Finn got to his feet. “Listen to me, Aoife. There is no worse fate than Conor doling out his brand of justice.”
I didn’t believe him. Couldn’t. It went against years of knowing his family. Of knowing who Conor was.
“I want to see for myself.”
I needed to see that that fucker was paying. That he was suffering like I was suffering now.
Oh, God.
The pain expanded.
The grief was like a wave churning over me. Submerging me beneath it.
Grief didn’t end. It didn’t go away. It just became easier to manage. A person got better at swimming with the tide instead of letting it drown them.
But this, now, it was like I was back at the beginning.
I could see the tsunami heading my way and it was like I’d forgotten how to swim.
My mom... God, I missed her so badly.
“You can’t,” he denied me, and his words really pissed me off.
“You want to tell me that I can’t do something? Finn, really?” I got in his face, hissing, “You lied to me. For years. You let me get close to Lena, you let Jake think of her as a fucking grandmother when you had to know that I’d never want her anywhere near him, you bastard.”
I didn’t see it happen.
I didn’t even know I’d raised my hand.
Suddenly, I felt the sting in my palm and the ache in my bones as I slapped him.
I screamed, a long, loose warble of pain that wasn’t eased as I carried on hitting him.
Loose hits, slaps, smacks, something I’d never have thought I was capable of, but I did it.
And he let me.
He let me hit him.
He let me slap him.
He let me smack him.
I screamed again, but this time, the torrent of grief poured from me in a bubble of tears.
“I hate you,” I sobbed as my hands collided with his arms, with his chest. I knew I hurt myself more than him. “I love her—how could you do that to me? How could you let me love her when she killed my mom?”
After the day I’d had, this was more than I could handle. The starch in my bones disappeared, melting into dust as I sank to the ground, crying, shoulders rounded, hunched over as I grieved the loss of two mothers.
And when he huddled on the floor in front of me, I didn't shove him away as he tucked me into his embrace. As he hauled me into his arms and held me through the twister of grief that sucked me in with ragged claws and fangs as if Mom had died yesterday and not years ago.
Twenty-Six
Finn
Lena returned at the worst possible moment.
Though Aoife was crying in my arms, I was still preternaturally aware of my surroundings, so when I heard the elevator doors rush open, I understood what it felt like to have one foot on either side of a fault line in the middle of an earthquake.
With each step that Lena took deeper into the apartment, the closer disaster came to striking and the more uncertain I grew as I tried to figure out how to fucking fix this.
Devastation imminent, I knew I had to appeal to Aoife’s logic but there was no logic to be had in a situation like this. None whatsoever.
Praying that she’d let me fix this, I rasped against her hair, “Sweetheart, I need to go throw Lena out.”
Aoife’s gasping sobs stopped falling, and I felt her grow tense in my arms.
When she peered up at me, her face red raw from tears, I wasn’t sure what her next move was going to be, but her question surprised me nonetheless.
“You’ll kick her out?”
I blinked down at her. “Of course.”
She licked her lips, and I watched the movement, half expecting her to start slapping me again.
Christ, I’d take every slap and every hit if it eased her pain, if it healed the gaping wound that I’d caused.
I had let her lean on Lena like she were a mother. I had allowed Jake to think of her as a grandmother.
Those were my worst sins.
As guilt threatened to choke me, I whispered, “You will always be my priority, Aoife. Always.”
Teardrops quivered on her eyelashes as she stared up at me. “I’ll deal with Lena.”
Though I tensed, I nodded. “You do whatever you need to do, sweetheart.”
She tipped up her chin. “Are you going to call Senior? Do some damage control?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re my priority. Not him. Not Lena.”
I wanted to tell her that this particular situation was the only time I’d ever put them before her, but that was one time too fucking many anyway.
What kind of shit defense was that?
So I held my tongue.
I kept silent because words would only fuck things up even more.
“Help me up,” she rasped, and I got to my feet and leaned down to support her as she stood on shaky legs.
I watched as, smoothing her palms over her cheeks, she said, “I don’t want you to say a word to her.”
“I won’t.”
“Not a single word, Finn,” she warned. “I’m on my last nerve here. Do not push me.”
I wasn’t going to push her. Hell if I was. Like any man, I was capable of my dumb moments, but I wasn’t that much of a fuckwit.
She hadn’t thrown me out.
Yet.
I’d offered to go, but she hadn’t accepted that offer.
Yet.
No way in fuck was I going to do anything that would have her shoving me out the door.
I let go of my hold on her waist and raised my hands in surrender. “I won’t say or do anything that you don’t want me to.”
Her chin firmed before she nodded, and she twisted around and moved toward the hall door. As she dragged it open, I heard Lena say, “Look who’s here, Jake? Mommy!”
Inside, I froze, but I pushed ahead as Aoife grated out, “Lena, I’d like you to leave my home.”
I could almost imagine Lena’s bewilderment, and I shook off that ridiculous need that had been inbuilt in me from adolescence.
We protected our women.
Always.
But in this instance, that was what I was doing. With the woman whom I’d chosen to make my own. Whom I’d always fucking choose.
“Aoife? What is it?”
Hearing my wife suck in a shaky breath, I stepped forward, unsure if she had the strength to go through with whatever she had in mind, and I placed myself at her back.
Lena looked at me in confusion, but I kept my glance straight ahead, pinned above her so that we couldn’t make eye contact.
I was not and never would be her life raft in troubled waters again.
If only I’d made that decision years ago.
“I-I…” When I placed my hand on Aoife’s waist, she sucked in a breath and intoned, “I know what you did. I know you killed my mom.” Her head tipped up. “I want you to get the hell away from us.” Her chin wobbled. “Now.”
That was a lot calmer than I’d anticipated. I’d half imagined her throwing shit at Lena and chasing her out of the apartment.
Gently squeezing her waist, I backed her up silently as Lena whispered, “I’m so sorry, Aoife.”
I didn’t have to look at her expression to hear her devastation.
“Sorry isn’t enough.” She sucked in a breath, and then it came. She screamed loud enough for Jake to start wailing, “You killed my mom!”