AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I-I don’t want her dead,” Aoife muttered.
“Who’s the gun-for-hire?”
“I thought you liked your husband,” Savannah teased Aela, who promptly flipped her the bird.
“I do. I was curious.”
“Her name is Dead To Me,” I answered easily. “You know her as Lucinda.”
Aela’s eyes widened. “She’s a sniper? I thought she was a soldier.”
“The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” I drawled.
“I don’t want her dead,” Aoife spat, tone sharper this time.
“Okay, Aoife, calm down,” Inessa soothed. “We didn’t think you did.”
“Finn…” Her jaw worked before she released a breath. “Finn has tried very hard to make up for what he’s done—”
“How’s that going?” was Camille’s gentle inquiry.
“It’s going well.” She rubbed her brow. “I feel as if there are two discordant parts of my marriage and I hate that.
“I love my husband. I-I’m not ashamed to admit that I don’t want to be without him, no matter the mistakes he’s made in the past, but this feels like…”
“A scab that won’t heal,” I said simply, taking a sip of coffee afterward.
“Yes,” she replied, bobbing her head. “It’s raw and deep and I hate it. I hate that it affects my life. I hate that none of you want to talk about her in front of me, and I hate that my brothers-in-law all tread warily around me. I hate that Finn acts as if he’s dropped a bomb whenever he utters her name.”
When the china cup in her hand cracked, we all jerked in surprise, but I was the one who snagged her hand, peered at it for cuts, and placed a napkin around the small slice in her palm—not a lot of damage considering the act.
“Keep pressure on that,” I instructed.
Dazedly, she nodded. “T-Thank you.”
“You have a lot of unresolved anger,” I muttered. “Trust me. I’d know. I’m the queen of that.”
“She is,” Savannah agreed, but she’d moved around to Aoife’s other side and was kneeling next to her. “What do you want to do, Aoife?”
“I want to go back in time. I want my mom to be alive. I want to not know what Lena did to her. I want to unlearn that Lena was a pawn…” She closed her eyes. “It’s impossible, but it’s holding me back and I hate that. I want to move forward. Onward. I-I want to wipe the slate clean.
“Last Thanksgiving and Christmas, we were alone for the first time and even though I knew Finn missed his brothers, he didn’t complain. He was happy and he played with Jake and he was… perfect,” she breathed. “It was weird. No bickering with Conor over the wishbone and no sniping when Brennan ate all of the honeyed parsnips because Lena makes the best in the world.
“No Aela and Declan pretending they hadn’t made out in one of the bedrooms—”
“Hey! Like you don’t do it—”
“No Lena making us wear those stupid hats from the crackers she has imported from the UK.” She pressed her hand to her mouth. “I was lucky that you stood by us, that you didn’t choose a side but fitted in around us and what happened, but I still want that back. I just don’t know how to reconcile what I know with a path forward.”
“You don’t.”
Aoife peered at me with glossy eyes. “I-I don’t?”
I hitched a shoulder. “I don’t like Lena. I think she’s a meddling old coot who needs to retire to Boca Raton so she can leave the kids she fucked up to live their lives without her snooping around all the freakin’ time.” Around me, sharp gasps sounded, but I ignored them. “However, I don’t think those fucked-up kids would like it if she became a snowbird. I think they need her for some weird reason. Conor, especially.
“With that being said, knowing that doesn’t mean I have to like her. It doesn’t mean I even have to endure her presence aside from on Sundays because that’s the least I can do for the man I love.”
Aoife blinked at me. “You’re saying I should just go on Sundays for Finn’s and Jake’s sakes?”
