Page 53 of Irish Daddies
“What are you saying?” she asks carefully.
Kellan rubs Caroline’s forearm. “We take the kids, and we disappear.”
“He’ll hunt you down like he did to me,” she replies.
Rian says, “We turn his allies against him. We show them he’s a liability. A fossil. We’ve already built something better here. Something they want in on.”
“But you haven’t,” Caroline points out.
“Then we just fucking kill him,” I snap from my spot at the kitchen, watching my brothers grovel in front of Caroline while she denies their attempts, a queen among peasants. The words feel heavier than anything I’ve ever spoken, but I mean them. “Not just scare him off. Not exile. We end him.”
Caroline crosses her arms tighter. “And what if he kills you all before you get the chance?”
“How is it any different?” I ask.
Her voice is hushed. “Do you mean that?” She looks at Rian and Kellan. “Would you two…?”
“Absolutely,” Rian says.
“Kellan?” she asks gently, pressing her palms against his cheeks. For a flash of a second, I find myself wishing she would be so gentle with me. She sees that normalcy in him that makes her want to nurture him. But what about me? A two-time parent murderer? Does everyone just expect it will come easily to me?Maybe it will, but her warm palms on my face might ease it even more.
She looks between us, eyes glistening, and lands on me. “You’re insane.”
I smirk. “Aye,a wee bit.”
Slowly, she nods, sucking in her cheeks, mulling it over like a glass of wine with ambiguous notes. “Okay,” she says. “Okay. Let’s burn the whole goddamn thing down.”
Rian takes one of her hands and interlaces their fingers. When he looks at me, there’s blood in his eyes now. “If we do this, we have to be prepared to lose everything.”
“Just a legacy of blood, nothing serious,” I reply with a grim smile.
Rian breathes out, like he’s been underwater and only just broke the surface. “I mean that we might lose our lives.”
Caroline shakes her head and looks down at her sons. “So long as they have theirs. So long as they never have to grow up in a world with Fionn Crowley.”
Kellan slides his hand down Caroline’s forearm and slips his fingers between hers, and she visibly relaxes against his touch.
She looks up at me abruptly. “Can you guarantee he’ll die? Even if we do too?”
I run my tongue along my bottom teeth. “Caroline,ní ligfidh mé d’aon ní tú a ghortú choíche. I will never let anything hurt you. Or anyone. No man can ever touch you as long as you have me.” I wait to see her relax, but she doesn’t.
So I relent, “Yes. I can guarantee he’ll die, at least.”
Only then do I see her body calm.
A smile tugs at my lips, that she cares more for these boys than her life. I have some things to learn from Caroline Johnson. We will lose a father, likely lose the kingdom.
But we might gain a soul.
31
CAROLINE
“You can’t be serious, Caroline,”Alaina says grimly on the other line. Her voice crackles through the speaker, and I fidget with an unraveling seam in my sock. I’m hiding in the closet, way in the back where it’s dark amidst the coats and jackets that have been long forgotten.
She sounds disappointed and angry, but I also hear the concern. My own voice is pinched, worry the biggest undertone. “Can you do it?” I whisper. I can’t risk Isaac or Joshua hearing me now, though right now I hear them giggling with the brothers. There’s a yell and a crash. Normally, I’d run out, but I have to finish this conversation first. There’s planning to do.
“I want to, but I don’t know. James has a lot going on at work, and Juniper’s started biting…it just isn’t a very good time.”
