“Hurry, pet.”
Conall moved quicker, but the narrow hallway the stairs were trapped in got darker the lower they went. He nearly tripped over his own feet when he reached the bottom. Someone grabbed his hand and dragged him down a narrow corridor that led to the only sliver of light Conall could see. It came from an ajar door. The orange tinted light lit up Sloan’s face when they reached it and he gripped Conall’s hand tighter as he turned to him.
“Ready for your present, pet?”
Conall licked his dry lips, not quite sure what to expect, but he nodded. “Always.”
Sloan’s smile made Conall’s body tingle in all the right ways, before he shoved open the door and dragged Conall in. What he saw made Conall’s muscles tighten in both surprise and anger. There, tied to a chair with a bloody, scratched up face was no one other than his mother. She left when he was young, and her face was hazy in his mind, but the moment he set eyes on her, he knew she couldn’t be anyone else.
She looked like Terrance in every way, with the same bright crimson hair and narrow face. He didn’t remember her being so thin, but that could have been all the years on the streets after she’d taken the coward’s way out and ran from her abusive husband, leaving her kids behind. Conall had understood her need to escape, but he’d always wondered why she hadn’t taken them with her. He assumed now he could ask her that very question.
She peered at him from under mattered hair, her eyes bloodshot red and lips chapped from dryness. Cocking her head while she looked at him, her lips parted and she wordlessly said his name as though she wasn’t quite sure if it was him or not.
Then she said it louder, “Conall?” Her Irish accent was as thick as it was when he’d last seen her.
He swallowed around the lump that lodged his throat and stood as tall as he could, but in that moment he didn’t feel confident. This was his mother, the woman he once cherished, the same one who’d abandoned them to a cruel man. He didn’t know how he was meant to feel.Angry. Upset. Betrayed.
Then her dark blue eyes, the same color as Conall’s, switched to something behind him and her bottom lip wobbled. “Terrance?” She smiled and tears gathered there, falling down her dirty cheeks. “My boys. Myboys.”
“We weren’t your boys when you left us with Dad.” Conall crossed his arms and bit down on his tongue to stop himself from crying. This wasn’t meant to hurt. He shouldn’t have cared that she was here, marred with dirt from years of being on the streets and reeking like a dead rodent. Both him and Terrance had forgotten her after Terrance had killed their dad.
She looked at Conall again, gaze teary and bottom lip wobbling more furiously than before. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Conall took a step closer to Sloan. “Why did you bring her here?” he asked gently.
Sloan cupped his jaw and kissed him on the lips with enough reassurance that Conall melted into his arms that encircled him. “I remember you telling me about her, pet, how she left you to your father’s fists. So I thought it was about time you had your own revenge.”
Byrnes passed Sloan a Glock with a silencer, which Sloan then handed to Conall.
Conall stared down at it in his palm, weighing the heaviness of such a small device. His skin prickled with goose bumps.
“She’s yours to do what you want with, pet,” Sloan whispered, brushing Conall’s bangs out of his face. “Merry Christmas.”
Conall glanced at him with wide eyes. “You think I should kill her?”
She gasped. “Please, Conny,no.”
Conny.Only she’d ever called him that. His father always hated it and every time he heard her call Conall that ridiculous nickname, it’d earn her a slap. So she only ever called him that in private. Conall used to love his mum’s soft voice calling him that once upon a time, it made him feel special and loved. How times had changed. Now it made him nauseous, gut churning and the bile rising in his throat.
He looked at her and swallowed the fear and pain and everything else raging inside of him, and moved to stand in front of her. She stared at him with wide, pleading eyes.
“Please don’t hurt me, Conny. I’m your mum.”
Conall heard Terrance’s puffed breaths, like he was caught between laughter and a sigh. He’d never heard that sort of noise from his brother, but he didn’t look at him, too afraid of what he’d see. Terrance had always been the strong one, the brother who protected him after their mum took off, the one whokilledtheir father for him. He couldn’t see Terrance’s own raw agony.
“You haven’t been our mother since you left us with him,” Conall said quietly, too afraid of raising his voice in case he gave away his sadness. He was Sloan’s pet and he wouldn’t show weakness, not even in front of their own men. “I don’t know who you are.”
“I’ve always been your mum,” she argued, but her tiny voice wavered, and her stare jumped between Conall, Terrance, and Sloan, like she didn’t know who she should be begging for her life. “Please, Conny, please don’t hurt me. I love you.”
She flashed him a smile and her yellow teeth reminded him that she hadn’t just been out on the streets, but she’d been a drug user too. His gaze slid to her bare arms where he sighted those disgusting needle holes, and he let out a long breath of relief because she wasn’t some poor, innocent soul caught in a bad situation. She was still a druggie. The one time they did find her after their dad’s death, she asked them for cash, and when they refused to give her any, she spat on them. She hadn’t changed over all those years.
But as he pressed the nuzzle of the gun to her forehead, his heart thumping wildly, he realized he couldn’t do it. There were good memories, too, like when she helped him into bed when he was six and she read him his favorite story for the twentieth time, or when she showed him how to make blueberry muffins.
“Fuck.” Conall sighed and took a step back, passing the gun back to Byrnes. Sloan opened his arms and Conall hesitated for only a short second before he snuggled against him. “She’s still my mother.”
“I know, pet.” Sloan stroked his head and kissed his forehead. “Just tell me what you want us to do with her. We can put her back on the streets, or we could put her to work in the cash houses.”
Conall snorted. “She’d sooner steal that money and dob you into the cops than actually be of use in a cash house. Then I’d have to put a bullet in her head.”
