Ihated everything about New York, now and forever. This place never failed to bring back memories for me, and I now understood why my grandfather had kept me basically under his watchful eye once I’d lost anything that mattered to me in this godforsaken country. I had returned to Ireland, and while I lived a different life there, it had still been empty. Blue eyes haunted me then, and on some occasions, they even haunted me now. All I had ever wanted was Reagan, but my grandfather had made sure the memories of her would be all I would ever have.
Every time I came to this fucking city, I was reminded of the dreams we had talked about as we would lie atop that rickety pier that jutted out onto the lake where I had fucked her so many times. It also reminded me of the night of our wedding when after we’d consummated our elopement, we lay there and discussed the places in this very city where we wanted to go, along with the things we wanted to do.
Dreams were foolish, as my grandfather used to always tell me. I hated to admit when the man was right about anything, but he had proven to be right more times than not. His latest ultimatum to Kingston and me was a perfect example. Neither one of us wanted to get married, and we especially didn’t want to bear any children, but the prospect of losing the Brannington Empire had inspired my cousin to do it anyway. Now, he was married to Ekaterina Kotov, a student I had once gone to school with at the very place I had met my Anamchara.
“Generations of our family have fought and protected our very name. Daideó is right. In order to protect the legacy of the Brannington name, and ensure that it will go on after our own demises, we need heirs,”Kingston had said to me the weekend of his nuptials.
“Grandfather has gone off the deep end. Have you ever considered that maybe our name should go down in infamy?”I’d countered.
“You can be complicit in that, but I will ensure that my name and Princeton’s is carried on, whether you want to do the same or not. I have no idea what the fuck happened to you seven years ago, but you used to take pride in our heritage. Now, you act like it’s an albatross around your neck.”
“Being a Brannington feels more like a curse than a blessing,”I’d responded.
“It has given us so much, and?—"
“And it has taken away more than it has ever given,”I’d said before walking out and ending that conversation. It hadn’t been brought back up since.
Our Daideó had taken the most precious gift I’d ever had away from me. Reagan Coughlin was my soulmate. I had known it then, and she was brutally and viciously murdered, and I truly had no one to blame but myself. If I had just followed my grandfather’s order and left her alone, she would still be here. IfI had just gotten on that plane to Ireland instead of running off in the dead of the night, she might’ve still been here.
Only, I suspected he would’ve harmed her anyway, so I had done what I had needed to do in order to try to protect her. I had failed. There was no way to justify allowing her to run into danger and making her pay with her life. I had been too weak to let her go, and the choice had been taken from me. And she had been taken from this world while I was left to rot and decay in it. Life wasn’t fair, but hopefully she was now at peace in death.
“Peace! It’s an overrated concept,” I reminded myself as I grabbed my keys and cell phone. I left my Brooklyn loft, then headed toward the subway. While I had a Ferrari here in the city with me, I had opted to take the subway.
The nearest station was just a few blocks away, and the weather today was perfect. It was neither cold nor hot, but a perfect seventy degrees with very little breeze. Still, I put the hood of my sweatshirt on my head, then set off down the street.
I loved my particular neighborhood because it was very busy...Noisy...Overwhelming, but in a way that I needed. When my thoughts were all over the place, I could set off like I was now and allow the noise of my surroundings to quiet those voices in my head. And voices that mainly came out when I was here, or too close to the dungeon area where my grandfather held others prisoner, especially me at various times of my life.
Post-traumatic stress was what I’d been told I suffered from, but it was nothing worth treating. If anyone deserved to suffer, it was me, so I wore it like a badge of dishonor as nothing more than a reminder. One of these days, I would die, and once I did, I needed the pain and suffering I’d inflicted upon others to taunt me until my last breath left me and I was plunged into the depths of Hell where I belonged.
I quickened my steps and allowed my mind to focus on the present. I needed to go into the city to Lower Manhattan topay our newly elected mayor a visit. It was at my grandfather’s orders, and normally something Kingston would’ve been sent to do. I’d never been the shakedown sort of soldier in the Brannington army, but my Daideó had asked me specifically to handle this task, so I would.
I neared the subway station entrance when someone bumped into me, and I froze. As I had been walking, I had let my guard down, which was the wrong thing to do in this place. In any place, really. Our family had many enemies, including some that were also Irish. Others were always trying to clamor to take what my family had spent generations building, and as I reached for my weapon, I realized I had not brought a single one with me today.
“Sorry,” I heard from a small voice, and I turned and looked down. What I saw made me stagger back a few steps.
It was like looking at a ghost, and one I had spent my entire life saving to memory. I blinked once or twice, almost unable to believe what was happening. My mother. She was here in front of me in the body of a little girl that had to be close to seven or eight in age.
The redhead smiled up at me, then thrust her dainty hand toward me. I saw a string, and when my eyes followed it up, she was holding a balloon with the number 6 on it. “Here,” she said to me as she pushed it closer to me. “You take it!”
“Excuse me,” I replied.
“Mrs. Martin says when we do some-ding bad, we are supposed to say sorry, then do some-ding good. I hit you, so I give you my birthday balloon. Take it.”
“I...ahh...I can’t take your balloon, but thank you anyway,” I said, and when I looked down into her small face, it was like looking into a mirror. Before, it had been like glancing at a picture, but those eyes...her eyes...they weremine!
“Ciara,” I heard someone call, and I looked up to see a dark-haired woman. She smiled apologetically at me. “I’m so sorry about this. She’s just excited about today, and she got to running a little fast, and?—”
“It’s fine,” I said to her, and when I looked at the little girl, I looked back up at the one I assumed was her mother. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Someone as handsome as you would be impossible to forget. I really must be going, but we’re sorry about everything.”
The little girl pulled her balloon close to her body once more as the two turned. I stayed rooted in place momentarily as I watched the woman. Was it possible that we had done something together? There was no other way to explain how she looked like a spitting image of my mother and had my eyes. Not even someone who procreated with Kingston could’ve accomplished that feat.
The two stopped in front of one of those community health clinics, but they did not go in. Someone came to the door to hand them something before disappearing inside. As those brief sixty or so seconds played out, time stopped midway when I saw a curtain of red hair so familiar and painful that the unmovable blade that had been in my heart for years twisted brutally in the organ. The woman turned and even though she was not looking at me, I could see the side of her face, and one I had known all too well.
