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“Never say never.”
Her finger jutted out at him. “Bite your tongue. The ozone can’t handle another decade of Aquanet.”
An unexpected memory hit him out of nowhere. “My mom used to fumigate the entire house when she got ready. I can still taste it.” It was as if it was only yesterday when he was on the floor playing with his cars, and she was in the bathroom getting ready for the day.
Allison crossed her legs beneath her and leaned on her hand. “Why don’t you talk about her more? Your mom.”
“She’s dead. There’s nothing to talk about.”
“How’d she die?” Reid shot her a look, and she held her hands in front of her. “Sorry. It’s the reporter in me. I know you don’t want to talk about it. I just…”
“Can’t let a story go.”
“This isn’t for a story. This is me and you talking. I just want to meet the man beneath the mystery.”
“Until you realize the ratings it could get you.”
She took his hand, squeezing. “Fuck the ratings. I wouldn’t do that to you, and you know it.”
He hadn’t spoken about it to anyone in years. It was another secret from his past he’d left behind in Boston. He’d gotten his revenge and while he always thought it would bring him peace, it never really did. The only way he’d ever be able to was if he could turn back time, but since he wasn’t a time traveler or someone who could manipulate time and space, he was stuck with the regret. The guilt. Everything that had consumed him from that day so long ago. If only he was there. Maybe he could have done something. Maybe things would have been different.
Maybe… nothing would have been different at all.
“She was killed,” he finally admitted. It’s not that he expected a weight to be lifted off his shoulders, but maybe for the tension he’d been carrying for almost thirty years to lessen.
Allison’s head whipped back, eyes widened, and he worried she’d fall off the bed. He was about to reach for her when she blurted, “Killed?”
He’d already stepped toward the edge. He might as well just jump now. “Shot in a botched robbery when I was nine.”
The gasp was unexpected. Allison, being a seasoned reporter, knew how to control her emotions. It was something they shared in common. Her hand landed on her chest, the determined glint in her eye softened into compassion. “I’m so sorry. That is awful. I had no idea.”
“How would you?” He shrugged it off just as he’d been doing since the day his dear old dad sat him down and explained to him his mother was dead, and things were going to change. It was the day he stopped being a boy. He became a man at nine, because if he didn’t, if he continued to rely on comfort and love, he wouldn’t have survived.
“True. You’ve always been very secretive. I didn’t even know your last name for the longest time. You barely use it. I just knew you as Reid.”
“Reid is actually my middle name.” He’d been going by it since the day he left Boston and moved to Willow Cove. No one knew his real name except for Angel and O’Reilly.
“Wait. What?” Allison’s voice creeped up a few octaves. “Then what’s your first name?”
“Connor.” He took a deep breath and finally spoke the name he hadn’t in one and a half decades. “Connor Reid Flynn.”
“Connor Flynn?” Her eyes narrowed. “No.” She tilted her head and leaned back. “Not Connor Flynn as in Rory “the Diamond” Flynn’s son?
She was good. He’d give her that. His first reaction was to spew a lie. Hell, he’d been living one for fifteen years. He was sick of lying to everyone, though. Sick of not being able to talk about who he really was. Allison was probably the worst person to share this information with, but maybe it would help open her eyes. Help to get her to understand the severity of the situation. Besides, he wanted to tell her. If he wasn’t already sitting, the realization would have knocked him on his ass.
“Yeah,” he admitted. “Rory Flynn is my father.”
Allison’s head practically snapped off her shoulders, eyes widened, mouth opened. “Rory “TheDiamond” Flynn wasyourfather?”
Reid nodded. It wasn’t something he talked about, ever. It was a secret he had kept since moving to Willow Cove. His true identity could get him killed, so he moved out of Boston, started going by his middle name, and tried to create a new life for himself. He was still close enough to keep an eye on things in Boston, but not close enough to be detected. Or at least, he thought. “That would be him.”
Allison exhaled, blowing her black hair up and out of her face. “Wow. He was one of the biggest mob heads in the city’s history. Taking him down was epic. I had an entire class in college where we dissected the case and the media coverage around it.” Her eyebrows pinched together. “His son… he had dark brown hair.”
“Dye.” He went to a salon a few towns over every few months. Mainly in the winter. During the summer, it managed to stay lighter longer.
Allison’s eyebrow lifted. “Dye? You dye your freaking hair! Do I know anything about you that’s real?” She jumped from the bed and turned her eyes on him. It was probably a bad time to tell her how damn good she looked in his shirt. “Why the hell do you dye your hair?”
“Same reason why I hate being on TV. If someone recognized me…”
