Page 97 of Beautiful Lies
I grabbed his arm to stop him from leaving. “You need to stay, and you need to listen.”
He squinted at something in the distance, his jaw clenched, but I released his arm and he stayed. I repeated the story I’d told Ava last night about the night I’d gone to see Seamus.
“…he told me she’d been having an affair, gave me the man’s name, and said they lived in Miami.”
Killian leveled me with a hard look. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
“I wanted to find a way to make things up to you. After all you did for me—”
“You thought that feeding me more lies, keeping secrets, was the way to repay me?” he asked incredulously.
“I thought I’d go down there, find her, and she’d tell me she wanted to be a part of our lives. I thought I’d be able to call you and say, ‘Hey, I found our mom. Come on down.’” It sounded ridiculous and so naïve now, but at the time I’d truly believed I was doing something worthy. Making good on a promise I’d made so many years ago.
“Fucking hell, Connor. I would have gone with you. We could have done it together.” He sounded more hurt than angry. “Did you see her?”
“Once. Briefly.” I envisioned the woman I hadn’t even remembered. She was still beautiful, with dark, glossy hair and the same blue eyes Killian and I had inherited from her. “She said it was nice to see me again, but it had been a long time and she had a new life now.”
I saw the hurt flash across Killian’s face before he locked it down and clenched his jaw. “That’s it? That’s all she gave you?”
I nodded, wishing I could tell him something kinder but that was all I’d gotten from the woman. That, and her plea not to tell Keira who I was. It was obvious that she was more interested in protecting her daughter than her sons. She’d chosen her second family over her first, but I didn’t understand why she needed to keep us a secret. I didn’t understand any of it and I’d given up trying to figure it out. Some things weren’t worth the effort.
“I always thought Seamus abused her… that she was scared,” I said. “Maybe he threatened her and that’s why she had to leave us behind.”
“I don’t know,” Killian said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I have no memory of it. But I’d walked in on her with another man once. She’d asked me to keep my mouth shut.”
I let out a harsh laugh. So many secrets and lies. When would it end? I took some comfort in the fact that Killian was still standing next to me and hadn’t stormed off.
“What’s his name?” he asked.
“Ronan Shaughnessy. He owns a nightclub. Among other things,” I said. “He set me up. I never bought those drugs. The cops busted my motel room and conveniently found drugs in my bag.”
“You didn’t buy the drugs,” he said, fixing me with a look.
“No.” I held his gaze until he saw that I was speaking the truth. I left out the part about how they’d ‘coerced’ me into cooperating with them.
“Why? Why would he do that?” Killian’s brow furrowed, trying to inject logic into a situation that defied it.
“He warned me to stay away from Maggie,” I said, using our mother’s first name. She didn’t deserve the title of mother. “… and his daughter Keira. But I didn’t listen.” I played with fire and I got burned.
“His daughter…” I could see the wheels in his head spinning, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
“Keira is our sister.”
“What the fuck?” he asked, his face registering shock.
I gave Killian a few minutes to process all this information. It was a lot to take in at once. Killian was usually sharp. Not a lot got past him, so it had surprised me that he’d bought my story about getting busted for weed and ecstasy. If I had bought drugs, it wouldn’t have been a dime bag and some club drugs. Not to mention that the Miami Vice had bigger fish to fry than busting some noob for marijuana.
“How old is she?”
“Twenty-one in January.”
He did the math in his head, coming to the same conclusion I had. Our mother must have been pregnant with Keira when she left us.
“Fuck,” he said, and then said it three more times for good measure, reduced to the only word that fit this situation. “Why did Shaughnessy set you up?”
Because he could. “I stuck my nose in his business. The drug dealer I got cozy with had screwed him over. The cops who busted me… they must have been on Ronan’s payroll. They busted the warehouse where Marco, the dealer, kept his drugs and weapons and they killed Marco. Ronan’s men cleaned up the mess and confiscated a shitload of coke and weapons. And I was granted my freedom.” I let out a bitter laugh. The irony of it all. Freedom was a myth. My chest tightened, and I rubbed it, trying to ease the guilt.“Shaughnessy hadn’t needed me. He already knew how to get to Marco. He’s just a sick, twisted motherfucker who used me as a pawn in his game. And that’s what it was to him. A game.”
“Fucking hell,” Killian muttered.
