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Twenty-Seven
Aoife
I shrugged awayfrom Finn’s grasp as he tried to clasp our hands together when we approached the warehouse two hours later.
It was dark out, cold too, but I didn’t notice. He’d insisted I wear a coat, had insisted on gloves and a scarf for the baby.
The baby that probably wouldn’t survive to term.
I complied because whatever he was, Finn was a good father.
I had to believe that, believeinthat because otherwise I’d…
Well, I didn’t know what.
I felt like I could keep on hitting him. Could keep on screaming at him. But all that would do is make me need to ice my knuckles again and my head was already pounding from all the crying.
The Five Points’ business hadn’t injured me since our wedding day when I’d gotten shot down in that drive-by shooting that had redefined New York’s underworld, but this was proof that I was either naive or fucking stupid. I wasn’t sure which yet.
What else was being kept from me?
What other secrets were whirring away behind the scenes that were reshaping my future and rewriting my past?
I peered around the grim set up, wondering how many steps it had taken me to get to this point. This moment…
A lifetime’s, I guessed.
It was a standard warehouse, I recognized.
Grim and grody.
Old, and looking like it could fall down in a good gust of wind, but one of those buildings that somehow stood the test of time too.
It had streaks of red drifting down the façade from rust, and it needed a paint but, with a second glance, I saw that all the windows were new.
I also saw there were security cameras pointed right at us, shiny with their newness.
The façade within a façade—what the Five Points excelled at.
As the doors opened and I walked in, the first thing that hit me was a weird smell. Followed by a scream.
I jumped at the sound, jolting backward and straight into Finn who must have moved from my side to behind me to support me.
I hated that he’d been prepared for that.
I fucking hated it.
Because that was Finn.
Finn was a good husband.
The best.
He loved me. He showed me that every goddamn day. He praised me and celebrated my wins, he took time for me and Jake even though he was exhausted, and he showed up. Consistently.
I thought about the man I’d been raised believing was my father when really, he was just a stepfather, and I knew what a piece of shit dad looked like. A piece of shit husband too.
Finn was not that.
