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"He wouldn’t. Not unless her mother had proof, because Da isn’t exactly into family law," I mocked. "I doubt he’d have backed it otherwise."
"What kind of proof could she have had?"
"She was diagnosed with postpartum depression, but that’s it as far as I know, and it doesn’t matter now, does it? All we know is MaryCat’s in the wind, God knows where because, trust me, Da called Rex, the Sinners’ Prez, to see if she’d turned up there and she hadn’t. You let a mother loose who might, just might, have issues—"
"Don’t you dare try to make me be the bad guy here. She was raking MaryCat over the coals in public, and no one was doing a damn thing. If you think I can just sit by—"
With a growl, I pulled the car over to the side of the road. We were five minutes away from my estate, but this was too important a subject to waste any second on.
After I pulled over, I twisted in my seat and snapped, "You don’t sit by. You come to me. You’re not on your own anymore, Savannah. Do you hear me? You’re not a rogue reporter trying to find stories. You’re my woman. My fiancée. Eventually, you’ll be my goddamn wife.
"We’re going to be a team. We work together to find the best outcome for situations like this. You’re supposed to come to me and we figure it out together. You get me?"
"Would you have listened though?"
I blinked. "Didn’t I listen about Uncle Paddy?"
Her mouth tightened. "Men don’t listen to these things," she argued. "They just blame the mom. She has postpartum depression, that means this is the exact opposite of what she should be dealing with. If I get that if we have a kid—"
"When," I rumbled, watching as her cheeks flushed.
"—will you have someone take my kid away just because my body can’t cope with all the hormones flushing through it? Wouldn’t you treat me with kindness and love, and protect me while reassuring me that we’re safe?"
"Of course I would," I said with a sigh, reaching over to grab her hand and squeeze it with my own. "But sometimes, you have to think of the baby too."
"A baby should be with its mom."
"I agree. Unless she’s a danger to it."
"I refuse to believe that MaryCat was a danger to herself or to that child. She was more of a danger to her mom, and I can’t blame her. I wanted to hit her over the head with a wine bottle too."
I grunted. "She’s a piece of work, that’s for sure. But, look. This isn’t the point. You can’t go behind my back on shit like this. If you do, you undermine me, Savannah. You can’t do that. I need to present a strong front otherwise, when I’m the head of the Points, people will think they can worm their way into any weakness I have and find a way to take me down." I glowered at her. "You’re one of those weaknesses. I can’t have that.
“You need to make sure you come to me, and we will fix things in private. You might not always like my decision, and I’m pretty fucking sure I won’t always like yours, but we will find a stalemate that doesn’t make us want to strangle each other.
"You’re from a different world, and it’s going to take time to settle into this one. But this wasn’t the way to achieve anything. Now MaryCat’s out there, unsafe, unprotected—"
"If you think Star let her loose without anyone watching over her, you’re nuts."
My mouth tightened. "I hope you’re right."
She blew out a breath. "Did anyone come forward as a Sparrow?"
"You know I can’t talk about that."
Her gaze was measured upon mine. "If I concede to some things that you ask, and if I listen where I only want to block my ears, you can do me the decency of compromising too."
"Not where your safety is concerned."
"Nothing about this affects my safety—"
Frustrated, I snapped, "Savannah, my mother put a blowtorch to the Archbishop’s dick until he was squealing like a pig." She blanched, but her shoulders straightened. "That was my ma. What do you think my enemies would do if they got to you? What do you think they’d do to get information out of you? It’s best if you don’t know—"
Her hand reached out and she grabbed my lapels. "Aidan, haven’t you learned anything? You tell me to sit back, I stand up. You tell me to hide, I leap into the fray. It’s how I’m built.
“Maybe it’s crazy to you but I could have died two nights ago, and I would do it all again because being stuck in that safe room would annihilate me. I can’t deal with that. It’s not how I’m wired.
"Nothing about your world scares me. Makes me nervous, yeah, I’m human. But scared? Not so much.
"Sure, it’s freaky learning that your mother-in-law broiled another dude’s dick, and do I want to know what happened to it? Of course I do. I have many questions. Did you throw it in the trash? Put it in the corpse soup Cruz made? But the point is, if you keep me in the dark, the only thing you’re going to encourage is me sneaking around and finding out in my own way.
"You can’t keep me from the truth because the truth is the only thing that keeps my monsters at bay," I yelled, tightening my grip and hauling him forward. "You can’t expect a kid to see someone being killed and then think they’ll just erase that from their memories.
“My sister was kidnapped, we know she was raped, and I know she had an abortion because she got pregnant—Aidan, I live in a messed up world too. I have coping mechanisms for a reason. The way I cope is to know exactly what’s going on and when.
"So, I won’t go looking for things to be curious about. I won’t seek shit out. But when your father invites everyone to a fucking party and tells people that he’s going to enable an amnesty for Sparrows in his midst, you bet your ass I need to know how many fuckers you’ve had hiding in your ranks."
