Page 89 of Starting Over

“Can’t do that, boss.”

“I will not hurt him. He’s my goddamn brother.”

Cian scoffed beside me, and Sal glared at him. “May as well get all the secrets out, boss.”

Sal wrenched himself free of Duncan’s hold and walked toward the man that was still holding a gun aimed toward him.

“I did not order your mother to be killed. No one was supposed to touch her, or you. It was only your father I wanted.”

Blade lowered his gun a fraction, caught off guard by Sal’s declaration.

Shaking his head and lifting the gun again, he countered, “My father told me it was you.”

“Your father was a fucking asshole who beat your mother. Would it be out of character for him to be a fucking liar?”

“What?” Maureen gasped beside me.

Sal looked over at her and his features softened. I didn’t like the way he was looking at her. She was mine. Especially now that all this shit was out. Wrapping my arm around her shoulder, I glared at Sal, making it clear I wasn’t letting her go a second time.

“Eduardo was a bastard who cheated on his wife, and when she called him on it, he beat her.”

“I never saw my father raise a hand to my mother.”

“After they left, no, probably not. She had leverage then. She knew one phone call to me and it would be over. Why she continued to protect him, I don’t know.”

“She loved him,” Maureen said. “Love doesn’t always make sense.”

“Tell him the truth, boss,” Cian pressed.

Sal glared at the man, and Cian just grinned.

It shocked me to see Cian talk to him the way he just did. Tyran was the only man I had heard call my brother out, but then I hadn’t seen any of these men in nearly forty years.

“What good will it do now?”

“Tell him the goddamn truth or I will.”

Sal rubbed his hands over his face, and I had to laugh. It was a stall tactic we had both learned from our mother.

“You’re stalling. What’s going on, Sal?”

“Shut your goddamn mouth, Lannie. I’m not done with you.”

Sal looked at Blade. Then looked at King.

I wondered what he was thinking. How was he processing what he had learned?

“Your father was a bastard.”

“You said that already.”

“I mean in the literal sense. He was my brother.”

“What the fuck?” Blade, King, and I all yelled.

“My father was a dirty son of a bitch. He got three women pregnant within four years. I knew about my sister. She was raised in Boston. No one knew about Eduardo until he showed up one day, claiming Eamon was his father.”

“That’s why he brought him in,” Maureen said.

---