“You did this to me,” I whispered to the ghost of my father. “You never loved me, did you? I was just a token, a decoration bought and paid for in my mother’s blood.”
I sat on the front steps and watched the street. Cars passed by without a glance in my direction. For over twenty years, this house had been a mausoleum to a monster. A shrine dedicated to the great Eamon O’Malley.
The family saw him as a leader. The world saw him as a criminal. I’d seen him as a father. Loving him despite his many flaws, the way only a daughter could.
I’d been so stupid.
Never seeing the monster that was hiding beneath the suit. Beneath the façade of power he portrayed. Power he never deserved.
He was nothing but a sick, twisted son of a bitch.
He didn’t deserve my grief. He didn’t deserve anything more than the grave he was in. Even that was too good for him. We should have cremated him and thrown his ashes into the city dump.
Instead of going inside, I went to my car and drove to my brother’s house. I was done being a trinket for everyone to show off as the O’Malley princess.
It was time to take my place in the family.
I pounded on Sal’s door until he let me in.
“Caity, what the fuck?!”
I swept past him, not waiting for an invitation. I walked straight to the bar he kept along the wall and poured a glass of his expensive whiskey. The one he never shared with anyone.
I turned around and tossed back the alcohol as he watched me without a word. Refilling the glass, I took a sip and then let out a heavy breath.
“I want to be part of this family.”
He furrowed his brow and tilted his head to the side. “You have always been part of this family. You always will be.”
“No, I want to be part of thefamily.I’m tired of being on the outside waiting for you and the others to tell me things you think I should know while hiding everything else.”
“Caity...”
“And I want to sell Dad’s house.”
His eyes widened at my announcement. There was more surprise about selling the house than there was about wanting to be a part of the organization.
“Why?” he asked as he poured his own drink.
“Because it’s time. Hell, it’s past time. You kept it as a shrine to him, Sal.”
My brother snorted. “That wasn’t my intent.”
“Then what was?” I asked him.
He raised his glass and gestured toward the couch. He sat across from me in the leather chair and took a sip. His forearms rested on his thighs as the glass dangled in his hands between his knees.
“You need to know why I killed him.”
“I know why you killed him.”
“You don’t,” he said. His eyes pleaded with me, though for what I wasn’t sure. To listen to him? To not judge him? To forgive him?
“I don’t blame you, Sal. I was angry at first. I think I even hated you for a bit. But now, knowing everything.” I slipped off my shoes and pulled my feet up onto the couch, adjusting my skirt to cover them. An automatic response after the years of my mother drilling into me how to be a lady, how to be demure.
She was meant for so much more than just being my mother. She deserved more than what she’d been given. She never once made me feel like a burden. Never once made me feel unloved.
But sometimes, when she didn’t know I was there, she would cry. It wasn’t until years later when I was in the same position she was, home alone while my husband was with his mistress, and my daughter was off with friends, that I understood why she cried at night.
