Page 7 of Beautiful Liar

“Do you really want to die?” He narrowed the gap between us, and I had to struggle not to flinch.

I feared nothing. Nothing. Especially not the coward in front of me.

“Answer the fucking question, Kieran.”

Did I want to die?

Every day was a fight to survive. I was fuckingtired.And at twenty, I should’ve been just living my life not contemplating death.

Did I want to die?

“No,” I finally answered.

“Then you keep that shit to yourself. Does anyone else know?”

Loose ends. He was asking about loose fucking ends and I had a big one. Tomás. “No,” I lied.

“You better be sure. If this comes back, we are fucked.”

That he usedwemade me bristle. “You don’t owe me anything.”

His shoulders fell, his eyes softened, and for a slight moment I could see the father I had always wanted. The one my mom believed he could be. “I’m not going to abandon you, Kieran. You’re my son.”

I swallowed the wedge in my throat—the tightness in my chest made it hard to breathe.

“Now, are you sure no one else knows?”

That tightness increased. “Yes, I’m sure.”

Tristan nodded. “Rest then. We’ll see what doc has to say about your condition and work from there.”

He started to leave, and my fucked-up headspace needed the answer to one more question. “Tristan,” I said. He turned back, his green eyes shimmered in the light. “You didn’t look for me. If you would’ve justlooked, you would’ve found me. Why didn’t you?”

“I was a fool,” he said. “I never believed he would hurt you. I wasn’t in a good headspace, and he promised me he’d keepyou safe. Then he wouldn’t give me access to you. Said you didn’t want to see me. I was a fucking fool, Kieran. I can’t change the past. And I’m so fucking sorry.”

I didn’t see a lie in his expression or his voice. I wanted to see it, wanted to still hate him, but that wall started to crumble.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” he asked. “You can still go to school anywhere. Be something else.”

“That’s a pipe dream for us, and you know it. I’ve accepted your legitimacy. It means I’ll always be a target.”

“And those you love will always be a target, too, Kieran. Don’t ever forget that.” With that last bit of reality check, he walked out.

There was no going back to civilian life. Tomás would always be a target outside of Arcadia. And I couldn’t go back. Heirs weren’t allowed in the school. A fact I had failed to mention to Tomás. And Tomás would never want to be part of the Brennan family,myfamily. He hadn’t attended Cillian’s funeral, Maddox’s invitation to his wedding had gone unanswered, and the little we had talked on the phone hadn’t included my life here. Tomás wanted to ignore this important piece of me. And that truth wrecked me.

After the time I’d spent with Tristan, I slowly came to believe that maybe I’d been wrong to hate him. And accepting the legitimacy meant I was in for life. There was no going back. The sooner I accepted that truth, the sooner I could move on. Tomás was too much of a distraction. A weak link. A risk.

Dr. Wells came by that afternoon. She gave me the same drill I’d heard in the past—meds, prescriptions, instructions. “The worst thing isn’t that you die, Kieran,” she said, “it’s that you become unfunctional. Blindness, paralysis, heart disease. Take care of yourself for those who care for you.” She squeezed my shoulder and walked out.

Maybe for a normal fucker that spiel would’ve worked.But my world was built on strength. Power. Control. Without it I had nothing. I was nothing.

Chapter Four

Kieran

Although Tristan hadn’t mentioned my diabetes, he had benched me from going out into the field. Instead of accompanying him and Jacob on visits, he pushed me off to Liam so I could learn the informational side of the business. It had once included Restitution Securities before the Ark Boys and I took it as part of the takeover. But Liam still had connections and he hadn’t given up getting the company back. It almost made me feel guilty about having taken it from them. Cillian had made bad deals against the company’s assets. I had simply found new investors and used a frontman to take over the company. Yeah, the money was nice. But all we really cared about was Restitution Security. It had given us an in to the platform Liam had built to infiltrate corporate America as well as international waters. The guy was brilliant. I considered bringing him in on our plan to ruin the families that hurt us, but there was a good chance he’d put a bullet in my head for what I’d done, so I decided to keep my mouth shut.

After a week of cycling through Liam’s life which included the kink club he owned, I was ready to burn the skin off my body. The club, Divination, was part dance club, part kink club, all exclusive members only. This was Liam’s baby and hadn’t been part of Brennan Holdings which meant he’d been able to keep it from me. Not that I wanted anything to do with the entertainment business. Even now, sitting in the private loft overlooking the dance floor, I felt as if I needed a deep cleansing. It may have been due to the fact that Declan Brennan was currently fucking the woman on his lap.

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