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“Do you now?” he asks, his narrowed gaze fixing on my face.
“Aye.” I glare back at him. He wouldn’t allow us all to interrogate Tiggy, and he knows the other three wouldn’t allow him to question their wives. He reads my face accurately, offering me a stiff nod.
“One hour. Then I want the whole story.”
Nodding to him, I stand, taking Fiona with me as I exit the room, heading next door to my office. Seating myself on the easy chair in the corner, I tuck Fiona against my chest.
“Tell me everything,leannán.”
She sighs, brushing her fingertips over my shirt above my heart, tracing circles.
“I lived in that apartment my whole life. That’s why I was so stubborn about moving out of it. My dad died when I was six; from then, it was me, my mom, and Grant, my big brother.” Fiona’s voice breaks slightly on her brother’s name, but she recovers quickly.
“Grant was always… different,” she says slowly. “Manipulative, I suppose. He was always able to get my Mom to do what he wanted, and when he couldn’t… well, he used to hurt himself. To make her feel bad. It worked because she would always give in to him every time for ages after he did that.”
Sighing, Fiona snuggles in closer to my chest. “We had a series of social workers. They used to check in because they noticed that Grant had hurt himself, or a teacher had seen the bruises he had left on me and called it in.”
I grit my teeth and lower my face into her hair, inhaling deeply to calm myself down. When I get my hands on this cunt, I will tear him apart.
“But Grant used to be able to manipulate them too, and so they never did anything to help us.” Fiona’s voice is small now, but she keeps talking. “When I was eighteen, I talked about moving out, and Mom said that now her babies were all grown up, maybe she would go and stay with an old school friend who had moved to Texas. I think maybe she needed some time away from Boston. Whatever it was, Grant just lost it.”
Fiona swallows roughly, her hand clenching around the fabric of my shirt. “He started screaming that she couldn’t leave him because her place was wherever he was. To do whatever he told her to do. It was so scary, and the next thing I knew, Grant was attacking her, stabbing her over and over again with one of the knives from the kitchen, screaming that she couldn’t leave him.”
Jesus fuck, the lad’s clearly not right in the head, and now he’s gunning for my lass? He needs to be taken out. Immediately.
“She was dead long before he stopped stabbing her,” Fiona continues in a small voice, sounding ill. “Then he turned to me.”
My insides go ice cold, my arms tightening around her.
“He started yelling that this was all my fault because I had told her I was leaving the apartment. He said I could never move out of the apartment. I yelled that he was crazy and ran. I went to stay with some friends. I told the police what he had done, but they said they checked it out, and there was no body in our apartment, no blood. No nothing.”
She takes a deep, shuddering breath, steadying herself. “Then I came home from asking around about a job, and he’d murdered both of my friends. Arranged it to look like a murder-suicide. But I knew it was him because he had left me a note. It said, ‘you can’t ever leave the apartment, Fi-Fi,’ so I knew it was him.”
Fiona falls silent, her chest heaving. I stroke her hair for a moment. When she doesn’t speak again, I do.
“What did ye do next?”
“I moved back into the apartment. But Grant wasn’t there. Then I marched down here and asked for a job. Any job. Carmen and Seamus were here, and they said if I could work the pole, I could have a job. So I did. I auditioned for them, and I’ve worked here ever since.”
“And yer brother?” I murmur, stroking my fingers through her soft hair.
“He left me alone for a while. I figured he wouldn’t touch me if I were under the protection of the Irish. It’s why I wanted a job here so badly. That’s when I wanted to test it. I started going to the fights. He saw me there, but he didn’t do or say anything, so I knew I was safe.”
Jesus fuck. Once I’ve taken care of her psycho brother, she and I need to have a wee chat about her taunting a psychotic murderer.
“But he sent that powder to burn your hands?” It doesn’t take a genius to figure out Grant was the name she was withholding from me.
“He saw us. You and me. At the fight. Holding hands. Well, pinkies. So he burned my hands. Just to let me know that he could. And that I shouldn’t hold hands with you anymore. I don’t think he likes the idea of anyone touching me.”
I feel bile rising in my throat. I know she was a virgin before me, but I have always wondered why.
“He didn’t….”
Fiona makes a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. “Oh,God,no. Not that.”
Jesus fuck. Thank Christ for that.
“I’m pretty sure he wants me because he can’t have our mom. He wants me as a replacement, and who wants to think about people touching theirmom.”
