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Fiona
“I’m not saying you should fire him. Just, I don’t know, send him to have a psych evaluation done, or something.”
Slurping my chocolate milkshake through its paper straw, I glance at my father as he adjusts the newspaper in his lap, pushing his reading glasses up onto the bridge of his nose. He’s in the living room at the front of our house, a mere thirty feet away from where I’m seated at the kitchen island, but in this haunted mansion a little distance can often feel like an insurmountable canyon.
This used to be a tradition I shared with my mother, but the chocolate milkshakes make her sick now. Everything makes her sick.
As my father regards me with boredom, the way he always looks when I talk about things he’s not interested in, the distance turns into miles, and I feel small in his presence.
Stupid and naive.
Dramatic.
I don’t think it’s his intention to make me feel that way, but when you’ve spent your entire life trying to prove a fundamental difference between you and the people you share DNA with, a rift forms. The more you work at separating yourself, the wider it becomes, until one day there’s no way to cross it.
“Fiona, if I gave all of my employees psych evaluations and kept them on the payroll based on the results, do you honestly think I’d have anyone left?” He licks his finger, turning a page. “It’s an international web security firm that does a lot—a lot—of under the table dealings. No one would even apply if they weren’t at least a little messed up.”
“That sounds like good business.”
“It is what it is, sweetheart. I’ve got loyal men beneath me, and some of the most powerful ones in the country owe me favors. I’m just playing the hand I was dealt.”
Being born into a wealthy family with an ancestry dating back to the colonies hardly seems like such a trial someone would have to come to terms with, but leave it to my father to figure out a way.
Hisfather was a dirty lawyer that Finn Hanson, the leader of the Irish Stonemore gang’s grandfather kept on retainer, but for the most part, he kept his name fairly clean.
When my father turned eighteen, he fell in with one of the Stonemore pups and started running drugs for them, steering clear of the more inhumane business dealings they’re involved in—namely, trafficking. His father didn’t like the direct involvement, but there was really nothing he could do to stop it.
Once you’re in bed with the mafia, there’s no turning back. Even the people who retire or buy themselves out don’t ever really lose the demons they earn during their time inside the different families.
Love, though. That’s the kind of power that changes a man. Makes him shift things around so it fits in his world.
Not so he bends to it, but still powerful all the same, I suppose.
And when my dad fell for my mom, his entire life changed forever. Irrevocably.
When my brother Murphy was killed, my mother was diagnosed, and Kieran left the family company to pursue a career in the darkness, things shifted again, and I watched him take all the punches standing up.
My father isn’t the kind of man who wavers or cowers; he adjusts, adapts, and makes life his bitch.
But for some reason, it often rings hollow, as if there are secrets he keeps hidden. Evil doings lurking in his shadows, sheltered by the facade of normalcy he presents to the rest of the world.
I’ve been trying to emulate the practice for as long as I can remember, which is how I recognize that it’s a veil. One I don’t ever see him shedding.
I sigh, glaring at my straw. “I just think it’s weird he ate the cookie, is all. Why would you do that if you’re allergic to chocolate?”
“Maybe he was trying to prove a point.” My father shrugs. “He did say you burst in while he was on an important phone call.”
“He told on me?”
“Well, no. Chelsea did, and then I asked Boyd about it, because Chelsea can sometimes be a little...”
“Bitchy?”
He shoots me a look. “Dramatic.”
And there it is. A rock sinks low into my stomach, the weight unsettling, and I feel the tears spring to my eyes before I have a chance to stop them.
I take a long drag of my shake, swishing the icy chocolate around my teeth, and swallow, flipping my hair over my shoulder. “Maybe I should befriend her, then. Sounds like we’d get along; maybe we can share horror stories of how uptight you and Boyd are, or maybe—”
