He steps back but he doesn’t stop me.
I punch him again and again. “You’re alive? You’re fucking alive? This whole fucking time?” I scream at him as my fists thump harder and harder against his chest, pouring all my anger and hurt into trying to make him feel even a fraction of the agony I’ve suffered these past months.
He takes it all without a word to defend himself and the anger inside me surges up like a burning fever raging through my mind. I punch his face and blood spurts from his nose, then I punch his chest again and freeze as something I missed finally catches my eye.
Cormac only has one arm.
He wasn’t leaning against the door. There’s no arm there to lean with.
My fist stalls in the air and my anger, with nowhere to go, surges up inside me like rising vomit. A pained sob rushes past my lips and the tears pour. Wailing, I collapse to the ground and Cormacis there to catch me the best he can. He winds his single arm around me as strongly as he can and holds me close even as I weakly try to push him away, but he’s as unmoving as his jaw was.
“I’m sorry,” Cormac croaks, and his voice breaks as the upset takes him. “I’m so sorry, Cian. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Over and over andoverhe apologizes, each one cutting through the agonizing sobs that seem to rise from the pit of darkness in my soul. “Why?” I gasp. “Why?”
“I’m sorry.” Cormac weeps as he tightens his hold.
“Tell me,” I gasp, finally regaining the strength to push him away. “What the fuck is going on? How are you here?”
37
CIAN
Cormac manages to lead me inside the mansion, and things get worse from there.
I feel like I’m gaining awareness while being lost, wandering in a dream. The small lounge Cormac brings me to is filled with more people, and despite the tears lingering in my eyes, their faces hit me like a punch.
Cormac stands near the door with a bundle of tissues pressed to his face.
Evelyn sits in one corner and waves at me with a very small, timid smile. Anastasia is near the lit fireplace with her husband, Erik, seated a foot away from her. A guard stands at one door with a rifle as if ready for someone to come charging through the door at any moment.
Then I see her.
Saoirse.
She sits on the opposite end of the couch from Erik, her hair trimmed short into a pixie cut and a thin, watery smile on herface. As soon as our eyes meet, I lose all sensation in my legs as my heart squeezes once more in an invisible fist. Cormac continues to support me while Saoirse stands and slowly walks forward. Her eyes sparkle with unshed tears, her lower lip quivers, and she reaches for me with trembling fingers.
“Cian?”
I flinch away. It’s one thing for Cormac to be here, but Saoirse too? Nothing makes sense. Were the last ten or eleven months just one long nightmare that I’ve finally woken from? Or am I really dead?
“Saoirse…” My voice is hoarse like wind rushing through dry leaves. “How? How are you… how?”
“We have a lot of explaining to do,” she says, unable to mask the hurt that I rejected her hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Shrugging Cormac’s grip off my shoulders, I stumble away from him. “Everyone keeps saying sorry but no one will tell me what the hell is going on here. How are you both alive? I mourned you, don’t you understand? I tore myself apart with guilt and grief and yet you stand here like nothing’s wrong?”
“Of course things are wrong, Brother,” Cormac says gently. “I’m missing an arm, Cian. Things aren’t as black and white as you might think they are.”
“Be nice,” Saoirse scolds with aching familiarity. “Cian… we’re sorry because we couldn’t tell you sooner.”
“What do you mean?” I snap, pacing away from everyone to the window. “Someone tell me the truth!”
“It was me.” Anastasia speaks calmly while pressing both her hands together. “I’m the reason it was kept a secret.”
“Why? Why would you do that?”
Her brow dips. “Believe me, it wasn’t intentional at first. After the explosion, Cian, you were in a coma. So was Saoirse, and Cormac was dead for thirteen minutes in the operating theatre. I came out of my daughter’s checkup to learn that she had lost her hearing, I was injured, and my family was crumbling, and I saw that the Irish, all of you, you were unprotected.”
