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Just thinking about it had my throat closing. My ears tuning out so that all I could hear was the beat of my heart and the rushing of blood in them.
I tried to focus on taking slow and steady breaths, but that wasn’t easy when I felt like I was running a race all while standing still.
Tipping my head forward, I pressed my forehead against the glass and let the cool chill sink into me.
“Ma’am?” Jamie questioned, but though I heard him, I couldn’t process what he was asking.
“Ma?!” Declan snapped down the line. “Listen to me, I know you can’t answer, I can hear the way you’re breathing, but follow my lead, okay?”
When he started inhaling and exhaling, encouraging me to mimic him, I started weeping as I listened and breathed in time to him.
Such a good, good boy.
The best.
I was blessed.
Slowly but surely, my heart stopped its fluttering, and I managed to rasp, “Thank you, son.”
I didn’t deserve my boys.
Every day, I received more proof of that.
“It’s okay. We’ll figure something out with your guards,” he told me. “You like Sean, don’t you? From my crew?”
“I do,” I whispered.
“Then I’ll redirect him to your team.”
“Don’t you need him?” Ididlike Sean. He was Mary Constantine’s boy, and because his father had died when he was a teen, he’d been raised right.
“I can deal. There are plenty of men who can help me, but not so many that you like.”
I heaved a sigh. “I appreciate that more than you know, Declan. Thank you.”
“No worries. Did Conor not tell you about the wedding next week?”
I blinked. “You and Aela are getting hitched?”
“We are. I need you to coordinate with Conor otherwise shit won’t get done in time. It’s a surprise for her, so don’t say anything, okay?”
Pulling back, I rubbed the side of my neck. “I’ll call him as soon as I’m done here.”
I dreaded that call.
Aidan and I had agreed that we’d never confront our boy, that he’d come to us when andifhe was ready to talk, but knowing what I did, how was I supposed to stay silent?
How was I supposed to hold the words back in?
This wasn’t my secret to tell. This was his. And he was the one who’d suffered. Not me. I was just the one who’d failed him. Over and over and over again.
God help me, but I wished Finn and Junior had let me die. Had let those flames flicker over me and had burned my shame, leaving me to rot in hell for how much I’d failed them.
My life hadn’t been easy, but a mother’s lot was to try to make her children’s better. Brighter. Instead, I’d condemned them from the start.
“Where’s here?” Declan questioned, his words breaking into my self-pity.
“I’m at Bellevue.”
