Chapter Two
Morgan
“When was the last time you spoke to your father?”
“I’m not speaking to him.”
“Still? Morgan, you need to let it go. He had his reasons.”
I stared at my mother. We talked every day at the spa, seeing as she worked for me. But we had lunch together a few times a week.
I leaned forward and hissed, “Do not defend him. He could have told me the truth when he learned it. Instead, I had to find out from my best friend, and I had to pretend it meant nothing to me.”
In December, my father, who most people thought had been absent from my whole life, found out he had a son. Kingston O’Rourke. A man he believed was his little brother. A man I knew, but my father didn’t know I knew.
“Have you reached out to him?”
“What am I supposed to say, Mother? Hey, remember me, the girl who married your best friend? That one you found bleeding to death and held while I cried after losing my husband and then my child? Well, surprise, I’m your sister.”
“I think you’d be surprised to see how accepting he would be.”
“Mom, I knew who he was then, and I never said a word.”
She put her menu on the table. “You believed he was your uncle. You couldn’t reveal who your father was to anyone, not even someone you believed was related. You never told your husband. In fact, you never told your father you got married.”
“No, I didn’t, and I’m never going to. Jude is gone. Dad never needs to know.”
“I talked to Romeo.”
My mouth dropped open. “You what?”
“He wanted to see how you were doing. If there was anything you needed.”
“It’s been seven years. Why now?”
My mother looked away, and I knew immediately she was hiding something. “What did you do?”
My mother was beautiful; it was no surprise my father fell for her. Just not enough to marry her. He’d never married anyone. I knew about Darcy, his childhood love. My father had never kept his past from me. He’d never kept anything from me except his name, and the knowledge of my brother.
I had my mother’s name. They both swore it was for safety. Apparently, my grandfather was a mean son of a bitch and had no use for girls. If I’d been a boy, he would have claimed me and raised me in the family business, as he called it.
But being a girl, he was afraid his father would use me as a pawn.
So, he’d hidden me and my mother away in a small town in Virginia.
He never missed a birthday, and he was there as much as he could be.
I’ve often wondered why he didn’t come for me after my grandfather died, but my mother said he didn’t want to uproot my life.
So I lived on the outskirts of his.
But his life and mine were slowly encroaching, and I wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep me a secret much longer. Freyja, Scribe’s sister, was having a baby with Duncan Murphy. My father’s right-hand man.
I knew Duncan, Cian, and Mac. They’d each come with him over the years, and I saw them as uncles. Though I’d never met Caity, my aunt. She was with Cian now. Apparently, they had a daughter who was a year older than me.
I had so much family I’d never known. Family I still couldn’t be open with. Couldn’t have a relationship with.
“They never forgot you, Morgan. King still checks up on you. When Romeo was here for Jack’s wedding, I met him for coffee. He knew you didn’t want anyone to know you knew him, so he stayed away.”
“Mom, you didn’t think it would look suspicious, that my elderly mother was having coffee with a biker?”
“Elderly?” she asked, raising her eyebrows at me.
I giggled at the expression on her face. My mother was far from elderly. She was only a year younger than my aunt Maureen, whom I also hadn’t met. Maureen was married to my uncle Declan, my father’s actual younger brother. They’d had a baby last month.
Though as much as I would love my mother to meet someone, I prayed her baby days were over.
Mine certainly were. I became a widow at the age of twenty-two and lost my child.
Sure, I could meet someone, maybe fall in love again and have more babies.
.. but despite my relationship with Jude being a whirlwind, I loved him with everything I had.
I was certain I would never find a love like that again.
“Mother, Romeo is a manwhore. I’m surprised I haven’t heard rumors around town about you.”
She waved her hand at me. “Sugar shut those down real quick. It was quite impressive, actually. That woman doesn’t play, especially with her family.”
She was right. Sugar Potter, James now, had been the topic of most of the rumors around Rosewood. Lies spread by her ex-husband’s sister, who was in love with her, but Sugar wouldn’t give her the time of day.
Ever since then, Sugar was quick to shut down any rumors she heard, and she did it in a way that put the fear of God into you.
It made me wonder if Sugar knew about my connection to her cousin Romeo and the Silver Shadows. If she did, she’d never tell a soul. Not even her husband, Enigma.
“Your secrets are safe, my dear. Romeo is a flirt, and everyone knows it. He even flirted with Martha Cohen to make sure no one saw anything amiss.”
“Martha Cohen? Seriously?”
“Oh, she loved it, dear.” My mother smiled.
“Did he flirt with Granny too?”
Granny was Martha Steiner. Frank and George Steiner’s grandmother. With both women having the same first name, everyone in town had taken to calling Mrs. Steiner Granny.
“He was nothing but respectful to Granny. The boy acted like he was meeting his girl’s mama for the first time every time he spoke to her.”
“Really? That is not like Rome. The man will never have a girl. He’ll never settle down.” Romeo was too much of a manwhore to settle down with one woman.
“Never say never. From what I hear, quite a few of his brothers have settled down, including your brother. Maybe there’s something in the water in Nebraska.”
“Maybe,” I muttered.
I never thought Jude would want to settle down. He’d shocked the hell out of me when he asked me to marry him. Despite declaring our love for each other, I always assumed it was a fling. Something that would fizzle out after college when I went home.
Only, it never did. Even in his death, my love for him was as strong as ever. It made me wonder about my father. Was he still in love with his childhood love?
“Why did you and Dad never get married?”
My mother smiled. I’d never asked this question. It was always there, in the back of my mind, but honestly, I was afraid of the answer.
“He asked.”
My eyes snapped up to hers. “He did?”
“He sure did. Begged me even.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
My mother shrugged. “I wasn’t in love with him. Don’t get me wrong, I love your father very much. And when you were little, we...” She looked up at me and smiled.
“Please skip over that part.” I exaggerated my shiver, causing my mother to laugh.
“Your father has been wonderful to both of us through the years, but if I ever get married, it will be because I am in love with someone. Someone I can’t see myself living without.”
My eyes dropped to my plate, and I pushed my food around with my fork. Tears began to well up, and my mother reached over.
“I’m so sorry, Morgan.”
“It’s not your fault, Mom. I was the one who fell in love. I just never knew how much it would hurt. I never thought I would lose him so soon. Or lose...”
She lowered her voice and whispered, “What you went through was incredibly painful, and I am so very thankful your brother was there for you when I couldn’t be. Even if neither of you knew he was your brother. The connection between siblings is stronger than most people realize.”
I looked out the window and saw Enigma and Claudia. They’d both grown up here, though they were a little older than me. They were arguing about something, and Claudia’s hands were flying around as Enigma looked shamed.
Everyone knew Enigma was a bit of a hypochondriac, and having a sister who was a doctor seemed only to enhance his phobias. But when push came to shove, they were both there for each other, no matter what.
“Can I get you two anything else?”
I looked up at Fiona, Granny’s adopted daughter, and George and Frank’s little sister. She’d just turned eighteen and was heading off to college soon. She’d had a rough start in life.
Her parents had been killed when she was a child, and she ended up in foster care, pregnant at fifteen.
Frank and Lidi were raising the baby. I didn’t have any ill will toward Fiona.
She was a child who knew she couldn’t raise a baby and gave him to someone who could.
But I was jealous that she still got to see him every day. Got to hold him in her arms.
Even if Charlie was just her nephew now.
“Nothing for me, Fiona, thank you.”
“Are you ready for school?” my mother asked.
“I’m terrified.” She sighed. “It will be a whole new adventure, but the idea of having to make new friends again is so overwhelming.”
“Where did you decide?” I asked.
“The University of Denver. It feels worlds away, but they have a really great social sciences department.”
“Are you thinking about psychology?”
“I considered it, but I think after everything I’ve been through, I want to be a social worker. I’ve had some really bad ones, but after everything Diana did to help with Charlie and me... I want to give back. There are not enough of the good ones.”
“That’s amazing, Fiona. With your heart, I know you’ll be one of the good ones,” my mother praised.
Bernadette Delany, Benny to her friends, was a natural-born cheerleader. There wasn’t a person she’d met whom she didn’t encourage and uplift. It was hard to be a typical sullen teenager with my mom around. She saw the positive side of everything.
Even my father.
She’d never said a negative word about him. At least not in front of me. She’d always made sure to foster our relationship. My mother should be the poster child for co-parenting and how to do it right.
She never feared calling him when I was sick or hurt. Or if we needed something. My father had always made sure we had plenty, but throughout high school, expenses cropped up, and my mother would make a phone call, sometimes convincing him to hand over extra when a friend needed help.
More than once, my father had helped out the community of Rosewood, Virginia. But they never knew. I didn’t even think King knew.
Not my brother, King. Though I doubt he knew much about the good things our father had done over the years either.
Callum ‘King’ Montclair was the president of the Sons of Hell, the motorcycle club here in town. He was the unofficial mayor of Rosewood.
We’d had a mayor until he was arrested for corruption. No one had run since then, so King became the unofficial mayor, given everything the Sons of Hell had done for the town and its residents throughout the years.
King knew my father. If he hadn’t before, when Freyja was kidnapped and Scribe found out, he and King, together with Frank and Priest, hightailed it up to Boston to confront Duncan and my father.
I don’t know exactly what happened, but they came home and Freyja stayed there. If I had to guess, King was more concerned about pissing off Freyja than he was about pissing off the head of the Irish Mob.