AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Thirty-Nine
Aidan
Today had probably beenthe longest day of my life.
One of the worst and the best too.
What a day to realize I had daddy issues.
After a very busy night, one that made the day feel like it had run slow, I headed to my parents’ room before I went to the safe room to get Savannah out.
Putting an ear to it, I heard moving around, the sounds of drawers being opened and closed, even the shower, so I knocked and braced myself for what was about to come.
I’d received the lowdown on tonight’s events, and had given a cleaned-up version of what had happened at the cathedral to my brothers, all while Cruz, one of our allies, made sure our place was spic-and-span with no forensic DNA evidence.
Star had even telecommuted in on the meeting, and had hacked into Savannah’s website, releasing all the exposés in one swoop.
I wasn’t sure Savannah would appreciate that, but once I informed Star that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was the fucking head of the Sparrows, had explained how they worked using the information the Archbishop had spilled under torture, there was no stopping her.
The exposé on DeLaCroix, the Chief Justice, we’d learned, had already been scheduled to drop on the 25th, but this recent intel changed the timeline and sped up the urgency.
We needed that bastard behind bars.
With no head, how could a body work?
Savannah and Star’s source was an ex-trafficking victim of the Sparrows. A Sinners’ Old Lady with a quirk that, with her past, must be torturous. Definitely more of a curse than a gift. The ability to remember every face I’d ever seen wasn’t something I’d wish on an enemy, never mind an ally. Star had promised that she’d be pumping this woman, Amara, for more faces so we could truly start to annihilate the NWS from the inside out.
With the compound cleaned up of forensics, Conor’s chatter confirming that the NYPD believed the attacks against our church and the cathedral were considered gang warfare—retaliation against the Irish Mob—that there’d been no casualties so far aside from the intended one, of course, and my brothers believing that Da had gone off the rails because the man we’d learned was a Sparrow was Catholic, things were wrapped up as well as they could be. Especially once I’d seen Finn rattling around, stooped a little as he hacked up his guts some more.
I wasn’t as badly affected, and half-wondered if my detoxed body had assumed the smoke was a type of drug. I sure as hell wasn’t coughing as much as he was.
In fact, a few coughs sounded within the bedroom, but the door opened, revealing Da’s haggard face to my cautious gaze. "Son?"
Nerves hit me, and I wasn’t even sure why. I just felt on edge, pretty much like he did.
I’d never seen my father fragile, and after a lifetime of him being an inferno that blazed out of control whenever he walked into any room, far worse than the fire he’d started at the cathedral, this was strange.
He looked...old.
I didn’t like it.
Not one bit.
"Is Ma okay?" I asked softly.
He nodded. "She’s trying to get clean."
"Oh." Shit.
I reached up and scrubbed a hand over my face. I remembered this phase. After the Aryans, she’d take thirty-minute showers where she came out with her skin rubbed raw. Da had been the only one who could ever get her out from under the water.
"Yeah." He heaved a sigh. "She had to know, son."
"Did she? Are you sure about that?"
"I know that I needed revenge. Why shouldn’t she? He’s her boy too."
"You’re not exactly an over-sharer, Da."
