Page 147 of Discretion at Its Finest

“You know how hard I try to keep you close. How hard I tried to make you want to be part of us again. But even when you came back… even when you’re right in front of me. I still feel like you’re gone.”

Something flickered across his face, pain, guilt, something he didn’t want anyone to see, but he buried it instantly beneath a scowl. “Well then maybe I should just leave.”

“Well maybe you should!”

“Brielle, sweetheart—” Killian tried, holding her back by the waist as she surged forward.

Eugene’s voice cut through her sob. “I didn’t ask for you to try to fix me, Brielle. I didn’t ask for any of this shit.”

“Then you can leave. If you can’t even appreciate everything I’ve done, everything I’ve tried to do, then you don’t need to be a part of this anymore.”

“That’s all I’ve fucking asked for from the start.” His words echoed, heart wrenching and final.

Brielle lunged again. Killian wrapped both arms around her this time, dragging her back against his chest as she kicked at the air like she’d tear her brother apart if she reached him.

“Eugene—” Killian warned, voice dropping into something dangerous.

“Let me go!” Brielle seethed, still squirming in Killian’s hold.

“Enough.”

Reid’s voice sliced through the foyer.

His voice carried the weight of a father who never got a chance to be one. A few heads turned from the living room.

Eugene’s jaw flexed, nostrils flaring as he locked eyes on Reid approaching. They sized one another up, but Reid didn’t back down.

“This is a family matter,” he snapped at Reid. “Stay out of it.”

“Exactly why you need to calm down,” Reid retorted. “Before you say something you regret.”

“He’s going to regret me killing him!” Brielle seethed.

Reid’s eyes landed on her. “Brielle, stop.”

She glanced over to him for a split second, defiance laced in her eyes, her chest rising and falling before she finally calmed in Killian’s hold.

My eyes glanced back over to Eugene, and in that moment, my heart sank to the ground. Because his gaze had already shifted,to me.

There was a ghost of recognition, longing or maybe hatred in his eyes. For a second, he was three years old again, reaching for me in the kitchen, tugging on me gently when he needed my attention… and for a second… I was his mom again, that twenty-something-year-old who was trying so hard to make the best choices for me, for us, but still ended up choosing something that would hurt us.

The longer he looked, the harder his gaze turned… until there was nothing left of my little boy in it.

He tore his eyes away, his mouth twisting in disgust. “Yeah,” he muttered. “I’m done.”

“Eugene, wait—”

I finally moved, voice barely a whisper, but he recoiled like he’d been burned by the sound of me. Before I could get any closer, he grabbed the doorknob, and yanked it open.

Cold air rushed in briefly as he stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

Chapter fifty-six

Genevieve

I’d lain beside Reid for almost an hour, eyes burning, lungs on fire, every inhale catching on the memory of Eugene’s face. The face of disgust, of hurt, of the toddler I used to hold buried inside the man who walked away from me without looking back.

Killian had generously offered us a room for the night. I shouldn’t have expected less with how welcoming he still was after the chaos of our family reunion.