Lorenzo #2
"Growing up, I’ve always known that I was the odd one out. My da loves my brothers, Daithí, more so than the others, but he still loves them. But Mam has always made it very clear that only one child matters to her: Daire. No one could ever compare to her precious daughter.”
God, those fucking assholes. “Who loved you, Quinn?”
She looks up at me with glassy eyes. “Caden,” she whispers. “Mamie.”
My brows furrow at the name. “Who’s Mamie?”
“She is our housekeeper and she was the woman who looked after me, she is amazing and I’m going to miss her so much.”
I make a mental note to find out everything I can about the woman.
“It’s only recently that Daithí has got his shit together,” she tells me with a twisted smile. “I don’t know what happened, but something did. He stopped sleeping around and he’s more present. He’s done everything he can to get the truth out there about Orla.”
“Do you want to talk about her?” I ask. She seems to be dodging telling me about what happened with Orla.
She shakes her head. “You know the truth. I’m glad you do, but I tried to help and it didn’t do anything. In fact, it just made things worse.”
"I’m sorry,” I tell her, hating that I believed Daire instead of waiting like Quinn had said and letting her tell me the truth.
"I knew I was making it harder for myself," she says. "I knew Daire would find out and there'd be consequences. There always were." She pauses. "I tried to help her anyway."
"What happened when you tried to help?" I ask.
She looks back at the garden. "I went to mam. I told her what Daire was doing to Orla." She breathes hard, her hands shaking. "She slapped me across the face and told me I was jealous, that I was lying, and that I'd never amount to anything." A pause. "So I had no one to go to after that."
Fucking hell. I didn’t expect it to be her mother that hit her. Fucking bitch.
“I read Orla’s diary, she said your cheek was bad.”
She nods. “Mam’s rings caught me as she backhanded me.”
"Tell me about your father. Our wedding day wasn’t the first time he hit you. He hit you when we were engaged too.”
She nods. “Da gets angry. He hates to be questioned and he really dislikes it when I stand up against Daire as it makes mam angry. He’s hurt me a few times over the years. I’m just glad to be out of there.”
I fucking bet she is. I’ll be having a meeting with Ronan Delaney and I’ll be letting him know what’ll happen if he ever comes near my wife again.
“What do you want, Quinn?”
She looks up at me in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“From everything I’ve learned, you’ve not really had a say in what’s happened in your life. So what do you want?”
She stands up and starts to pace. I leave her be, letting her gather her thoughts. “I want to be free, I want to be happy, and I want to become me.”
“Then that’s what’ll happen,” I promise her. “You’re safe here. Safe to figure out who you are.”
“I need you to trust me, Lorenzo. There’s no future if you can’t at least try,” she says softly.
I look at this woman standing in my garden and I finally understand something that I should have understood months ago.
Quinn Delaney wasn't hiding secrets, she was surviving.
Fuck, I don’t know how to trust. “I’ll try,” I promise her.
The smile she gives me is breathtaking and I just hope that I don’t break that promise.
Quinn and Valentina went to the library after dinner, something about reading a new book and buddy reading.
I have no fucking idea what that was, but the pure enjoyment on my wife’s face when she was telling me, I didn’t care what it was.
I pressed a kiss to her forehead and told her to enjoy it and that I’d be back later.
I’ve kept my anger in check since Quinn told me about the abuse she went through at the hands of her mother and father.
After I promised her I’d try to trust her, she sat beside me and told me everything.
Including her mother telling her that if she'd been less difficult to love, it wouldn't have always been so easy to choose Daire.
Now I’m at the Delaney house. Marco’s waiting outside for me, ready in case I need him. But I won’t. I’ll leave here with both Ronan and Bridget breathing. Tonight is a warning for them.
Of course, I find the fucker in his office and his bitch of a wife is seated across from him. They both look up at me as I close the door behind me.
"Lorenzo," Ronan says as he gets to his feet, his gaze searching my face. "This is unexpected."
"Yes," I say. “It is. I didn’t think it warranted a call.” I wasn’t going to let the bastard know I was coming. It would give him time to hide.
Bridget looks at me. Then at Ronan. She has her husband's instincts enough to know that this unexpected visit is not a social call.
"What can I do for you?" Ronan says.
"You put your hands on my wife on her wedding day," I say.
Silence falls over the room, but I watch them both. I watch as Bridget goes very still, whereas Ronan's jaw tightens.
"Quinn is my daughter," he says, carefully. "What happens in this house—"
"She's not in your house anymore," I say. "She's in mine. She's my wife. She's under my name and my protection and you put her into a mirror on her wedding morning."
"She was being difficult," he says. "She was—"
"She was getting married," I say. "She was standing in a room in her wedding dress, and you grabbed her arm and you pushed her into a mirror, and she had a head injury through the entire ceremony, not to mention your finger marks as bruises on her arm."
"That's an exaggeration—"
"It isn't."
"Lorenzo." His tone shifts to a pleading tone. "You have to understand, raising Quinn has been—"
"I don't need you to explain Quinn to me."
"She's complicated. She always has been. The things that happened in this house, the way things were—"
"I know about Orla Geraghty," I say.
Now it's his turn to still. Good, he’ll finally stop with his bullshit excuses.
"I know what Daire did to her. I know that Quinn came to Bridget and told her what was happening and Bridget hit her and called her a liar.
" I take one step toward him. "I know that your right-hand man has been sleeping with your daughter since she was a minor.
" I take another step. "And I know that you buried the truth about Orla to protect this family's reputation while your youngest daughter spent years being blamed for something your eldest did. "
Ronan's eyes widen, red heats his face. He’s shocked, whereas Bridget is not. The outrage on her face is immediate, as though she's the injured party here. As though Quinn is the one who has done something wrong.
Fucking bitch.
"She was my daughter," Ronan says. "Whatever happened here, I had my reasons—"
My vision goes red. I don't remember deciding to move. One second he's standing in front of me. The next second, I'm across the room. Ronan's eyes widen. Too fucking late. Someone really should have taught him to watch what he says.
I catch his wrist.
"Lorenzo—"
The crack echoes through the office. Bridget screams, and Ronan drops to one knee with a roar of pain, his face finally losing that calm mask he's been wearing. His hand hangs at an unnatural angle, fingers already swelling.
I don't let go. Fuck no, he’s not even felt half the pain I want him too. I tighten my grip and another strangled sound tears from his throat.
"You hit her on our wedding day."
His face drains of color.
"Lorenzo—"