His aim was to intimidate me, but I loved him too much, trusted him more than I’d trusted anyone in my life.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. He’s gone.”
Cian dropped his hand and stepped back. Shaking his head, he hissed, “Tell me he didn’t. Tell me he didn’t put his hands on you, Caity. Please, for the love of God, tell me you didn’t keep me from knowing that he was hurting you.”
“Ci.” I didn’t know what I was looking for with my whispered plea. Salvation, maybe, or perhaps redemption.
“Goddammit, Caity!”
“There was nothing you could have done.”
“I COULD HAVE FUCKIN’ KILLED HIM!”
“That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you.” I turned away from him and gathered the teacups Maddie and I had used. I walked to the sink as though my body wasn’t trembling inside. Placing them in the bottom of the sink, I braced my hands on the edge.
“Why can’t you understand?” I asked. “You grew up in this life. You know how it works.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. My father never laid a hand on my mother. And he never would. Donal Murphy never laid a hand on Bridgit.”
“Well, I guess they were the lucky ones.” I shrugged and turned around. “That wasn’t my life. I didn’t get to choose who I wanted to marry.”
“Caity.” Cian dropped his chin to his chest.
“We can’t change the past, Ci.”
“Then what the fuck are we doing with the files, Caity? Why didn’t you just burn them?”
“Because even though the past can’t be changed, some wrongs still need to be righted.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do, Caity. I need you to let me in. Stop fuckin’ keeping things from me.”
“What do you want to know, Ci? How often he hit me? How many times he cheated on me? How about the women I thought were my friends who betrayed me in hopes of their husbands moving up the ladder by spying on the boss’ wife?”
He didn’t get it. He would never understand what my life was like. No one would. They hadn’t lived my life. I was the only daughter of Eamon O’Malley. A bastard so evil that his own father banished him from the homeland.
I never knew my grandfather. He’d never come to the States, at least not to see us. I’d met my uncle Sean a few times, Brian’s father. After he’d taken over the IRA when my grandfather stepped down, he made visits regularly to check on what my father was doing.
I didn’t understand as a child why my father hated him so much. But as I got older, I listened. I watched.
When Sean was killed and Brian took over, he was only thirty-five. My father was almost sixty. I remembered how angry he was. It was the year Maddie was born.
“You don’t know what my life was like, Ci.”
“Because you wouldn’t tell me.”
A growl ripped out of my chest. “Because I wouldn’t put your life at risk. Why can’t you understand that? I loved you too much. He would have killed you.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I can know that!” I shouted.
Cian tilted his head and looked at me. I closed my eyes, trying to ward off the question I knew he would ask.
“What else haven’t you told me, Caity?”
“There is a lot I haven’t told you. There were a lot of files in my father’s office. He held a lot of secrets.” I shrugged, hoping he would let it go, but knowing he wouldn’t.
I didn’t want to tell him what I knew, what I learned about him, and why my father hated him. Daniel McCarthy was a friend of my father. He was the reason Cian was still alive. Though if my father had known about Maddie, Daniel’s loyalty wouldn’t have been enough to save him.
