. But she was wrong. What your father and his uncle did, ripping your sister from her, was worse than anything she would have faced coming home with the two of you.”

“She was fifteen and growing up in the middle of a turf war between two kingpins. How else would you expect her maternal instincts to react? I don’t even want children, and I would have done the exact same fucking thing.”

“I expected her to come home to her family,” he says gruffly, the first sign of emotion bleeding into his story. “But you’re right. Over the years and things that happened, I could no longer find fault in your mother’s decisions.”

“But you still knew we were out there. We didn’t go far. It’s not like she even tried all that hard to hide us away. With fake names and a tiny apartment in a city of millions, we were still well within your domain. And what, with you being, well, you, how didn’t you find us?” Emotions I’ve been able to shove into the recesses of my mind come flooding out as it dawns on me.

“I did.”

I shove away from him, the chair knocking back into Harkin, who’s been extremely quiet this entire time. My fist connects with the wall, and the cheap particle board crumbles at the impact. The minor destruction isn’t enough to release the overwhelming sense of fury building in my gut. I need more.

How can these men just leave their daughters to suffer? My father and grandfather are two sides of the same coin. Their issues may stem from differences in blood, but they both make the same decisions when it comes down to it.

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