“That shouldn’t have been on you,” she denied, her voice nasal and raw from her tears. “I’m sorry I did that.”
I wasn’t.
“I deserved it.”
“Violence is never the answer.”
“I’m a Five Pointer, Aoife. Violence is always the answer.”
“Not between us. You’ve never raised your hand to me in anger.”
“There’s a difference.”
“Physically, yes. Symbolically, no.” She tugged at my hold on her hands. “That’s why you’re holding them down, isn’t it?”
Not wanting her to think I was tying her down, I released them. “I didn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
She fell silent at that, and when she didn’t move away, I considered that to be a good sign.
“Why are you being so reasonable?”
I could have lied.
Maybe I even should have, but the truth was the only thing that belonged between us.
If I’d started our marriage that way, then we wouldn’t be like this now.
This was on me.
It was all my fault.
“Because I’m fighting for my life.”
“You’re not dying,” she ground out.
“I will without you and Jake.”
The simplicity of my words had her whispering, “I’m not used to you being reasonable.”
“Am I that much of a jackass?” I countered, brow furrowed.
I’d seen how Aidan Sr. was with Lena. I’d taken note of how my fucker of a stepfather had treated my mother, and I’d done my damnedest to make sure I never treated her like they did.
I worked too many hours, but I always made sure I had time for them, even if it meant giving up on sleep. I did my best, but I, more than anyone, knew that wasn’t always enough.
“You’re not a jackass, Finn. You’re just… you’re not…” She sucked in a breath. “When we met, what did you do?”
I winced. “Made you sign over the tearoom.”
She scoffed. “Half the story.”
“And had you come over here.”
“It wasn’t to play dress up, was it?”
My cheeks burned with heat. “I wanted you.”
“I know.”
“I always want you,” I rasped, eyes burning as I stared up at the ceiling.
“I know. I don’t think you ever understood what that did to me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I knew what you were and who, Finn. I knew you could have any woman you wanted. But you chose me. I don’t even know why I’m bringing this up.”
“Because when I was all in, I was all in?”
Aoife hesitated. “Yes. I believed that.”
Scowling, I asked the ceiling, “Past tense?”
“It was a lie, wasn’t it?”
“No,” I retorted. “How the hell was that a lie? Aoife, sweetheart, I made some shitty choices along the way, but you are the best fucking decision I ever goddamn made.
“You can doubt many things about me; you can doubt that I’m a good man, you can doubt that I deserve you, but you must never, ever doubt how much I love you.”
My words were passionate, mostly because I meant them. Each and every one of them.
Loving her was the one honest and true thing I’d ever done with this fuckfest of a life of mine. That she could doubt it…
“Aoife?” I rasped.
She released a weary sigh and shuffled back to the other half of the bed.
“Go to sleep, Finn.”
Curling onto her side, with the full expanse of the mattress between us, I stared at the chasm that separated us.
I was not a man who took things slow. I was a man who made things happen.
But here, now, I couldn’t. She had every goddamn right to be angry with me, every goddamn right to be upset, but juggling the aftermath wasn’t going to be easy.
That was why I got up and showered in the spare room when I heard her breathing change. As sleep overtook her, I headed out of the apartment to the garage and drove to my office building in my Porsche coupe.
A new status quo needed to be found, and me lounging around the place, waiting for her to explode, wasn’t going to help matters.
The second I pulled out my desk chair from behind the desk, my cell phone rang.
Half expecting it to be Aoife, I sighed when I saw it was Kid.
“What?”
“Rude.”
I narrowed my eyes at the black nothingness that was the Hudson this late at night. “I have shit to do.”
“Don’t we all,” Conor sniped. “If anything, I have more shit than anyone else to do. Who’s the one with their hands in all the Points’ pies?”
“What do you want? A medal?”
“No. I just wanted to talk.”
Without meaning to, I focused in on the background of the call. A part of me expected to hear Michael’s screams even though Kid said the bastard had died late last night.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Why you’re going into the office on a Saturday night at eleven PM?”
Frowning, I glanced around the room. “Are you monitoring me?”
“Why does that come as a shock?”
“Swear to fuck you’re worse than Big Brother.”
Conor scoffed. “Little Brother is far more powerful.”
“Only in this instance,” I argued. “And I’ll tell Aidan and Brennan you said that next time I talk with them both.”
“Well, there’s me shaking in my fucking Yeezys.” Conor grunted, “You’re my older brother too, Finn.”
Tension crawled up the back of my spine and settled at the base of my neck—a headache was definitely brewing. “Heard about that, did you?”
“I hear all and I see all.”
“You know how lonely that sounds?” I questioned, settling my ass at the edge of my desk and perching on it.
“You know how lonely that feels?”
I reached up and rubbed my chin. “You okay?”
“I’m not the one who needs to answer that.”
“Look like a piece of shit, do I?” I flipped the room the bird and waggled my hand around to make sure he could see it in whichever camera he used to monitor me.
“You look rough,” he agreed.
“Bad couple of days.”
“Aoife tossed you out?”
“No. I get the feeling this is the calm before the storm.”
“Think she’s too scared to toss you out?”
My throat clutched at the thought. “She isn’t scared of me.”
“Isn’t she?” I heard the shrug in Conor’s voice. “She knows what happens in this world, doesn’t she?”
“Meaning?”
“‘Five Points until you die.’”
“She’s different.”
“Is she?”
“What’s with all the fucking questions, Conor? Aoife ain’t—” I massaged my temple where the headache was coming on thick and fast. “She…”
“She, what?”
I thought about what I’d told her—that I couldn’t let her divorce me. That I wouldn’t allow that to happen.