Page 135 of Dirty Padraig: Dirty Dusters

What choice do I have?

My beautiful fucking hog, reduced to a piece of twisted metal.

I press the button under my desk that locks my office door from the inside as more tears cascade down my face. I’m sick of crying. I’m sick of being on the receiving end of both veiled and blatant death threats.

I’m sick of Eoin. I’m sick of Irish. I’m stuck on a melancholy treadmill that I need to get off, but I don’t know how to. Why did Ace have to leave me? He’d know what to do. He’d be able to comfort me.

Instead, Irish did.

I squeeze my eyes closed in frustration. He shouldn’t have done that. We shouldn’t have done that. How must that have looked to everyone else?

To Eoin.

My life is such a fucked-up mess right now. I really am living from one day to the next, going by the special delivery that no doubt had my name written all over it.

Tomorrow really isn’t guaranteed for me.

My burner vibrates. It’s the only person with the number who doesn’t realize who the phone actually belongs to.

“Jaine, I’m sorry.”

Sorry for what? For opening the wooden coffin holding my hog, or for barely acknowledging me for weeks aside from with his dick?

“You did what you had to do.”

“How did you know what it was?”

“Call it a biker’s sixth sense. I’ve had that ride since I was eighteen years old.” I curse myself when my voice breaks.

“I wanted to comfort you. I…” I can hear the break in his voice too. Is it guilt over how he’s been treating me or because I publicly chose his brother’s arms over his? I suspect it’s the latter.

“I’ve got another call coming in, Eoin. I have to go.” We both know I’m lying. I disconnect the call. I’m not sure what he expected. He can’t pick and choose when he wants to be in a relationship with me.

Putting my office phone on do not disturb, I open my laptop and start perusing the information from Molly’s phone once more.

CHAPTERFORTY-THREE

ROISIN

The O’Connell Home, Darling, New York

Regrets.

At my age, you try to avoid them because, when you’re in the winter of your life, you don’t have much time to right your wrongs, and the longer you carry them with you, the heavier they become.

I was wrong. I realize that now.

Fergal and I have been made aware of what our youngest's life was like during the year he spent living in Sicily. A life that I willingly signed him up for because I thought I knew what was best for him.

It turns out that I didn’t.

I made assumptions and decisions on his behalf, and now here he is prepared to give up his fortune and sacrifice his life to escape the chains of the arranged marriage I thought best for him. In exchange for his freedom, Padraig will give Luciano what he wants and give me and his da what he thinks we want.

A Duster heir.

Let it be said, if God never gifts me another grandbaby, I would be happy with that, provided I can have my happy-go-lucky son back. A boy that spent a year living as a recluse in another country, trying to piece together the shards of his broken heart.

He was betrayed and let down by his own family. He was all alone. He had no one to turn to.

---