Manacled Hearts: an Age Gap Mafia Romance (The Sanctum Syndicate Book 3)

CHAPTER 15

I blink once, twice, but the third time it’s clear that the image before me isn’t going away.

He’s here.

No—they are.

Annika, an older but somehow more beautiful version of her, walks in holding the little hand of a child hiding somewhere behind his father. Christ, that word tastes bitter even when it doesn’t touch my tongue.

“Hello, Finnigan,” my darling brother’s wife greets me, and her tone throws me far in the past, because she sounds just as shy as she was eight years ago. “Aaro, come here.” She looks down at her son—my nephew—and the little boy finally steps out from his father’s shadow.

I hear a small gasp somewhere behind me, and as my eyes find the little boy’s, I share the sentiment in its entirety. I know that kids often take traits from their uncles or aunts, but this is too much. That head of wild, sun-kissed curls is mine, not my brother’s, and that bright-blue of his eyes is much more like mine than Ronan’s.

I wonder if it kills him, looking at his son every day and constantly being reminded of me. Of what he left behind. Who he abandoned.

“Hello.” Aaro’s little voice comes out. There’s a forced confidence in it, yet it compels me, nevertheless.

“Hi,” I answer. To him only, not my brother, nor his wife.

“Are you Uncle Finn?”

I swallow a lump caught in my throat, because the anger that’s seeping through me, searing one vein at a time, is forced to hold back. This kid hasn’t done anything to me. But his father’s eyes burn through me, and my god do I wanna pummel him back through that goddamn door.

“I suppose I am, yes,” I answer reluctantly.

I’m an uncle.

I knew the theory of it all, I knew I was an uncle. After all, Annika’s pregnancy was one of two driving forces in my brother’s decision to quit this life and leave. But I was never faced with the prospect of it. Never faced with my… nephew. The moment Ronan left us—left me—he was all but dead to me. Eight years have passed, and still I haven’t spoken a word to him. Yet here I am, talking to his son… my blood.

“You don’t seem too happy about it,” the boy states bluntly, in such a matter-of-fact, casual way, that I twitch in my chair, close to losing my balance, and I swear I hear someone snort to my left.

When I turn my head in that direction, Evelyn’s lips are curled inward and she averts her eyes instantly.

“Aaro!” Annika warns her son. “Sorry, Finnigan. He is… umm… very straightforward.”

I turn back to face them but realize that none of the words I have for them are good. What the actual fuck are they doing here of all places? Then I see Carter stand to their left—he brought them here. Is this why he called the meeting?

My fists clench repeatedly, pushing back a need to drive them into something, anything, until it crumbles beneath them. My temples pulse violently, and my lungs sting at the brink of heaving. I can’t fucking do this, not with them here.

“Annika…” It’s not a greeting, but a request, and she catches onto it right away.

“Aaro, didn’t you say you needed the bathroom?”

“I’ll take you there.” Mamaw June passes by me and ushers them out of earshot.

I turn to Evelyn who’s firmly planted in place, but I really need her to get out of here. As far away as fucking possible, because I can tell by that look in her eyes that she knows she’s getting an insight into me. And she’s staying for it. But this is not fucking happening. I’m barely containing these wretched emotions, but I force them down because I can’t give them the satisfaction. I refuse to let my brother see how he affects me, and I most certainly can’t let the purple-haired vixen any closer. She cannot know me any better. Not now. Not when she looks like she found sin and decided to douse herself in it, pulling me to the brink of deviancy.

Morrigan still sits next to me, watching this interaction, or lack thereof, with a mixture of apprehension and curiosity.

“You must be Morrigan,” my brother says, and when I hear his footsteps, my head whips to him.

He stops halfway between us, his gaze flashing to my angry one, and the redhead jumps off the stool to go greet him, reading the room.

“I am, yes. Hi…”

“Ronan. I’m Finnigan’s older brother.”

I scoff. Yes, technically it’s true, but blood is the only thing tying us together. That doesn’t make him a brother, just a fucking sibling.

“Yes, I’ve heard. Welcome back,” Morrigan greets him.

“Thanks. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to introduce you to my wife, Annika and our son.”

“It’s okay.” She takes a look around the room then meets my brother’s eyes once more. “I think I’ll go find them and introduce myself.”

He nods and Morrigan moves past him.

“Evelyn, how about you introduce yourself too,” I say, turning my head slightly in her direction, my gaze still pinned on my brother.

I don’t hear any movement or agreement and when I finally meet her eyes, I swear the silver in them turned to steel, like she’s forging a dagger she’s about to stab me with. She holds my stare with such intensity, it weighs down in the pit of my stomach. There’s a challenge in there I crave to unpack, but shouldn’t.

“Hi, Ronan,” she says at the same time she breaks my gaze and turns to my brother. “I’m Evelyn. Excuse me, I’m gonna go check on my sister.”

She whirls around and walks out the patio shutting the door behind her before my brother can reply. The annoyance in her step is unmissable, though.

“So, she’s—”

“Morrigan’s friend,” I interrupt Ronan before he dares to insinuate anything.

He doesn’t respond to that, but his cocked eyebrow spells too many words I want to shove down his throat.

“Why did you bring them here?” I ask the burning question lingering like ash in the air.

Only, I direct it at Carter, not my brother. He cocks his head and waits a few seconds before he finally decides he’s replying.

“There was no other way. Something changed, and it was with Ronan’s help that I uncovered it all.”

“Excuse me? Are you telling me that you’re involving him in our business? He’s an outsider!” I snap, dropping to my feet off the chair.

“Easy, brother.”

“You shut the fuck up! I told you if you leave, you’re out. You gave up the right to be my goddamn brother eight years ago.” My tone lowers, my voice vibrating through my chest.

Christ, I thought those memories were forgotten. Seeing him now, his sleek blonde hair a shade or two darker than mine, his deeper blues, and features that resemble mine so much, that night comes back to me like a goddamn truck slamming through my chest. That phone call in the car as we were rushing to save Annika and Hanna before they were taken, the moment we reached the empty island and witnessed the aftermath of their abduction, all these moments crash down on me like no time has passed at all. And the blood… so much blood. The anger finally breaks the surface too.

“I came because—”

“You made your goddamn choice!” my voice cracks to the precipice of shouting, interrupting him. “You decided to leave us. And you agreed that you can’t. Fucking. Come back. Now Carter tells me that he’s involving you in our business? Our motherfucking Sanctum? No. Either you leave or I do.”

The man only sighs, standing here in all his glory, his stance rigid and proud, but his eyes… his eyes are the ones threatening to break me. There’s pity, sadness, and regret all balled into one in there, and I fucking hate each one of those sentiments.

“Fine. I’ll go.”

But I only manage two steps.

“No.” Carter stops me. “We have work to do.”

“You don’t understand, Pierce. You’re different and I get it, but—”

“I don’t have to,” he interrupts. “This is important. Ronan is here for a reason. He’s—your family, too. I’m gonna go set up in the office. Follow me.” Carter whirls around and heads toward the room in question, leaving me all riled up.

“I’ll come with you,” my brother says, his tone wearier this time.

“I need air.” I turn and walk toward the terrace, and rush over the threshold, shutting the door behind me.

“Who exactly do you dare think you are?” There’s a chilling quality to her voice, her tone filled with an eerie calmness, but I can practically taste the anger beneath it.

“Excuse me?” I turn to face the purple-haired woman, realizing the grave mistake I made.

I knew she was out here. Why the hell didn’t I go literally anywhere else in this huge house?

“I must have done something wrong if I gave you the impression that you can boss me around as you see fit. And in front of other people, nonetheless. How dare you?” There it is again, that low, calm tone.

Somehow it fills me with even more frustration, fueling the unnatural anger my brother’s arrival instilled in me.

And the dam cracks.

“This is none of your business, goddamn it! All of this!” I wave my hands around. “This is not your world, and whatever the fuck just happened in there has nothing to do with you! You are not part of it!”

She all but sneers at me, her eyes darkening with the type of malice I never thought could mar her features.

“You have no idea what I’m part of. You’re not here to witness it. You haven’t been for a while. You made it very clear that I have no place in your life, not to mention the impression you have of me—”

“Impression? How would you know what I think of you?” I ask, seeping anger through the seams.

She wouldn’t talk to me like this if she knew exactly what I thought of her. If she knew how she filled my dreams. What nightmares she bred. If she found out how depraved my mind truly is. The things I want to do to her, force on her, take from her. And the things I’d beg her to do to me.

She wouldn’t talk to me like this if she truly knew my sickness.

“Because you told me.” She seethes, the only break in her calm tone of voice. “You thought you could pay me off to get me out of here. You thought I would take it, just like that. You think I’m some worthless homeless woman, who can be bought. Though, that’s not exactly what you were doing, was it? You were buying yourself distance—escape.”

She pauses, not for effect, but to give me a chance to intervene. Only, I’m stuck. Not stunned, but actually stuck on her words. Escape.

No. I was buying her escape from Queenscove. A chance to go back to where she was taken from, and I can’t believe she’s still pissy about that. Then again, it wasn’t quite the best idea on my part, and I knew the moment I left the apartment that day. I knew Vassallo and his men were still out there and even though we have no confirmation of this, he could be looking for her. Plus, she doesn’t have custody of Maya yet, so of course it was a bad fucking idea for me to tell her to go back to Fleeton.

But I couldn’t think straight. I never can when it comes to her.

“You’re a coward, Finnigan Hennessey. A coward. You can’t face what’s staring you right in the face. Because you fear it.”

“Yeah? And what exactly is staring me right in the fucking face, Evelyn?” In two strides I’m right in front of her, our bodies close to touching, her neck craned to look up at me.

Up close like this there’s no missing it—the fire might be absent from her voice, but it burns feverishly in the gold of her eyes.

“Go on,” I coax her. “What’s stari—”

“Me.”

The bluntness of her answer jolts something inside my chest. It spreads a chill through my body, and my skin sizzles, finally realizing just how close it is to the woman who makes my soul burn. Only, I want to feel the sting, the ache, the pain… the pleasure. I can’t move.

Christ, there are so many appropriate and smart things I want to say to her right now. But what comes out of my mouth is neither appropriate, nor smart. It’s retaliation in its most immature form, and I can’t stop myself.

“Is that why you got a makeover? To grab my attention? Trying to turn dark and mysterious, dressing skimpy and tight? Is that how it works? You learn to do make up and get dolled up? You’re eighteen now and you’re coming out to play, trying to attract all this attention of men to you?”

Her mouth falls open wider and wider with every idiotic sentence that falls out of mine.

She takes a long, deep breath. “This is how you’re fighting this fear? By trying to hurt me?”

“I have no fear!”

“Yet you still hurt me.”

“Goddamn it, woman! What do you want from me?”

“For you to admit it.” She moves closer, our fronts touching now, our breaths feeding off each other. “Admit that you don’t see me as a girl at all. You’re hiding. Fighting it.” Her delicate hands go to rest on my chest, and her touch turns to electric fire, and I crave to douse myself in that feeling.

“Evelyn,” I warn.

“You wanted more when you touched me, pressed me against you and danced with me. Admit it, Finnigan. It was not enough. We both know it. It’s been months now.”

Her scent of ginger and brown sugar wraps around me like the finest, lightest of silks, yet there’s an odd heaviness in it, pulling me down to her. A peculiar spell I’m trapped in. I did, I wanted more. More than she could give, and definitely more than I should take.

“Admit that you wanted your hands to go lower, to press harder, to sink further. Admit you like the feel of me, the thought that when I do all those things to myself, it’s you I’m thinking of.”

She’s hypnotizing me, and I can’t help being pulled deep into those words, imagining every move she speaks of. This is so goddamn wrong, it almost feels right.

“Stay away, Evelyn. Do not dare cross this line,” I warn with venom in my voice. “Even by yourself, do not fucking think of me when you…”

She raises an eyebrow at that addition.

“Tell me, then.” Her chest rises and falls on erratic breaths, yet she again reins in her anger, and I’m kind of disappointed. “Tell me you don’t want me, and I’ll never speak a word of it ever again. Like it never happened.”

I have to squash this.

“I’m going to say it one last time—do not cross the line. You’re leaning too hard into this rebellious, childish phase that you girls go through. But I’m not your target!”

“You—”

“We’re done here.” And on that note, I turn and walk away.

The door doesn’t move after I walk through and close it behind me. She’s not following. What a great mood to go into this fucked up meeting with.

I didn’t tell her though. I couldn’t tell her I don’t want her.

That was close. Too close. I wanted, no, I needed to touch her. To feel her. But there is a line, and I have to be on the other side of it.

“Finally.”

I give Maddox a grave look in response to his exasperation, as I step into Vin’s office and close the door behind me.

“Let’s start,” Carter orders, turning to the two large screens on the wall behind the desk.

“Not yet,” I interrupt, ignoring The Carver’s sigh.

“Why come now after all these years?” I turn to my brother who was already watching me. “And for how long?”

He exhales a heavy sigh, and replies, “It’s not permanent. But in order to protect my family, while doing what we will need to do, this was the best place for us.”

“Protect them… what are you talking about? There is no we, Ronan. Why are you here?”

“Because, brother, I’m not the only one who came back.”

What?

A picture pops up on the screens, and all at once my heart stops, blood stills, and air leaves my lungs.

It’s not possible.

My past is staring me right in the face, brought back to the present in what looks like a very recent photo, and it crashes down on me with enough force that the assault of memories breaks me.

Roberto-motherfucking-Bartiste was supposed to be fucking dead!

A shocked, delicate gasp pulls me back. I whip around at the same time everyone turns to find Evelyn standing in the doorway. Her eyes are wide, not with shock, but terror, her lips parted in a silent cry that seems to split open a dead part of my soul, and the revelation hits me at the same time she utters the name.

“Vassallo.”