Page 52 of Irish Daddies
I set my drink down on the kitchen counter with a loud clang and slink toward her. She doesn’t take her eyes off me, fire blazing in them. When I reach her, our noses are touching, and I growl, “You think you’re so much better than us because you just got here, so your hands are clean, right? We already know what you’ll do to live, Caroline. Maybe drop the pretense.”
My jaw is set, anger undulating under my skin. She and I both know that no one forced her to pull that trigger. That’s a simplistic narrative, but it isn’t quite true.
When I saw her take a bat to that man’s knees, I liked it. I liked seeing that side to her, the side that was vengeful and took noshit. But now that she wants to get out of it, wants to push that back in, I need more than ever for her to acknowledge that I saw it, that it was real.
“Fine,” she relents, her eyes sliding away from mine. She crosses the room to lay her sleeping boys on the couch and holds her arms out in surrender. “You all saw it. Your plan worked. You got my hands dirty.” She shakes her head. “I was willing to bend if it meant we’d be safe, but…I was never going to be one of you, was I?” The last sentence is whispered, a broken request.
She wanted to be one of us.
“We thought you were,” I murmur, my voice steady even if I feel my heart pounding so hard it strains against my chest. I wanted her to be one of us too. I still want it. I want it even more now, maybe. Somehow.
“You used me,” she continues, not done with her righteous anger. Her voice is quiet now, but it’s worse that way. She sounds tired. Hollow. Not angry anymore. “You let me believe this was about love. About family. But it was all a fucking game. He wanted me to fire the first shot so Emilio Valacchi would retaliate. You let him.”
“We didn’t let him do fuck all,” I say, and my voice comes out low and colder than I mean it to, the last words more like a growl than spoken. “You think I wanted this? That Ilikethis? That I’m takingpleasurein knowing I let it happen?”
Her round, hazel eyes turn molten with rage, and she walks over to sit next to the boys on the couch so she can rub their backs. So she can make sure they stay asleep if I go crazy. I can see it on her face, her fear that I can’t control myself. “You didn’t letit happen, Declan. Youhelped.You stood beside me while he guided my hands. You told me Ihad to.”
I swallow hard. I deserve that. Every word of it.
I look away from her, at Isaac. His cheeks are bright red, the same way his mom’s get. One cheek is smushed against the couch cushion into his closed eye. His curly hair is matted and sweaty. I want so badly to push it out of his face, to be a father to him and to Joshua, for Caroline to know that I’m more than a loose cannon.
But maybe I’m not.
“Caroline,” Kellan murmurs from his corner of the room. He’s standing against the mantle of the fireplace, looking like a piece of furniture himself. He looks up at her with wide, boyish eyes, and licks his bottom lip furtively. “We didn’t know. It’s not fair to be angry about it now just because it didn’t go our way.”
A small, wry laugh escapes her, and when she looks back up at him, her eyes are wet, the hazel shining in the dimly lit room. “Fair?” she whispers, stroking Joshua’s cheek. “I was bait. You set me up.”
My jaw flexes. I look at her and see not just what she’s become, not just what we’ve made her, but that she hates it about herself. I wish I could make her see herself how I see her.
Strong. Capable. Powerful.
“No,” Rian argues, his voice sharp. “He set usallup. Not just you, Caroline. He’s been doing this since we were old enough to hold a knife. It’s how he controls us. He breaks us down and makes us think there’s no other way but his. He did it to us, and we turned around and did it to you.
“Ourathairtold us that Tino was disloyal, responsible for all of this. We thought he ratted us out. Rattedyouout. We were willing to let you stay gone, but ourathair—well, you saw how he was about it all. We thought it would help you earn your place and that he would let it go. We aren’t tricking you.” He looks at her and whispers, “You have to trust us this once.”
She scoffs. “Trust you,” she repeats bitterly. “You made me ‘earn my place’ by committing murder. By making me into one of his soldiers.”
Rian takes a step forward and drops to his knees in front of her on the couch, his voice raw. He strokes her thighs with his hands, and I watch hungrily. “That’s not who you are.”
“No,” she agrees. “It’s whoyouare.”
That stings. I can see it hit him square in the chest. He falters.
“Ní hé ár n-athair sinne,” I whisper to Rian.
Caroline snaps toward me and asks sharply, “What did you say?”
I repeat, slowly and cautiously, “We’re not our father.”
She looks at me, like that’s almost funny. “Aren’t you?”
“No,” I snap, too quick, too harsh.
“It’s not whoIam,” Kellan blurts out, pushing off against the wall with one foot and stepping toward her. He runs a hand through his blonde hair and sinks to his knees next to Rian. “I’ve spent my whole life terrified of turning into that man. I won’t let my sons grow up the same way.”
Caroline looks at him, and something shifts. She softens, barely.
“It ends with us,” I tell her sharply, and she looks over at me. I meet her stare, holding it like a vow. “Whatever we have to do.”
