Quinn #2
"I'm asking you." She steps closer. "The wedding is weeks away. This is not the time for scenes."
"I'm not the one who caused a scene at my own engagement party," I say. "Daire went to my fiancé and told him lies about Orla. At the party, in front of the entire Syndicate."
Mam glances at Daire, and I see the anger diminish as she faces her favorite child. She turns back to me, and the anger returns once more. "Daire wouldn't say things without reason."
There it is. God, not once will she ever be impartial or even back me.
"Mam." My voice is emotionless now. "She told him I drove Orla Geraghty to her death. She described exactly what she did to that girl, and she told him it was me."
"You were involved—"
"I tried to stop it. I came to you, I told you what Daire was doing to her and you hit me and told me I was lying." I watch her face, needing to see some remorse. "You remember that. I know you remember that."
But Mam never fails to shock me, the anger remains in her eyes as she glares at me. "You've always been dramatic," she says, not admitting the truth. "Even as a child, everything was always a catastrophe."
"I could be bleeding on this floor," I say, "and you'd still ask what I did wrong."
The hallway goes very quiet. Mam looks at me. The disdain is clear to see in her expression. Daire’s right, she hates me. "Maybe," she says, quietly, but the word feels as though it’s been screamed at me, "if you'd been less difficult to love, it wouldn't have always been so easy to choose her."
I suck in a deep breath, once again trying everything I can not to let the tears fall.
"That's enough," I hear the rumble of my da’s voice.
Mam freezes. Her entire body goes solid as she turns to Daire and says something low that I don't catch. Neither of them look at da. Instead, they turn and go down the other stairs, away from Da and I.
I stand in the hallway, not looking at anything as Mam’s words replay over and over in my head. Difficult to love.
"Quinn,” Da says softly, I turn to face him and I see the softness in his eyes but they don’t mean shit to me. Not anymore, he’s let this happen.
"Go get some air," he says. “Give them time—”
I bark out a laugh. “Time? For what? This shit’s been happening since I was a kid. You damn well know it has, Da, but then again, does anyone actually give a crap that the youngest Delaney is the family punching bag both physically and emotionally?” I ask with a raised brow.
He doesn't say anything. Instead, he turns and walks back downstairs.
I watch him go and something inside me settles. Not in a good way. In a final way, because for years I've waited for my father to put me first. Just once. Today should have been easy, and he still couldn't do it.
I stand in the hallway and realize that Caden was wrong. Da isn’t team Quinn, I doubt he ever has been.
But team Quinn means not actively making it worse, it doesn't mean making it right. Ronan Delaney is still Ronan Delaney, and I'm still the child he doesn't know what to do with. That's not going to change because he told his wife and daughter that's enough.
I pull in ragged breaths, trying my hardest to push the pain deep down. I can’t deal with it right now. I need to breathe through it, I need to push it away, put it in a box and lock it up tight.
I hear footsteps on the stairs and I don’t need to look to know that it’s my brothers.
Caden appears first, the fury on his face is unlike anything I’ve ever seen from him before. He takes one look at me and turns back to the stairs.
Daithí comes up behind him and puts a hand on his arm, stopping him. "Caden," Daithí says, his voice is very quiet. Too quiet for Daithi.
"You heard what they said to Quinn , what our Mam —"
"I know." Daithí doesn't let go of his arm. "Not now."
"When?" Caden's voice is lethal, hard, like a whip. "When is it ever the right time? It's been eighteen years of this and we just stand here—"
I suck in a sharp breath, he’s this angry for me?
"Caden," I say softly and Daithí's eyes move to me. "Come here."
Caden looks at me, and then he lets out a ragged breath. One that makes his entire body shake, but he comes puts his arms around me and holds on. I let him, because I'm tired and because it's Caden.
"I'm sorry," he says into my hair. "I'm so sorry we've let this go on this long."
I don't say anything. I just stand there and let him hold me for a minute.
Daithí is watching us with an expression I've seen on him before. That cold, controlled stillness that means he's deciding something.
When Caden steps back, Daithí looks at me properly.
"Tell me what Daire said to Lorenzo," he says.
"About Orla." I breathe. "She told him I isolated her, that I made her dependent on me and then pushed her over the edge." I hold his gaze. "She told him exactly what she did and she blamed it on me."
Daithí is very still, his gaze holds mine.
"She knows I can't defend it," I say. "Because her version is already out there. And my reaction when he said the name—" I stop. "I reacted out of instinct and he saw it."
"What did he say to you?" Daithí asks.
"Nothing. He went quiet, pulled back. Told me it was work things.
" I look at the ring. "He's going to investigate.
I know he is. He's the kind of man who won't just take her word for it.
Whatever he finds will have Daire's version baked into it already because that's the version that got put into the record. "
Daithí nods. "I'm going to sort this."
I laugh, it’s a bitter and short one. "You can't—"
"Quinn." He looks at me, unwavering love and support is all that I see on his face.
"I was there. Not for all of it, but enough of it.
I know what happened with Orla and I know what part Daire played.
I let the wrong story settle because I was busy and because it was easier.
I should have fixed it then. I'm fixing it now. "
"He's not going to believe—"
"Lorenzo Mariano isn’t a fool," Daithí says. "He's already suspicious of Daire, you said it yourself. He knows she can lie without breaking a sweat. He's going to be looking for a version that holds up under pressure." He meets my eyes. "I'm going to give him one."
I look at him for a long moment. "Daithí."
"What?"
"Tell me the truth. Do you think he'll trust me after this?"
He's quiet. He doesn't give me easy reassurance, which is one of the reasons I trust him most. He always gives me the honest truth and I’m so grateful that he does.
"I think," he says carefully, "that Lorenzo Mariano is smarter than to let Daire Delaney dictate what he believes. But I’m also not stupid enough to believe that he’ll listen to what I have to say without digging himself.
" He holds my gaze. "Which means the next few weeks matter.
How you carry yourself, how you act, what you say, what you show him, they all matter.
"He went cold," I say. "At the party. I could feel it."
"I know." He doesn't look away. "I’m sorry that she’s done this to you.”
I inhale deeply. “I was stupid,” I whisper as I wrap my arms around myself.
“Stupid?” Caden asks, speaking for the first time in a while.
I nod. “I was stupid to let myself believe in hope and that I’d finally stop being the person no one cared about. That marrying Lorenzo would mean I could live in a home without wondering what was going to happen to me.”
“Quinn,” Daithí says softly. “I will fix this,” he promises me.
"Okay," I say, but without any heat. The truth is, there is no fixing this. Not anymore. Daire fucked things up too much and once again, I’m paying the price.
"Good girl."
I sigh, releasing some of the tension from my shoulders. I look up at him. “What do I do in the meantime?"
He gives me the saddest smile I’ve ever seen him have. "You do what you've always done," he says. "You hold yourself together. You don't let them knock you down. They’re pathetic and sad for what they’ve done to you, Quinn, but that shit stops now."
Caden appears at my other side and knocks his shoulder against mine. "And for what it's worth," he says. "We know the real you, Quinn, not the villain that Mam and Daire have painted. We know how sweet and fucking fierce you are. We care about you, and we always will."
I look between him and Daithí, my heart swelling with love for them. As much as living in this house has been a living nightmare, these two are the only consistent thing in this house that has ever been entirely mine.
"Thank you," I say and it comes out quieter than I meant it to.
"Don't thank me," Daithí says. "I should have done this sooner."
"Yeah," Caden agrees. "Big time."
Daithí gives him a look.
"What? I'm agreeing with you." Caden shrugs. "First time for everything."
I almost laugh. The fact that I almost laugh feels like a huge deal, even now, with Mam's words still sitting in my chest.
Difficult to love.
Maybe. Or maybe it was just easier to love Daire because Daire never asked anything of anyone that required them to look at themselves.
I look at the ring again and my heart hurts as I do. I have less than five weeks. I'm not walking into that house as the version of Quinn Delaney that learned to make herself smaller. I'm not taking any of this with me. I don't entirely know yet who the other version is.
But I've got five weeks to start figuring it out.
Three hours later, I'm sitting in a booth at Romano's wondering how exactly Daithí talked me into leaving the house. Actually, that's a lie, he didn't talk me into it. He told me to get dressed and then threatened to carry me to the car if I refused, and I believed him.
The restaurant is busy for a weekday evening. It’s a world away from the Delaney house, and a world away from my mam's voice.
Maybe if you'd been less difficult to love.
The words hit just as hard now as they did three hours ago. I stare down at the menu despite already knowing what I want.
"You've been reading the same page for ten minutes."
I look up. Daithí is watching me. "I'm deciding."
"No, you're not."
I roll my eyes, he isn't fooled, not even a little bit.