Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
CIARA
I keep waiting for Ronan to do something dramatic like call in a bomb threat to evacuate the airport just to delay my flight. After all, it seems like something he would do. But no alarms go off, and no security guards swarm the gates, and I board the flight back to New York without any problems.
He let me go, just like that.
I don’t know what’s worse. The fact that he let me walk away, or that a small part of me wanted him to show up at the gate and carry me out of the airport kicking and screaming, because at least that would prove he still cared.
I don’t sleep at all during the six-hour flight back to New York, despite having been awake for over twenty-four hours. My mind is too full of what Ronan told me to allow me to drift off.
Could what he told me about my father really be true?
No.
I knew my father. He was a good and kind man who respected women. He would never be capable of the sort of things Ronan accused him of.
He would auction girls off to the highest bidder.
Suddenly, I’m grateful I never ate dinner, otherwise, it would come right back up again as Ronan’s words play on repeat. Even though it’s nothing but lies, the thought of my father even being accused of such things makes me physically sick.
I need to talk to Callum as soon as I get back to New York, not because I want to confirm what Ronan said because I can’t believe it to be true, but because Callum needs to make sure such rumors are locked down.
The McCarthy name is barely hanging on as it is, and the last thing my family needs is for my dead father to be painted as a sex trafficker.
By the time the pilot announces we’re beginning our descent into JFK, I blink and realize I didn’t grip the armrest once or hyperventilate into a bag through sheer panic.
I somehow managed to get through the flight without any issues, and the irony is not lost on me that Ronan might have completely broken my heart, but at least he cured my fear of flying.
Only when I walk through arrivals and see Mila waiting for me, wearing a long duffle coat over her pajamas and carrying two cups of coffee, does the hollow ache in my chest return.
I wheel my bag behind me as I walk like a zombie, letting the tide of other passengers carry me over to my best friend, who wraps her arms around me in an instant.
She pulls back to look at me properly. “Jesus, Ciara. You look like you’ve been hit by a train.”
“I feel like I have.”
She hands me a cup of coffee. “Come on. I’m taking you back to my place, and you can stay as long as you want.”
“Mila—”
“I can stock the freezer with plenty of ice cream and pizza, and I can pick up some of that red wine you like.”
“Mila!”
My tone seems to get her attention, and she stops in the middle of the exit, causing a stream of sleep-deprived travelers to curse under their breath at her, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
“What is it?” Her dark brows pull together in a frown.
“I need to talk to Callum, immediately.”
“Ciara, maybe you should get some sleep firs—”
“I need to know if it’s true.”
“If what’s true?”
The words get lodged in my throat, but the look on my face seems to be enough of an answer as Mila simply nods before linking her arm through mine and leading me out of the airport.
Callum looks like hell when he opens the front door. From the dark purple bruises beneath his eyes, it seems he got even less sleep than I did last night. His hair is disheveled, and he’s wearing an old white t-shirt and gray sweatpants. A far cry from the man our father expected him to grow into.
“Hey.” He steps aside to let me in.
I say nothing. Instead, I walk through the house and into the sitting room, which is a complete mess compared to the last time I was here.
It stinks of stale coffee and old takeout containers, and there are countless empty glasses and beer bottles littering the coffee table.
“Fun night?” My voice comes out cold and lifeless.
“Ciara—”
“I need to know if it’s true.” I turn to face my brother, who is hovering in the doorway.
He crosses his arms over his chest. “If what’s true?”
“About Da.”
Callum frowns as he looks at me. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Ronan told me some things, some sick and twisted things, and I need to know if there’s any truth to what he said.”
Callum opens his mouth, and I wait for him to ask me about the rumors Ronan is spreading about our father, but then he promptly shuts it again, and that’s when it truly hits me.
“You know…” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer right away. He just stares at me with those tired eyes and slowly nods, and that one simple movement knocks the air from my lungs.
“Oh, my god.” I stagger backward, clutching my hand to my chest. “And you knew.”
“I did.”
“S-so, it’s true?”
He dips his chin as the last of the color drains from his face, and I feel like the ground has been ripped out from under me.
“How long have you known?”
“A while.”
“How long?”
Callum runs a hand through his hair as he walks to the couch and perches on the arm, resting his elbows on his knees.
He keeps his eyes downcast. “Since right after Da died. Ronan told me everything a few days before the funeral.”
“Ronan told you?”
“He didn’t want to, but I pushed him to tell me. I knew there was more to the story… I could feel it and when he told me, I—I didn’t believe it either. At least, not at first.”
My knees buckle, and I fall into the nearest chair as I struggle to breathe.
Not only is what Ronan told me about my father true, but my own brother has known all this time and kept it from me.
My hands tremble as I rake my fingers through my hair, trying to gather my thoughts. But the overwhelming grief I feel for the man I thought my father was is all-consuming.
“You’ve known for months…” I blink past the tears. “And you let me go on and on about what a good man our father was, what a loss it is that he’s no longer around.”
“I didn’t know how to tell you.”
I let out a sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob as I look up at my brother. “You didn’t know how? That’s seriously your excuse?”
He looks away, and I catch his throat bobbing as he tries to keep a lid on his own emotions.
“I didn’t want to break you. You idolized him, Ciara.”
“You let me grieve a monster, Callum! You let me love him even after he was gone, like he was some kind of saint—”
My voice breaks as Ronan’s words replay in my mind.
“Oh, god. He sold those girls to men who would torture them…” My entire body trembles. “H-how could you let me love him?”
Callum’s jaw tightens. “He was still our father.”
“No.” I get to my feet. “Don’t you dare try to defend him. Our father, our hero, was selling girls, Callum. For sex, and pain, and god only knows what else.”
“They were of legal age,” Callum says a little too quickly.
I round on him, and for a moment, I consider grabbing one of the empty liquor bottles on the coffee table and launching it at his head.
“Is that the bar, then? It’s okay as long as they’re legal? That’s really what we’re clinging to now?”
Callum flinches, and I can tell by the look on his face that he regrets saying the words.
“I didn’t mean—”
“You did. You meant to soften the blow because if you admit what he really was, then everything you thought you knew about him collapses, and you can’t handle that.”
“And you can? Ciara, I found out the truth, and I wanted to put my fist through a wall, and I’ve spent every day since trying to piece together who the hell he really was. So, don’t stand there and act like I’m not hurting too.”
“I’m not saying you’re not! I’m saying you lied to me! You and Ronan… You decided together that I couldn’t handle the tru—”
“We were trying to protect you!”
“No. You were trying to protect yourselves from having to see me break.”
The silence that follows is too heavy, and I turn my back on Callum and press my palms into my eyes because I don’t want him to see my tears.
I don’t want anyone to see them.
“He was the reason I believed in men.” I wipe at my cheeks. “Da… He was the standard, the one who made me feel safe and who told me not to settle. But now you’re telling me he was, what? Trafficking girls? Torturing them?”
“I don’t think he—”
“Don’t.” I whirl around and point a trembling finger at my brother. “Don’t try to guess the limits of his evil, Callum. We clearly didn’t know him as well as we thought we did.”
He closes his eyes and takes a steadying breath, though his hands shake at his sides. “One thing I do know for sure is that he loved you.”
“I don’t give a shit.” The words come out hollow and lifeless, but as I say them, I know they’re not true.
I do give a shit, and that’s the problem.
If my father had never acted like he loved me, if he was just some authority figure who was never present in my life, maybe this wouldn’t hurt so much. I could process it and file it away as if I’d read a news article about a stranger.
But he wasn’t a stranger. He was my father.
The man who read bedtime stories to me and brought me ice cream when I was having a bad day and danced with me around the kitchen in our pajamas when I was too sick to go to homecoming.
That man doesn’t fit into the same universe as the one Ronan described.
“I-I have to go.” I’m starting to crumble.
I can’t be in this house for another second, not when my father’s memory is lingering in every room.
“Ciara, wait!” Callum holds a hand out as I dart around him and sprint toward the front door. “Please, don’t leave like this. We should talk.”
“I can’t talk to you,” I choke without turning to face him. “Not now and… maybe not for a long time.”
I don’t look back as I throw open the front door and dart across the gravel drive to where Mila’s waiting for me.
“Where are you going?” he calls from the doorway.
I throw open the car door. “Away from all of this.”
“What about Ronan?”
“The only person I want to see less than you right now is Ronan.”