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My throat tightens. Fuck, I never gave out any details. To anyone. “No. Never.”
“You killed Rahil and Mark for me. You killed that boy’s father to protect the priest. You kill other people for your family. But I get the feeling you killed the priest for you. I want to hear how it felt to kill someone for you. Because it was personal to you.”
Is what I did to Eamon behind the rage of every kill? If I unlock that, and let it go, will it soften me? Or will it allow me to be more open with Katya, so there’s nothing between us?
Before I can stop myself, I close my eyes and sort through that night, not sure where to start. The primal part that drove me to find Eamon kicks at my gut, and next, the other half of my damaged past with Father Eamon is dripping from my tongue. Clear as if it’s happening in front of my eyes right now.
I stalk Father Eamon, who moved out of Astoria when he got assigned to another church. My stomach flutters at how easily I figured out his schedule and how regimented he is. How easy it is to get to him. What arrogance? To do what he did and think retribution isn’t coming for him.
I watch him get out of his car, an old clunker, and stumble into a beat-up rental house. It strikes me as odd that his new parish did not invite him to live in the rectory. That tells me the pastor of his new church knows about him. And no one wants to be near him. What a farce.
What am I signing up for? Will I one day have to share papal duties with a man like Eamon? Or…Eamon himself. He’s young enough.
Fuck no.
The conversation with Michael Foster rings in my ears. He doesn’t know I pushed his father, but he knows I was there. I found him in his car overlooking Astoria Harbor a few months ago. I worried the guy might off himself. He was piss drunk, and one look at me after not seeing me for a year since I’d been at Fordham, broke him. He admitted what Father Eamon had done to him. The guilt ate at me. My poor friend was already going through something terrible, and I went and took away his dad.
It made me sick. Kieran had been right. Myherohad been abusing boys.
It broke my heart to watch Michael cry that he didn’t fight Eamon off. He’d been afraid because Eamon was a man of the cloth. We all respected Father Eamon. We alllovedhim.
My faith challenged, I decided no one had the right to hurt my friend and get away with it.
Then I meticulously planned this night…
With my gun tucked into my waistband, I leave my car, a Mustang Da bought me as a reward for getting into Fordham. I groan inwardly, knowing it was really payment for my obedience. But no one tells me what to do.
It’s late, and Eamon’s been at the pub drinking. He stumbles from his car and wanders into his house, a dull boxy thing with tan siding.
Moving like stealth, I slip into the driveway to enter the house from the back. I staked it out beforehand and know the layout. Lights flick on as this monster walks through the rooms on the lower floor. He lingers in the kitchen, something that gives me pause, because I worry he’ll grab a knife.
After finishing several more shots of whiskey, he shuts the lights and climbs his way upstairs. With the bottom floor dark, his neighbors won’t spot me. I wait until a light in one bedroom blazes on.
Aye, how rewarding it will be to kill him in his bed. Especially since Michael had said Eamon lured him to his bedroom at the rectory. Disgusting.
I slip on a glove and easily break the backdoor’s rusted nob to get inside. I wander to the staircase and consider my weight, staring at the wooden steps. Damn, I wish they were carpeted.
Maybe he’s too drunk to hear me. Even if he comes to the top of the stairs, I’ll just shoot him. I don’t give a fuck if he knows it’s me. He’s not seeing another sunrise.
I want to surprise him in his bed, though.
Climbing as quietly as I can, I smell cigarette smoke. He smokes, too? His hacking cough covers the creaking of the stairs, so I get to the top quickly. Amber lamp light spills out of his bedroom door and into the narrow hallway.
Slowly, I get there and leer inside.
Fuck, he’s praying!
That slows my roll.
Forgiveness.
It’s the foundation of the Lord’s teaching. Does Eamon have a sickness? It stalls me for a second, and I wonder if it’s my place to judge a man, when that is clearly God’s job.
I take a step back, but the floor whines under my weight. Father Eamon jumps up, and our eyes lock.
“Lachlan?” he calls out to me, shirtless, with dark pants, the top button undone. Catching my stare, he looks down at himself. “Shite, boy… Are you here for the reason I think you are?” He strokes himself over his dirty trousers. “The reason I hope you are.”
A shockwave of epic proportions runs through my system. The guy is coming on to me. I don’t personally hold the same feelings of homosexuality as the church does, as far as eternal damnation. Between consentingadults, I don’t give a fuck.
