Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 104802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
I set the glass down, trying to put together what is actually happening here.
“You look at him the way I looked at her.” His voice is so soft, I barely make out the words.
I suck in a sharp breath. We don’t do this. We don’t talk about my mom.
“I miss her, Cillian. So fucking much. Even after all this time.”
Blood rushes through my ears, creating a screaming tornado. “I miss her too,” I admit.
Talk to me about her. Tell me why you abandoned me. Tell me that you love me and that you’re sorry. Tell me I matter to you.
But of course, he doesn’t. He would never do that.
“She made me happy…the way your Ollie makes you. It’s not easy, though. You understand that, right? Loving someone, being with them, especially in this life. I hurt her, often, without meaning to. I wouldn’t always be there when she needed me. The things I do…we do…she accepted me and loved me fiercely regardless, but I can’t lie and say there weren’t times she struggled with it. When she died, I thought of all the things I couldn’t give her, all the fights, her fears, the ways I broke her heart. I always knew she’d be better off without me, but I kept her. I kept her because I was selfish.”
My gut twists tighter with each of his words. Nausea burns up my esophagus, vomit so close to spilling free. Every word he’s telling me has been my fear since this whole thing started, has been on my mind all night.
My father loved my mom. She was his world, and there’s nothing he wouldn’t have done for her…except leave this behind. He tried so hard to make her happy, and he did, more than Sloan ever did with Fia. She wanted to be with him. She chose him. She could have left, but she never did, and loving him, choosing him, altered her world. It limited her life, and it meant she lived with pain that most significant others never would.
How can I subject Ollie to that same pain?
“So I should just leave him? Break up with him?” Am I strong enough to do that, or am I just as selfish as my father is saying he was?
“I can’t answer that for you, son, but what I can do is give you an out.”
I stiffen, unsure I heard him correctly, and certainly not understanding. “What are you talking about? Leaving this family? Walking away? That’s not how this works.” If it were that easy, Dean’s father would have never been murdered by Sloan. If people could just change their minds and walk away, it would change how everything worked, take out the loyalty and commitment.
It would be dangerous.
“If that’s what you want…if it’s truly what you want, I will make it work for you. I don’t care what I have to do to make it happen, who I’d have to kill, who I’d have to hurt, I would make it safe for you and Ollie.”
His words feel like a rip current, pulling me out to sea, untethering me from my life, from the world, letting me loose in this space I never knew existed.
I don’t want to leave. I know what that says about the kind of man I am. I want this life. I want to do the things I do…but I love Ollie. I don’t want to ruin him, to hurt him, for him to live his life in fear of something happening to me.
What if he wants to adopt kids one day? Will we even be able to? Will they follow in my footsteps?
The things my father just said about my mom create a whirlwind in my head. Did he hurt her more than I know? Will I do that with Ollie? Ruin his spirit? I don’t want to change him, to be the reason he can’t have every-fucking-thing he wants in his life, everything he deserves. I want him to have an easy life, one that those around him can be proud of.
“You want me out?” I find myself asking.
He studies me for a moment, stare intense, brows furrowed. “That’s a difficult question for me to answer. I want to run this with you, to rule with you. To share my world with my only son…but is that me being selfish like I was with her? What if I ruin you? I don’t want you to live with the pain of hurting him the way I did with her.”
My hands shake, my eyes sting. I swipe at them, refusing to let myself cry. It’s as close to a declaration of love that I’ve gotten from him in a long time, too long.
And I don’t want to turn into him. I don’t want any of this to change me either.