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My stomach churned, twisting itself in knots. I barely remembered the night I got Marianne pregnant. Katherine’s note had broken something in me, but I’d had a plan to run after her. Drag her back kicking and screaming because our love was forever. It always would be. Even after all these years. It was her and me. There would be no one else.
A sick sense of dread spread over me. Marianne had tried to stop me. Telling me to give her space. She’d handed me a beer. Just one beer, and that was all I remembered about that night. About most of the nights we had sex.
Shit.
I rushed from Ava’s room and into the hallway, my breaths heavy as I beelined for the guest bathroom. Ava didn’t need to see me like this. Slamming the door behind me, I heaved the contents of my meager breakfast into the porcelain toilet, tears streaking down my face as I struggled to come to terms with everything.
She’d fucking drugged me.
The bitch. Marianne had taken away my choice. I loved my children. They were all more like me than like that ragged whore, but it didn’t take away the stabbing pain in my heart. Katherine had loved me so much that she sacrificed her freedom for my life, and all I’d ever done was sulk and curse her name.
“Da,” Seamus called with a slight knock on the door. “Are you all right in there?”
Swallowing back the bitter pain, I closed the lid and flushed the toilet before turning to the sink.
“Yeah,” I hollered at him through the door. “Must have been something I ate.”
Seamus chuckled. “Don’t let Nan hear you say that,” he teased and then paused. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I rinsed my face and patted it dry. Checking myself in the mirror, I nodded at my reflection and turned to exit the bathroom. Seamus stood on the other side, worry etched into the lines of his face.
“What’s with the concern, son?” I asked him. “Just a stomach problem is all.”
He didn’t look convinced. The boy had always been perceptive. He wore his heart on his sleeve and his emotions like a shield. It didn’t surprise me that he could pick up on them just as easily. I had a thought or two about having Matthias train him in looking for micro-expressions. Even if I did think it was nothing more than voodoo witchcraft.
“I just—” He hesitated, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. “I know there was never any love lost between you and”—he couldn’t say her name. Jesus, she had fucked us all up—“but I also know it can’t be easy. You still trusted her. She was your wife.”
I stared at him for a moment, taking him in. There were traces of Marianne in his face, but those emerald eyes and red hair were all me. And funnily enough, he looked more like Katherine. The McDonough gene had certainly favored him and his brother.
“Is it hard?” I asked. “Yes. But it is harder knowing I fell into her web of lies. But I don’t regret it, my son.” I clasped a hand on the back of his neck, bringing our foreheads together. I stared him straight in the eye. “Because even though the pain is throbbing and heartache is piercing, she gave me the most wonderful gifts I could ever ask for.”
“A sky-high credit card bill,” he joked. I smiled at his antics.
“You and your siblings,” I told him seriously. “The five of you are the most important things in my life, and I wouldn’t change that for the world. Understand?”
Seamus nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as he swallowed back the emotion.
“Nothing could ever make me not love you or turn my back on you.”
“I love you too, Da,” he assured me. “I just don’t like to see you hurting.”
I kissed his forehead like I used to when he was a child. “Pain reminds us that we are human.” I released my hold. “It reminds us to be humble.”
Seamus smiled at me. The fucker had gotten so tall over the years that he was now eye level with me. Katherine had been the love of my life, and although it hurt to have lost her and it hurt to know that the one we’d called our friend had betrayed us all along, I wouldn’t change anything for the world.
I may have lost Katherine, but I gained something in her absence. Children that I loved with all my heart. The family I’d always dreamed of having. I wouldn’t let anyone take that away from me.
Fola roimh gach ní eile.
Blood before all else.
CHAPTERTWELVE
My father rushed from the room. His face had paled dramatically as I told my story, eyes wide with horror. It hurt to have to tell him that his wife had betrayed him. She meant nothing to me, but she was the mother of his children, the one he’d given his last name to. Everything that should have been my mother’s.
I couldn’t think that way, though. Without her, the twins wouldn’t exist, nor the other siblings I had yet to meet. They were in Ireland, as tradition called for. Training for their respective roles inside the family. Seamus had brought it up a few times, but no one had gone into the specifics.
From what I gathered, it wasn’t much different from the Dashkov compound, where we trained the next generation of men and women to be soldiers and leaders within theBratvaand its civilian companies. I’d learned that even those who worked at our civilian offices were part of the mafia. From the janitors to the receptionists. Even the lawyers were on the mafia payroll.
