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He isn’t moved by my recollection of that night. “What would ya have me do?” he questions calmly. “She was going to ruin everythin’ for me. Forus.”
“There is nous, thanks to you. Ye made sure of it when ya killed my entire family.”
“Iamyer family, Puck,” he corrects with a smug smile. “Don’tcha be forgettin’ that. We’re the same, you and I. We want the same thing…even though you can’t see that.”
Smacking my lips together, I reply, “What I want is for ye to be dead, but I know that can’t happen until ya get what ya want. So stop wasting my time.”
Sean nods, appearing to respect me for my honesty. “Aye, yer right. I’m not going to insult ya by apologizin’ for what I did. I can’t change the past, but I can the future…join me, son. I want ya by my side.
“I can’t do this on my own. I’ve tried. But these men still cling to Connor’s ruling and see you as their true leader. We could rule all of Ireland and Northern Ireland together. Father and son…just how it was supposed to be.”
I take a moment to process what he just said because, what in the ever-living fuck? Does he really expect me to fall for this shite?
“Ya said ye didn’t want to insult me,” I state, folding my arms across my chest. “And then ya go and say such nonsense. We willneverrule side by side, and ya know that.”
A jubilant chuckle spills from Sean. “It was worth a shot. That’s why I was forced to do what I did.”
“No one forced ya to get yer nephew hooked on whatever shite he’s takin’. That’s all on you. The people surrounding ye are not there by choice. They’re either junkies or yer blackmailing them somehow.”
“Yer ma made the choice, though, cub. She came to me. And that’s the God’s honest truth.”
As I clench my jaw, Sean’s journal entry comes crashing into me.
She betrayed me after she told me she loved me. After she promised she’d never leave me. That I was the one she wanted, not him.
She was going to leave him. She told me so.
“I don’t know what she was thinkin’, but what I do know is that I don’t blame her for fallin’ for yer bullshit. I did. I believed ya actually gave a fuck about me.”
“I did. I do,” he counters, and I hate that I can’t sense a lie in him. “I protected ye, did I not? When Connor was beating ye black and blue, I stepped in to help ya. Ye saw me more as a father than Connor. Ya can’t deny that.”
I want to argue, to tell him to shut his fucking mouth, but he’s right. He always had my back, and at times, I wished he was my dad, not Connor. Now that I know the truth, however, I realize Connor raised me as best he could.
He wasn’t shown love or affection as a wain because my grandfather was too busy chasing tail, and my grandmother was oblivious to it as her first—and only—love was any liquor she could drown herself in.
Connor and Sean were doomed from the very beginning until my ma came along. She showed them both kindness and love and paid the ultimate price for it.
I hate that this piece of shite is the only link to my past, a past I so desperately want to know more about. My whole life wasn’t just trying to find out who Cara Kelly was, but it was also about finding out whoIam.
I’ve always felt like I don’t belong, and that’s because I don’t know anything about who I was until I was old enough to make those decisions for myself. I don’t know if I was always this stubborn or if I preferred winter to summer.
I don’t know anything because my past is a thing Connor wanted me to forget.
But now, my past, present, and future stand in front of me, offering me breadcrumbs because he knows me too well.
I thought I would come into this forgetting our past, but looking at him now, all I’m reminded of is how Sean was the person who helped shape me into the man I am today. He was the one who took care of me when Connor was too busy to care.
And I hate how he has that over me because I don’t know why he would do that when he had ample opportunity to kill me.
“Ya may hate me with every breath ya take…but I know that ya hate yerself more for not being able to kill me.”
His words stoke this already intense fire, and I reach for my gun, proving him wrong.
He sarcastically raises his hands in surrender, not at all threatened. “Go on then, shoot me. But y’ll never see Ethan or Eva again.”
Gripping the gun, I rein in the urge to prove him wrong because he’s right. Ethan and Eva are the reason he’s still breathing. “Name yer price.”
“Punky,” Cian warns, but I am done playing.
