Page 29 of Vicious Hearts

“Oh, nothing, Cill,” Eilish giggles. “It’s just that…well, you sure were out late.”

My brow furrows. “And?”

“And so when are we going to meet her?!” Neve blurts with a grin.

I’m confused. But that confusion quickly fades when I catch Castle’s eye.

“I, uh, told them about the woman you’ve been seeing,” he says pointedly. “You know, the one keeping you away from us, away from family dinners, out late…”

There’s a reason Castle quickly moved from being a bodyguard and nanny to top lieutenant to basically my second in command after I moved here.

He’s one smart motherfucker.

As it stands now, only he, Hades, and I know what happened that night. And I have no fucking intention of that changing.

I donotneed my nieces—Neve especially—to think there are any Seamus-related demons coming after them from the grave.

“Soooooo? What’s her name?” Eilish beams at me. Fan-fucking-tastic. I’m getting dragged into schoolgirl gossip at the breakfast table.

“Her name is none of your business.”

She giggles, seeing the playfulness in my eyes even with my grouchy, muttered tone.

I’ll never be “normal”. I’ll never function the way Neve, Eilish, Castle, or anyone else I know functions. Just as I’ll never have a family of my own, because there iszeroscenario where me getting married and having children is even remotely a good idea.

Not with my darkness.

Not with the violence inside of me.

And certainly not with the knowledge that I could very well pass my monstrous nature down to my offspring.

That’s a hard pass. The world doesnotneed more Cillian Kildares in it.

On the other hand, I’m okay with that. Romantic relationships are too complicated for me to keep up for very long—I’ve tried, and failed. And in a way, my nieces are like daughters to me—Neve and Eilish here in New York, even my slightly estranged third niece, my late sister’s daughter Rose, in London.

And fuck, even Castle—he’s somewhere between a step-son and a little brother.

“Well, we’d love to meet her sometime,” Neve shrugs. “And I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey,” Neve grins at me. “We’re about to go pick up Callie and take a look at how the renovations are coming along at the Banshee. Wanna come with?”

Neve, Eilish, and Calliope, Neve’s sister-in-law and the youngest Drakos sibling, have recently gone in on buying and reopening an Irish bar together, God help us all.

I smile. “I’d love to. But I’ve got some business stuff to get through.”

“Are yousure?” she coaxes. “I’m driving my new wheels and everything.”

Another new development: my lifetime New Yorker of a niece actually got her driver’s license and a car—an admittedly gorgeous Aston Martin Vantage that Ares bought for her.

“Oh, well, in that case…” I smirk over the rim of my coffee. “It’s a definite no.”

Eilish cracks up. Neve sticks out her lower lip, rolling her eyes as she flips me off.

Yeah, I don’t need a romantic relationship or children to have a family.

I already have one, weird and wild as it may be.

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