So what if a few people stare?
I sighed, grabbing her waist and leaning down for a kiss. “Sure. We’ll go see your hot-guy movie. Let me just hop into the shower.”
She grinned up at me, looking genuinely happy for the first time in forever. Her hair was becoming redder—more hers—and even though it was still very short, she moussed it in a spiky, trendy way that made it look like a fashion statement.
“This is… I…” She struggled for words, her voice catching, and I knew it meant more to her than it did to my mother that I braved getting out there, taking a stab at normalcy. Tierney shook her head, chuckling to herself in wonder. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you so much for healing with me.”
I never thought of it this way, but I guessed it was true. In helping her, I was helping myself get over our shared past.
Her eyes pinked, and I knew she was close to crying.
“Hey, are you sure you’re okay?” I squeezed her waist.
She nodded. “I feel better than okay. Liberated, actually. Tyrone deserved to die.”
It took him three days to kick the bucket. The kidney failure and internal bleeding occurred after twenty-four hours, just on track, but he battled it out, struggling for his last breath before he finally gave in.
The minute he was dead, I called Tiernan to remove his corpse from my parents’ basement. Tiernan collected his enemies’ skulls, and he had been saving a special spot for his traitorous father’s cranium after what he’d done to his sister.
“I’m sorry it had to come to this.” I thumbed her cheek.
“I’m not. I never loved him.”
“Not even a little?”
She shook her head. “Did you ever love your father?”
I gave the question some thought. I had wanted his approval and admiration growing up, and I was willing to go very far for it.
So far, in fact, that the girl of my dreams wanted to set herself on fire before letting me know she couldn’t give me heirs.
“Once upon a time, I suppose I did…” I brushed my thumb along her smooth temple, tracing the gorgeous face that was forever inked into my memory. “But the more I grew up, the more I realized nothing about our relationship was normal. And when he hurt you…” I closed my eyes, willing the fury bubblinginside me like lava to calm down. “When he hurt you, that’s when I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“The difference between love and obsession. I was obsessed with getting my father’s approval, but I never liked much about him. He was a cold, angry man, driven by nothing but power and bloodlust. But you…” My forehead dropped to hers, and I breathed her in. “I realized that I loved you. Inside and out. Your sense of humor, your smarts, your resilience, your fight. I could name all the things that made me fall in love with you. I couldn’t name one thing my father possessed that made me appreciate him.”
She brushed the tip of her nose against mine. “See? This is how I feel about Tyrone. He was my family by blood only. His love and approval always felt conditional, so I never sought them. It was clear from the get-go that he favored Tiernan and Fintan. Strong, hungry sons who could further his own and the Irish clan’s position in New York. I saw through his façade before Tiernan did, but only because I didn’t have the luxury of his attention and respect. So don’t you worry about my sensibilities when it comes to him, Achilles. Because I have absolutely none.”
Chapter Sixty
Tierney
It wasa mistake to go to the movies.
I saw that now, when we were sitting in the theater, surrounded by teenyboppers and couples, all of them more interested in Achilles’s face than the movie.
Achilles wore a baseball cap, the bill pushed low to hide his scars, but a jagged portion of his burned cheek was still illuminated by the giant screen’s lights, bringing even more attention to it.
At work, Achilles’s face was a weapon. But here, out in the real world, where no one knew who he was, he just looked…scary. And I knew that he’d had options along the way. Reconstructive surgeries he could’ve done. But rumor on the street was that Vellolikedthat his son looked like this. That he’d wanted his son’s face to match the atrocities he was capable of.
I wanted us to start collecting memories other couples had, things we craved when we were younger, but I’d forgotten we were no longer those people.
A pimply college-aged girl with a pink hoodie and a haughty sneer leaned to whisper in her friend’s ear in the row below us, her gaze flicking to Achilles’s face in the dark. The friend’s gazetraveled to the scarred side of Achilles’s cheek, and she gasped. They both started to giggle.
Guilt and anger swirled in the pit of my stomach.
“This movie sucks.” I swallowed hard, dropping a kiss to Achilles’s shoulder. “Wanna get out of here?”
