The Five Points’ business hadn’t injured me since our wedding day when I’d gotten shot down in that drive-by shooting that had redefined New York’s underworld, but this was proof that I was either naive or fucking stupid. I wasn’t sure which yet.
What else was being kept from me?
What other secrets were whirring away behind the scenes that were reshaping my future and rewriting my past?
I peered around the grim set up, wondering how many steps it had taken me to get to this point. This moment…
A lifetime’s, I guessed.
It was a standard warehouse, I recognized.
Grim and grody.
Old, and looking like it could fall down in a good gust of wind, but one of those buildings that somehow stood the test of time too.
It had streaks of red drifting down the façade from rust, and it needed a paint but, with a second glance, I saw that all the windows were new.
I also saw there were security cameras pointed right at us, shiny with their newness.
The façade within a façade—what the Five Points excelled at.
As the doors opened and I walked in, the first thing that hit me was a weird smell. Followed by a scream.
I jumped at the sound, jolting backward and straight into Finn who must have moved from my side to behind me to support me.
I hated that he’d been prepared for that.
I fucking hated it.
Because that was Finn.
Finn was a good husband.
The best.
He loved me. He showed me that every goddamn day. He praised me and celebrated my wins, he took time for me and Jake even though he was exhausted, and he showed up. Consistently.
I thought about the man I’d been raised believing was my father when really, he was just a stepfather, and I knew what a piece of shit dad looked like. A piece of shit husband too.
Finn was not that.
He wasn’t.
And I believed him when he said he chose himself. Selfishness aside, I could deal with that better than I could him choosing Lena over me.
I froze in my tracks at the thought, and I twisted around and away from his support. I looked up at him and pressed a hand to his shoulder to maintain some distance.
Seeing the pain in his face at how I shoved space between us, I stayed strong as I demanded, “Are you lying to me about anything else?”
He straightened up. “I can’t tell you shit about the Five Points, Aoife—”
“And I never asked you to. Why would I be interested in that? I’m talking about things that affect you, me, and Jake. Our personal lives.”
“This was… I couldn’t tell you.” When I released a scoffing sound, his nostrils flared, but though I knew I’d aggravated him, his voice was calm as he said, “You might disagree but I knew Senior would never let her see a minute in jail, so I went along with it. I chose wrongly though. I knew that almost as soon as I headed down this path.”
“Why didn’t you tell me then?”
“Because the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
I stared at him. “How could you let me eat with them, break bread with them—”
“Because they’re my family, Aoife.” His words were wooden, cold. Like each one was chipped away from a block of ice. “Because they’re the only family I’ve ever had, and because I didn’t want to have to live without them.
“I know I was selfish. I know I was. But I… They took me in when I needed them most. Cutting myself out of their lives…” His throat worked and he straightened up taller and I heard his resolve as he ground out, “Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do.”
“You couldn’t cut them out of your life before but you can now?”
I saw the pain in his eyes, and it made the open wound in my soul bleed.
“Every day I’m with you, I feel like there’s more of a reason to live. A reason to wake up. It’s to do with Jake, but without you, I’m a…” His jaw tensed. “I’m just putting one foot in front of the other.
“Asking me to live without you is like asking someone to live without the sun. I can’t do it. Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do because I need you more than sunlight, baby. I always will.”
His words hit me like a slap in the face, but because I couldn’t focus on this right now, because I couldn’t waver in my resolve, I insisted, “Finn, tell me right now if you’re keeping anything else from me.”
He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, Christ, I don’t think I am. Nothing like this, at any rate.”
That probably wouldn’t have reassured most women, but it did me.
Truth was, with as much as Finn had going on in a day, if he’d said that he was keeping nothing from me point blank, I wouldn’t believe him. His lack of confidence seemed more earnest, and I needed that rather than bullshit assurances right now.
“Oh.” He cursed under his breath. “Shit.”
I scowled at him. “What is it?” So much for reassurances.
“I didn’t know this until St. Stephen’s Day,” he admitted.
“What?”
“Callum O’Reilly was a Sparrow.”
“Conor’s friend?” I gasped. “He must be devastated.”
“He is.” His lips tightened. “Callum leaked the details of our wedding to the Sparrows, Aoife. It led to…”
“He’s the reason…” My mouth gaped. “The drive-by?”
Pain darkening those cobalt blue eyes, Finn nodded. “Those fucking Sparrows.”
Standing there, in the frigid cold, I went down the rabbit hole of everything I’d endured because of Callum O’Reilly…
Bitterness welled inside me, then another scream sounded from somewhere in the warehouse, and though I flinched again, it was out of genuine shock.
A guy was being tortured in here.
What did I expect? For him to be listening to that godawful Baby Shark piped on a loop for hours on end or for him to be made to pay physically?
I bit my lip at the thought, and like he knew I was wobbling, Finn rasped, “You don’t have to do this.”
“I do.”
I surprised myself with how deeply the resolve in my voice was layered. There wasn’t an ounce of give. As much as my body responded to the sounds, my mind was set on this path, and nothing was going to take me off it.
“Which way?”
“I’ll guide you,” he told me as his hand settled at the base of my spine, warning me, I guessed, that he was about to touch me.
A part of me wanted to slap that hand away, but when he steered me toward a section of the warehouse that was empty, I let him because we appeared to be walking into a blank canvas of space.
Frowning up at him, I saw that he cast me a look, but he remained silent, and suddenly, there was another scream. This time, I didn’t flinch, and the source of the scream made me realize that the noise was coming from this area but there was nothing here.
Then a door opened, and the aperture was seamless. It blended in with the wall perfectly, I saw.
The second Conor clapped eyes on me, he demanded, “Aoife? Is everything okay?”
As he moved toward me, his concern genuine, he brought a smell with him that had my sensitive nose rebelling the second it collided with my olfactory senses.