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ough today,” she whispered to me. “There is blood in there and sharks are circling round. You cannot forget you are the Ceann na Conairte. They need to see us standing strong.”
“The irony.” I glanced down at my busted arm and leg, but she lifted my head up.
“If Melody heard you talking like this, would she be proud to have you as her husband? Melody always loved you for your strength. Now is the most important time to show the Callahan family is just as ruthless…no, even more so now. If not, they will try to strike while you are down.”
I knew I was supposed to compose myself differently than everyone else, but I felt like I was on autopilot.
“O’Phelan,” she called our butler and he came over to me, handing me a cane and taking the crutches away. It hurt like a bitch but part of me welcomed the pain; it kept me up. Taking my arm out of the sling as well, I readjusted myself.
“Better.” She attempted to fix my hair. “Hold on to me and we’ll be fine.”
How did she do this? After Father? How did she go on for days, months, years, laughing and smiling…how did she keep living?
“Dad.” Dona ran over to me and I bit my lip to fight back the groan.
“Dona, be careful.” Ethan pulled her back, her eyes wide.
“Sorry—”
“I’m fine. Come on, let’s get in the car.” Wyatt was already seated and waiting. He rested his head on the window as the gates opened. All the gifts and notes had been taken down; when, I wasn’t sure, but I was grateful.
There were police cars waiting to escort us to the church…the irony. In all honesty, I had no idea what the world believed had happened a week before, nor what the Irish or Italians were saying. I didn’t really care…
The long drive went by so much quicker than usual; since the police had cleared the way, it only took ten minutes.
“I don’t want to go,” Ethan whispered.
Me either, the broken man in me wanted to say.
“We have to do things we don’t like Ethan; it’s part of being a leader.” I spit out that bullshit with ease, fixing my cuff links when the cars pulled to a stop…at the very same church we had been married in.
Who would have thought this was how it would end?
Like always, our family went to the very front pews, only a few feet from her casket.
“No,” Dona said when she saw Melody, closing her eyes.
“Cora,” I whispered. They didn’t need to see her like this…pale…cold… She understood and she signaled two men to come over and close it. Dona tucked her head into my coat and I let her. I didn’t wince, didn’t hide my face from all the eyes that were on me.
I am the Ceann na Conairte.
I am Liam Alec motherfucking Callahan.
And if I needed to remind them, I would.
The priest moved the podium. “We are here to celebrate the life and mourn the death of Melody Nicci Giovanni Callahan, a mother, a wife, and a hero.”
DECLAN
He had insisted on carrying her coffin into the hearse. He put the cane to the side and lifted her outside the church with us. He looked like a man made out of stone. Every part of him hardened…but I knew his physical pain was nothing in comparison to the emotional one. The only thing tying his feet to the floor was his kids.
But for a split second, when they begin to lower her down, I saw it in his eyes: he wanted to jump in too.
“Stop! Please stop!” Wyatt screamed, trying to run to the casket, but Liam held him firm as if he had already known Wyatt planned on doing it.
“Oh God.” Cora gasped beside me, tears pouring down her face as she squeezed my arm. “How? How can this be happening?”
My eyes shifted over to Sedric’s black tombstone just three spaces over, then my father’s right beside his; next to my father, my mother’s and my aunts’…how? How was this happening? The same way it had always happened, the same way it would continue to happen. We didn’t lose the targets on our backs when we fell in love or had a family. Love means shit to those in the mafia. This wasn’t a fairytale, bad shit happens, it’s life, it’s horrible, it’s tragic…but shit happens.
