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“If I may—”
“You may fucking not,” I said over David’s attempt to intervene. Why the fuck he was there was beyond me. “You’re lucky I don’t report you for breaking your fucking oath. You had no fucking right to involve them.”
“Involve us in what?” Declan demanded.
“I haven’t said anything about anything,” David stated. I hated him with his stupid calm attitude like everything was fucking fine. “Your mother and I were on our way to the airport when Declan called us.”
I groaned. Ireland. Fuck, I screwed up Mom’s vacation.
“Fuck, go to Ireland, Mom!” I gestured to the door. “Jesus fucking Christ. You haven’t gone on vacation ever. You shouldn’t have fucking canceled to be here.”
“Stop making excuses,” Mom snapped. “What shouldn’t he have involved us in, Killian?”
“It’s none of your fucking concern!” I hollered. “You all keep acting like I’m the only one with fucking problems in this goddamn family! News flash! I’m not! Declan secretly married his fucking girlfriend on a goddamn whim because why the fuck should he tell anyone? Sam’s more wolf than human at this fucking point, but we’re not talking about that, are we? Finn fucking runs an OnlyFans where he cooks naked for strangers! With his dick out near food! Lucas has a fucked up sleep schedule because he takes on too many shifts between five fucking towns. Let me guess, you lost someone and now you feel guilty if you’re not working just in case, am I right? And Nolan has so much social anxiety the kid’s going to never be able to lead a fucking pack when he can’t even deal with people!”
I huffed out an angry breath of air. My heart pounded erratically in my chest, and my skin burned. I watched them as they digested the shit I’d said. But Mom… oh, I pissed off Mom. It was written all over her fucking face, and I didn’t give a shit.
“You act like I need fixing, but I’m not the only one,” I spat out. “Fix yourselves before you try to tell me what the fuck is wrong with me.”
“Now you listen here, Killian Donovan Byrne,” Mom began, her voice laced with something dangerous. I squared off because I knew what was coming. You see, Declan, Lucas, and Nolan all took after our dad—gentle and grounded. Me? I took after Mom—stubborn with a fucking temper. I was used to butting heads with her. “How dare you—”
“August James Byrne,” Nolan cut in. How dare he. My head snapped in his direction at the name, a dangerous growl ripping through me. He had no fucking right.
“Don’t you say that name,” I warned. When he opened his mouth to say more, I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and shoved him into a wall. “Don’t you say that fucking name.”
“I’ve got it!” he exclaimed, waving everyone else off as Declan moved to help him. A part of me wanted him to. I wanted to fucking fight something. Nolan pulled a picture out of his pocket. The picture. How the fuck had he gotten it? My heart fucking fell out of my chest. “August James Byrne. Say his name, Killian.”
“No,” I snarled. But I snatched back the picture, unable to look away from it.
“I know you’re hurting. I know you blame yourself for what happened. Guess what? She does too,” he said. He wavered in my sight as tears blurred my vision. “She blames herself just like you blame yourself. Both of you are stuck in the pain and guilt, and you’re letting it destroy you.”
“It’s already destroyed me. I have nothing left,” I told him under my breath. My anger crashed into drunken guilt and sadness.
“That’s not true.”
“It’s my fault,” I whispered, my voice cracking pathetically. “It’s my fault.”
“It’s not your fault. Bad things happen.” Nolan stepped closer. The room swayed uneasily, and my hold on him tightened—for support. “Sometimes, bad things happen for no reason, Killian. It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have anticipated it. You couldn’t have stopped it. Neither of you could.”
“He didn’t deserve it.” I lost any hope I had of not crying as I fell apart. Nolan pulled me closer and hugged me. I clung to him until the kid damn near crumbled under holding me up, but I couldn’t let go. I just couldn’t.
Chapter 70
Killian
Itook a hot shower to help me sober up some. Some being the key fucking word because I definitely wasn’t there. I was fucking drained. All I wanted to do was crawl back into bed and sleep for a decade.
Mom wouldn’t let me—not a chance in hell. The shower was the only reprieve I’d get before she reamed my ass all over again for answers. I wasn’t getting out of a long fucking family talk no matter what I did.
I did take an obscenely long shower though. Standing under the hot water did ease the aches in my body a little, but it did nothing to ease the chaos in my mind. I had to fucking face them. My fucking breakdown meant I was stuck with that.
Just how much could I get away with not telling? That question played on repeat in my head. All through my shower. All through pulling on my clothes. And all through dragging my ass back into the dining room, where my family sat waiting not-so-patiently for me to rejoin them. Even David was there—stupid fucker.
Okay, maybe I wasn’t all that angry at David. He probably hadn’t said a fucking word and really did get dragged along for the ride when he should’ve been on his way to Ireland with Mom. I just needed somewhere to put my fucking anger, and it was easiest to hate David over the rest of them.
“And you cook naked?” Mom was saying, a deep frown on her face. Finn sat across from her with his hands folded in front of him and lips pressed together as he nodded. “In my kitchen? You cook naked in my kitchen, Finnegan?”
“I clean everything up afterward,” he told her. Jesus fucking Christ. Like that fucking mattered. Silently, I shuffled into a chair.
