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“Franco and I weren’t friends,” I say quietly.
“Then what, Liam? Please, just tell me the truth–”
I swallow hard, and I feel a tear fall from one eye, sliding down my cheek as the words spill from my lips, hanging between us in the silence of the living room.
“We were brothers.”
TWENTY-THREE
ANA
For a moment, I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I feel as if the room is spinning, as if everything has come to a screeching halt, my heart cracking open with the pain of this new information that I can’t bring myself to actually believe.
“That can’t be true,” I whisper. “I don’t believe it. Franco wasn’t even Irish–Sofia told me about his family, his mother–”
Oh god.
I remember it then, Sofia telling me about how Luca and Franco were so close because he’d protected him from bullying as a child–bullying that had come about because of Franco’s red hair, because of rumors that his mother had cheated with the Irish King when he was in the Rossi territory on business, and that Franco had been the result.
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head as my eyes fill with tears. “No, Liam–”
“I didn’t have a relationship with him, Ana. I didn’t even know him until we were both adults. My father didn’t even acknowledge him as his son for most of his life. But my father wanted to take over the Rossi’s territory. He got greedy. He wanted to use his friendship with Don Rossi and then Luca’s trust to partner with the Bratva and infiltrate them. He was in talks with Viktor Andreyev, but my brother Connor pushed back against it. He said it was wrong, that he wanted no part of it, that the Kings he planned to inherit wouldn’t lie and cheat and betray to expand their territory. I was at the table by then, old enough to be a part of things even if I had no real rank, and when my brother fought with my father over it and then disappeared, I thought he would turn to me next.”
“But he didn’t.” My voice is flat, my heart aching in my chest. Out of everything I’ve ever imagined happening, I never considered this. It’s more horrible than anything I could have thought of.
“No.” Liam swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “He went to Franco. He promised Franco the inheritance of the Kings if he would betray his friendship with Luca and use it to work with Viktor to take over the Italian territory. My father had bartered with Viktor that they would share it, but he intended to betray the Russians too and take it all for himself. It was a huge, greedy play that might not even have worked. But then you and Sofia–” Liam breaks off, because he knows as well as I do that he doesn’t need to say the rest. I know very well what happened after that.
I’ll bear the scars of it for the rest of my life.
“It ended with both Franco and my father dead, my brother missing and unable to be found, and me the only McGregor left to rule. That’s how I ended up at the head of that table, Ana. The default son. The one my father called a changeling, blamed for my mother’s death, forgot about for most of my life. He chose his bastard son over me, andstill,I ended up ruling. And yet–I’ve been willing to risk it all for you, Ana, becauseI love you–”
I hear him, I hear the pleading in his voice, and yet I can’t. All I can think about is what Franco did to me, that Liamknewabout that and kept the secret anyway.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whisper brokenly. “On the plane, why didn’t you tell me then? In the hotel when you saw my feet? Why didn’t you tell me literallyanytime that Franco came up, instead of keeping it a secret from me–”
“I couldn’t!” Liam’s eyes are full of tears, his hands clenched at his sides. “I couldn’t tell you, Ana. I’ve lost too much–first my brother to my father’s plans, and then my father himself. Franco tookeverythingfrom me. I couldn’t let him take you too, to keep tearing me apart from beyond the grave–”
“He took everything from me, too!” The words tear from my lips in a shriek, the sound of my scream making Liam step back, startled as the blood drains from his face. “He took everything fromyou? You rule one of the biggest crime families in America, you have this penthouse, you have–” I gasp, the words catching in my throat. “He took everything fromme. Everything. Everything that’s happened to me has been in one way or another because of him, because of what he did to me. My career, my mind, my strength, my body,everything. And now this–I wish I’d died,” I gasp brokenly, staring at Liam with my own fists clenched, a fine tremor running through me. I’m crying again, hardly able to breathe, feeling as if I’m crumbling to dust.
“I wish he’d fucking killed me,” I whisper brokenly. “Because I’ve had enough. I’ve lost everything and almost everyone that matters to me. Nowyou–the man I thought I was falling in love with,inlove with even, that I thought I could build a life with and start over with, I find out has been lying to me from the start.” I shake my head, wrapping my arms around myself as I feel a chill settle over me, crawling down my spine and into my blood. “I would tell you to go find Saoirse,” I whisper painfully. “But honestly? Saoirse deserves better, too.”
I can see those last words strike him, making him physically flinch back. Liam is crying, too, soundlessly, tears sliding down his face as he looks at me.
“I’m so sorry,” Liam whispers, and he tries to take a step closer to me. I put my hands up, warding him off, and he stops in his tracks. “I didn’t want you to be reminded of Franco every time you looked at me,” he whispers helplessly. “I couldn’t bear the thought of it, Ana.”
“You’re reminded of Alexandre every time you look at me.” I throw my hands up, staring at Liam. “We see the worst things that have happened to each of us reflected in each other.” My voice breaks as I say the words, my heart splintering. They feel so final, the final admission of how ruined we are for each other. “We’re each other’s worst kind of mirror.”
Liam shakes his head fiercely, and this time he does step towards me, a hand’s length between us as he looks down at me, his face taut and full of pain.
“I don’t see Alexandre when I look at you,” he says, his voice a tortured whisper. “I only see the woman I love. The woman I want to fight for, even now. All I want, Ana, is for you to see me too, for you to loveme. Ever since I met you, you’ve made me want to fight for more than I ever, ever knew I could have. I was wrong to keep secrets from you–but every single one I kept, Ana, I kept to protect you. To protectus.” He’s a breath away from me now, close enough for me to feel the heat of his body, the tension coming off of him in waves.
“What Alexandre made me do to you broke me, Ana, in ways I never knew I could be broken. But you?” He reaches out, his fingers brushing over my cheekbone, and I shudder at his touch, my eyes fluttering shut. “You, Ana, are the only one who can shatter me completely–and the only one who can put me back together again.”
I open my eyes and look up at him, this handsome man who I’ve come to love so much, who has torn me apart and put me back together in a dozen different ways. “It’s bad luck to break your mirror,” I whisper, and Liam smiles the tiniest bit, his full lips quirking up on one side.
“I’m Irish,” he says quietly. “I’m supposed to have luck in spades.”
“I’m not, though.”
