Page 75 of Dirty Padraig: Dirty Dusters

“It’s speculation. We don’t know anything for sure.”

“How else would she have found out?”

Her silence speaks volumes. She and I both know there’s no other way.

“And I’m pretty sure if Sophia knows, she’ll have spilled her guts to her big brother by now.”

More silence.

“So, these conversations,” I say.

“What about them?”

“It was during them that you asked Molly to threaten me.”

“It was meant to be a veiled threat.” She takes a sip of her drink.

I snort. “Well, let’s face it, Molly never did take instruction very well.”

“Yes, it was during those conversations,” she snaps back.

“And the task you set them was to keep your sons away from me, am I right?”

“In the main, yes.”

“Did you antagonize her?”

“Which one.”

“Sophia!” I’m annoyed with myself for biting back.

“I reminded her that it would do her well to remember that Padraig still loved you.”

“Anything else?”

“That it would be in her own best interests to get him to take that precious purity of hers so there could be no going back from him.”

I frown. After what happened with Malky, Roisin and I agreed to draw a line under the past. We’re not friends. We will never be friends. But for the sake of the rest of the family, we agreed to a truce and to putting everything behind us so we could all move on.

What we share now is a mutual tolerance, much like the one Fergal and I share. I know her secret. She knows mine. I saved her life. She tried to end mine. And now, here we are.

“And that was her task?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“And what was Molly’s task?”

“To stop Eoin from falling in love with you any more than he already had done.”

“By doing what?”

“His wish was her command.”

I stare at the floor briefly and shake my head, shocked at just how much this small woman standing before me hated my goddamn guts.

“I’m sorry, Jaine.” And she is. I can hear it in her voice. I shake my head again as words fail me.

“It’s no wonder Eoin is such a misogynistic asshole,” I mutter eventually as I turn my attention out the window. “So, you antagonized both to make sure they were working in tandem for the Duster greater good by keeping the hedonistic female biker away from your two God-fearing sons. A biker who was already happily married with two children and who had no interest in hooking up with either of your two precious boys.”

---