Chapter 38 Caroline
CAROLINE
Mom’s body is covered with a bloody sheet. She’s lying in the corner like a piece of furniture. The room is still a horrible mess and it’s starting to smell bad. Dad stands behind his desk, opens a bottle of whiskey, and drinks straight from the neck.
This is all wrong. This can’t be happening.
I’m so scared I could scream, and the only thing keeping me from collapsing into a blubbering, horrified mess is Finn.
He seems totally at ease like he’s sure this is going to work out, but I can’t see it.
I don’t know how. There’s no way this ends anywhere but a coffin for both of us.
And the part I hate the most is Dad and Mal will get away with it.
That’s the fucked-up thing in all this. Men like them are protected by their power.
The people who can stop them are usually too invested in their schemes to really do anything.
It’s a sick, fucked-up cycle, where abusive monsters continue preying on innocents and everyone enables them by turning a blind eye.
Profit’s more important than anything else.
With us dead, Declan will find a way to make peace, and maybe Cormac and Seamus will be unhappy about it, but they’ll fall in line too. Why rock the boat? Why make a scene?
That’s always been my life. No matter what, evil prevails, because evil isn’t always a blood-covered room and a murdered woman.
Sometimes evil is a brother pretending to be pragmatic, or a lazy cop too tired to follow a lead, or a bunch of scared nobodies pretending like nothing’s wrong.
Evil is the car that refuses to pull over when there’s a bad accident right next to them.
Evil is doing nothing. Evil is so damn easy, and that’s the problem.
Dad wipes his lips. He looks over at Mom’s shrouded body and sighs.
“Your mother was a good woman. She understood her place. She didn’t always love the choices I made, but she knew the family was more important than any one individual. Your mother was strong.”
“My mom was a psychologically damaged abuse victim who couldn’t admit the truth staring her in the face.”
Dad’s face twitches. “You’re wrong. My wife was a good woman. I’m going to miss her deeply, but this is what happens when you raise strong boys. Things sometimes break.”
“Everything around you breaks.” I don’t know why I’m talking. I learned the hard way many, many times to keep my mouth shut, but I’m done. We’re at the end anyway. I might as well stand up to him now in this place under the shadow of my husband with my dead mother’s corpse still cooling nearby.
“Careful, Caroline,” he warns.
But I ignore him. “That’s all you do. That’s what you taught your sons to do too. Shane was a violent monster. Redmond was a self-righteous asshole. Dermot was so in his own world he couldn’t even imagine anyone else hurting. And don’t get me started on Malachy.”
“Go ahead, get started,” Mal says, still aiming the gun at Finn’s head. “I’d happily blow your husband’s brains out.”
“I see you both. I see all of you. You’re animals. You’re insects. You hurt other people and don’t care about it. You hurt me, my whole life—”
“You fucking deserved it!” Dad’s roar is a shock.
I twitch back on pure instinct as he comes around the desk.
He throws the bottle against the wall and it shatters, whiskey spraying all over.
“You stupid, selfish little cunt. God, I wish I drowned you when you were a baby. I wanted to, did you know that? You screamed and cried so much I told your mother to just put a pillow over your face until you shut the fuck up. What’s the use of a daughter anyway? And now looking back, I was right.”
“That’s always been your problem, right, Dad? You’re just too weak.”
His fist snaps back. There’s a second, dangling in the air, where I think he won’t do it. But then he slams it forward and smashes his fist into my face.
My chin jerks up and my head cracks back. I groan as lights flash in my vision. The pain hits me like a wave and I taste blood where I bit my lower lip.
Finn roars in anger. A gun goes off. I scream, throwing my hands up, reaching for my husband—
But the world tips sideways.
The noise is incredible. It’s so loud my eardrums nearly break.
The windows shatter inward and books fly off the shelves.
I’m thrown off my chair and to the floor, hitting hard against my shoulder, rolling to a stop against the desk.
The house is shaking, lurching, and there’s another blast like a door slamming shut. More paper scatters all over.
Finn’s got my father by the throat, but a third blast makes both of them topple over. Malachy’s screaming something, and I realize he’s scrambling around madly for his gun, searching through the mess on the floor. I sit up, dizzy and confused—
And spot the pistol a few feet away.
I stare at it. Mal finds it the same moment I do.
We both lunge.
I’m closer, but he’s faster. I scream, reaching out, and his shoulder bashes into my face.
I grunt, knocked sideways, as I wrap my fingers around the grip.
He has my wrist though and I can’t get my finger on the trigger.
I kick and thrash as Mal twists, sending agony down to my elbow.
The gun clatters to the floor and I try to punch Mal in the back, but it’s like hitting sand, for all the good it does.
I cry out, but I can barely hear. Mal twists, the gun coming up, a manic gleam in his eyes, so sure that he won, and I knew it would end like this, one of my brothers finally finishing what they’ve so gleefully enjoyed all my life, except Mal suddenly slumps sideways as Finn smashes into him and stabs a shard of glass deep into his neck right above the collarbone.
The gun goes off. I curl to the floor, covering myself.
Finn keeps stabbing, over and over, as Mal struggles against him.
There’s so much blood. I crawl sideways, looking around wildly.
The office door is open and Dad’s gone. Finn keeps slamming his hand down, again and again, until the glass shard finally breaks.
Mal’s not moving and Finn’s drenched in blood as he slowly pushes himself to his feet.
Mal’s throat and face is a pulp of slices and exposed skin. The gun is lying nearby.
Finn reaches a hand out to me. It’s cut deeply from where he was gripping the glass.
I look at my husband’s face and he’s smiling now.
The real Finn shines through, glorious and beautiful, and I take his bloody palm in my own.
He pulls me to my feet and slams his lips against my mouth, tasting my bloody lip and clearly not caring.
I kiss him back wildly, arms wrapped around his neck, my oldest brother’s corpse at our feet.
It’s stupid. I’m aware that we’re not safe. Those explosions came from the front of the house, which means someone else is here, and Dad’s missing. I should probably do something about all that.
But kissing Finn is a priority right about now.
“I thought I was dead,” I say, gasping for breath. Finn’s mouth is smeared with my blood. He licks it, grinning wildly. “What the hell was that explosion?”
“My brothers.”
He leads me by the hand back into the hall.
There’s smoke rolling along the ceiling.
We reach the entryway and it’s a mess of kindling, splinters, ruined paintings, and flames all over.
Finn turns us away, down toward the kitchen, and I take the lead, hurrying to the back door.
It’s standing open already, and outside it’s blinding and bright, a nice, warm, comfortable day.
Dad’s kneeling on the ground. His normally perfect patio is a mess. Furniture’s thrown over, and I’m guessing the other bomb went off back here. There’s a big crater in the concrete and the windows are shattered.
Cormac stands with a gun against Dad’s head. Seamus is beside them, texting something on his phone. “Took you long enough,” he mutters and glances up. “Jesus, you two look awful.”
“Not our blood,” Finn says but shrugs sheepishly. “Mostly, anyway. I thought you were bringing an ambulance?”
“I thought I was too until we saw you going inside with this asshole and his asshole son.” Seamus kicks Dad on the side. “We figured you’d need a distraction instead.”
I step away from Finn. Dad’s staring at me. The burning house reflects in his eyes. He looks old and frail, and maybe I should feel bad for him. In the end, he lost everything: his four beloved boys, his treasured wife, his home, his future, his power.
“You deserved worse,” I say to him and hold out a hand to Cormac. “Gun, please.”
Cormac doesn’t even hesitate. He hands it over and steps aside. I aim at Dad’s face.
He tilts his chin up, a smile on his lips. “You don’t have the strength in you, Caroline. You never did. Let the men handle it.”
Finn steps up behind me. He puts a hand on my arm gently, leaning his body against my back. I feel his strength radiating through me like sunshine. “Do it,” he whispers softly, bending down to kiss my neck.
“Together,” I say.
“Together,” he agrees.
Dad jerks back. His eyes go wide. “Hold on. Wait. You can’t—”
I pull the trigger. The gun bucks. Dad’s head explodes in a shower of mist. He slumps sideways and I put another bullet in his neck, just for good measure.
It’s quiet in the yard after that. Cormac takes his gun back and holsters it. Dad’s corpse looks like nothing. Just some skin and bones.
For the first time in my life, I’m alone.
My abusers are gone and they’ll never hurt me again.
Finn slips his hand through mine and holds on tight.
“We’ll clean up here,” Seamus says, nodding at the blaze. He grabs my dad by the ankles. “Well, the fire will do most of the work.”
“You two head home.” Cormac goes to help Seamus.
“Thanks, you two.”
Cormac shrugs. “It’s what real family does.”
“Although I do hate corpse duty,” Seamus grumbles.