Blinking at him because that’s not what I expected to hear, my newly filled fork clinks onto the plate in front of me.
“A baby?” I rasp.
“She’s in her twenties now,” Cian admits. Morgan does a double take, and I realize that I’m at least not the only one in the dark here. To be fair, I’m the one who has been avoiding his calls. “Bea, her mom, got sick and sent me a letter to tell me about Aisling, but I didn’t get it.”
“Why?” Morgan asks, swallowing hard. He’s just as invested as I am. Hmm, for someone who was curb stomped by Cian, that’s an interesting position to have.
“Nancy hid it,” Cian sighs. “She was my wife, Kevin. She didn’t say a word about how she found, read, and then stuck a dying woman’s words in a drawer to be forgotten for two goddamn years. Aisling was homeless, alone, and believed she was an orphan. She worked two jobs to provide for herself. Why did a sixteen year old have to work so damn hard to survive?”
“Wow,” I whisper, shaking my head. My mother provided for my brother and I until I turned eighteen. After that, she’s always been there for us, but I knew that money was tight. I don’t know if I would have been able to take care of myself completely at such a young age. The world isn’t kind to omegas.
“My daughter created Omega’s Haven with the help of her friend. They’ve expanded their work to transitional apartments for those that need support but have outgrown the shelter, and they created this place too,” Cian says proudly.
“Isn’t it a little odd that you’re in a heat spa that she helped put together?” I ask, shoving a bite in my mouth when Morgan and Cian gaze pointedly at my abandoned fork.
He and Morgan also begin to eat as Cian shrugs.
“My daughter pimped me out to her heat spa, so it’s not weird," he says.
Choking on my pancake, I gasp as he chuckles, pushing a glass of water in my direction. Morgan rubs and pats my back as I struggle to drink water, while my body screams for air.
“Way to bury the lead,” I rasp.
“I promised Aisling that if she could sway a certain percentage of the senior mafia family to sign up for the heat spa program that I’d sign up as well,” Cian says. “Maybe it’s because I didn’t raise her, but we have a very unique relationship. Nothing is really off the table.”
Morgan is staring oddly at Cian. I’m not sure why, but I think Cian may know why.
“I found out about Nancy’s affair with Morgan while I searched for my daughter. I do not forgive easily,” Cian says, his gaze now searing into me. “Nancy fucked around on me with Morgan, and I found out while punishing her for keeping secrets from me.”
“You tortured her,” Morgan snorts.
“Yep,” Cian admits. “I kept her alive until the day I found my daughter. Aisling had just turned eighteen and was walking down a street when one of my men found her. She looks exactly like Bea, but has my birthmark on her hand.”
Raising his hand, he shows it to me.
“Am I going to have to compete with a dead woman?” I ask, the words leaping from my lips before I can take them back.
“Honestly? I have insecurities that Bea left me with,” Cian says, pushing away his half eaten food. “She didn’t believe that I could keep her and Aisling safe, so she chose a life apart from me. Their life was hard, but I think they were happy together. I just wish that I could have been enough for her.”
That statement hits me in the face, and I realize that I did the same thing in a way to him.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I should have taken your call.”
“Yes, you should have,” Cian grumbles. “I’ve learned that fate has a way of hitting you upside the head.”
“Or pissing on you,” Morgan snorts.
“Okay, I still don’t understand this,” I say earnestly.
“I work in a gentlemen’s club,” Cian tells me. “Not the kind where women dance, the stuffy kind where money talks and walks, and there’s really good liquor. I tend to have my meetings there. I was having one with Ryan Hill when I saw Morgan and followed him outside.”
“I had no idea who he was,” Morgan groans. “As soon as I figured it out, I let him kick my ass. I deserved it.”
“So your ex-wife is dead?” I ask. “Is Ryan?”
“Oh yeah,” Cian says proudly. “Nancy is acting as the perfect fertilizer for my garden, and Ryan was fed to the pigs at a nearby farm. So was his assistant. What is the deal with them?”
“My brother is a drug and gambling addict,” I groan. “He won’t get help, and I guess is now running his mouth about his genius little brother.”
