I shouldn’t be here.
Every instinct I possessed demanded I get the hell away from his hideous place, that I go and scrub off the atrocious scent that stained the air I breathed, that I erase every part of today and go down the selective amnesia route.
But I couldn’t.
Because what I’d said earlier was right—this man was the reason my mother was dead. And I’d been next on his list of targets.
Only Finn shoving his way into my life had saved me. Only his extortion had spared me from the worst fate of all.
Though, as I looked at Michael, I had to reason that being mowed down wasn’t so bad as this.
The man’s blackened eyelids fluttered at the sound of our footsteps and the pain and despair hidden within those depths had my heart pounding double time.
A million questions surged into being, each one landing on my tongue before flittering away.
Eventually, I settled on: “Am I still in danger from your people?”
My voice sounded strange to my ears, but I knew I didn’t sound that funny that he couldn’t understand me. He turned his head to the side, and I knew he was ignoring me. Conor did too.
When I saw the flash of light snapping at his wrists and ankles, I almost heaved, especially as that scent hit me like a slap to the face.
Finn was there, holding me up, and it was so bad that I let him. His arms moved around my waist, and he propped me up, being my strength while I dealt with this horror show.
“YES!” Michael screamed before Conor stopped the electrical charge, allowing him to slur, “But only… if the… secret of who… your father really… is comes out.”
He panted so hard it reminded me of an overheated dog locked in a car. I stared at him in horror, realizing that I’d never imagined this…
It needed to stop.
It had to stop.
“You look just like her.” I jerked back in surprise as he smiled at me, a smile from his death mask. “At least you’re not a slut like her.”
“My mom wasn’t a slut,” I whispered shakily.
“She was. Even her own fucking brother thought so.”
He sneered at me with so much hate from within that battered face of his that I knew his cruelty went bone deep.
I’d met him on dozens of occasions, but how he looked at me now was so different than those other times.
Was this the real him? With his mask gone and the act no more?
He jerked when Conor worked his horrors on him, and my brother-in-law snapped, “You don’t speak unless it’s to answer a question.”
Finn moved into me, not touching but close enough that I felt his warmth. “Your mom was not a whore, sweetheart.”
“She was a lying, filthy slag,” Michael roared before Conor zapped him. “Betrayed… her… people,” he stuttered on a scream.
Flinching at the sight, my mouth almost trembled before I firmed it. “Is Elizabeth Davidson a part of the ECD?”
He was quiet. Too quiet.
An electrical charge surged to life that made me feel like my hair was about to stand on end.
It went on for so long that I started to cry as his body twisted and morphed, bones and muscles straining.
Michael’s scream pierced my ears and would, I knew, haunt my nightmares until the day I died.
“YES!” he screeched, a second before he fell silent.
I stared at his stillness with horror, wondering if he was dead, then Conor murmured, “That’s the first time he’s admitted that.”
The First Lady was involved with a bunch of terrorists.
My life had turned into a Dean Koontz novel.
“He’s not going to last long, Finn,” Conor continued, “I know you wanted me to keep him alive, but—”
“Let him die.” I pushed back against Finn’s hold before I stared up at him and whispered, “Take me home.”
And as we stepped outside of the house of horrors behind me, that was when I puked.
Twenty-Eight
Finn
She didn’t ask me to leave.
I considered that to be a good thing.
Instead, she stayed in the kitchen and she baked.
And she baked.
Then she baked some more.
But for all that her cookies and brownies usually had me sniffing around her, I stayed away. I hung out with Jake for the rest of that excruciating weekend, ignoring calls from both Conor and Junior. I didn’t answer a single work email either.
The precariousness of my position wasn’t something I was accustomed to.
I ruled over my world, dominating it in a way the homeless kid in me needed, but in this instance, Aoife held all the power.
As a result, I kept expecting to have the fight of my life, where I pulled out all the cards to convince her to let me stay, yet there wasn’t one.
She stayed in her domain, I stayed in mine, and at night, we went to bed where things stayed the same—she remained on her side and I was on mine.
That Saturday night, when she came to bed, I was lying in the dark.
She shuffled around the room, making me realize that she thought I was sleeping, and I didn’t do anything to make her believe otherwise.
I watched her as she undressed in the light from the bathroom. I watched as she scrubbed her face clean and applied some cream, and once the lights were gone, I watched the shadows as she headed over to the bed and climbed in at my side.
Marriage had changed me; I knew that. Throw happiness and love at someone who’d been perennially unhappy and unloved and it was like spreading horse manure in a garden—flowers were going to fucking grow.
I’d always felt unworthy of her, but these last few days, I had my confirmation. Trouble was, I was too selfish to leave her. To let her leave me.
Maybe that’d be the decent thing to do, but while I was willing to let sleeping dogs lie right now, I knew that I was too much of a scrapper to let her give up on what we had.
Registering that I was a piece of shit was the best way, I found, to spend every fucking Saturday night, so I just lay there, mind whirring while she settled down too.
Only, she didn’t sleep. I felt her crying. Soft shivers, tiny gasps, each one was like a nail to my heart.
Regret and remorse consumed me, but I stared up at the ceiling as she cried herself to sleep.
Every second that passed as I just fucking lay there while her heart broke killed me. I’d gone through some shit in my life, but hearing her cry in secret twisted my insides, turned them ragged and raw.
I clenched my fists, wanting to grab a hold of her, wanting to hug her, but I knew it wouldn’t be welcome—
The cries turned to sobs.
They’d escalated, not calmed down as she slept.
I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t fucking bear hearing her like that, so I reached over, and while I prepared myself for her to hit out, I hauled her into me, trapping her hands against my chest as I hugged her and held her tight.
Her face burrowed against my throat, her tears wet my skin and the pillow beneath us, but as I held her, her sobbing eased some.
It might have been ten minutes or an hour, but we lay there, neither of us saying a word as her grief bubbled free.
“I shouldn’t have hit you,” she rasped out of nowhere.
I didn’t tense up. “You needed a safe space to release your anger.”