Chapter One
Cian
“When do you plan to tell her?” Sal asked, his voice even, but I knew he was mad. He’d been pissed off since we came home from New Orleans. I had to admit, so had I.
“I don’t know. Your sister won’t fuckin’ talk to me.”
“If she finds out from someone else—”
I stopped in my tracks and rounded on Mac. “I fuckin’ know!” I shouted. “I can’t say anything until I know if Caity knows.”
“Of course she fuckin’ knows,” Sal grumbled. “They always fuckin’ know.”
Two months ago, we flew out to Nebraska to settle Colleen, Duncan’s niece, with her mother and Lannie, Sal’s little brother. Sal’s son Kingston lived in Diamond Creek, and he still wouldn’t let Sal into his life.
After what we’d learned in New Orleans, I understood more of what Sal was going through. Never in a million years would I have suspected Maddie was my daughter. That the best night of my entire fucking life had resulted in a little girl that I loved and cherished.
I was fortunate, though. I’d been there to see Maddie grow up. I’d been part of her life. I may have just discovered she was mine, but at least she’d always been a part of my life. Unlike my boss, who’d found out he had a grown-ass son knocking on forty fucking years old.
Sal knocked on the door and waited as Jeffrey opened it and welcomed us into Duncan’s house. Duncan’s woman, Freyja, had an open-door policy, but we’d each learned on different occasions that an open door wasn’t fucking safe.
“Welcome,” Jeffery greeted as he opened the door wide. Even knowing they were expecting us, even with Jeffrey there to open the fucking door, we all peered inside to make sure we wouldn’t be faced with Duncan’s naked ass.
Jeffery chuckled. “It is safe, I promise.”
Sal scoffed, and we all entered the house. Dinner smelled amazing; whatever Freyja was cooking was sure to delight us. I would never admit that I was shocked she knew how to cook.
We all loved Freyja; she’d quickly become a little sister to us. But she was fucking flighty. The way she talked about Lucille Ball had us all side-eyeing her more often than not.
Except Mac.
He believed in that voodoo shit.
“Where are they?” Mac whispered, and I shrugged. Knowing those two, they were upstairs fucking. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
Yes, I was jealous.
I’d been waiting almost three decades for Caity. Now that her husband was dead, I thought everything would fall into place. She was free, so I could talk to Sal and finally build a life with my woman.
But Kelley had to open his fucking mouth and tell my boss I’d fucked his sister. He barely spoke to me unless he had to. I didn’t regret it. Not for a single fucking second. Especially now that I knew Maddie had been the result.
God, I loved that girl.
We’d always had a special connection, Maddie and me. She was my little sidekick. I spoiled her like no one else. If she’d come to me when she was pregnant with Henry, I would have helped her. I would have killed Kelley then and saved Maddie the heartache of losing her husband and her son.
“I’m so glad you’re all here,” Freyja sang as she walked down the stairs looking freshly fucked. I grinned as Mac shook his head, and Sal glared at Duncan, who was right behind her.
“As soon as Caity and Maddie are here...”
Freyja’s voice trailed off when the front door slammed open.
“Maddie, wait!” Caity called out, following closely behind her.
Maddie stormed up to me, her hands fisted at her sides. “Did you know?” she asked, and I panicked. I knew what she was asking.
“Maddie—” I started, my eyes darting toward Caity.
“Did. You. Know?” she asked again, a tear escaping down her cheek.
Freyja rushed to Maddie’s side. “Know what, sweetie?”
“That he is my father!”
I closed my eyes and dropped my chin to my chest.
“You knew!” she accused, her voice filled with hurt. Hurt that broke my fucking heart into pieces. This was exactly what I didn’t want to happen. She looked around the room. “You all knew!”
“Maddie, honey.”
“No, Uncle Sal. Someone should have told me!”
“I didn’t know, Maddie. Not for sure.”
Maddie whipped around to face her mother. “But you suspected?”
When Caity nodded, her eyes teared. My anger warred with my compassion. She should have fucking told me.
“I didn’t know until a few weeks ago. None of us had any idea until Nolan told us,” I confessed.
Caity gasped, and her hands covered her mouth.
“He knew,” Maddie whispered. She turned to face her mother. “This is your fault! I lost everything because of you!”
“Maddie, please let me explain,” Caity pleaded.
“No. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t even want to look at you!”
Maddie ran upstairs as I stood there, helpless. Caity didn’t move. She stood cemented to her spot as our daughter disappeared. Tears streamed down her face.
“Caity.”
She turned an angry glare in my direction and spat, “Fuck you!” before she turned and stormed out, slamming the door behind her.
“We’re having a baby!” Duncan declared, and Freyja groaned.
“Timing, baby, timing,” Freyja chastised. “I’ll go talk to Maddie.”
“No, Freyja, let me.”
She was my daughter. I was the one who’d hurt her. I should have made Caity talk to me. Maddie should have heard the truth from us.
I knocked on the door of the guest room, surprised when I turned the doorknob and it opened.
“Maddie, honey, can we talk?”
“No. Go away.”
She lay sprawled out on the bed, her face in the pillow. Despite being mad at me, I knew she wouldn’t be as angry with me as she was with her mother, and the asshole in me fucking gloated.
I walked through the room and sat on the bed next to her. She was upset, and with good reason. She’d been lied to her whole damn life. I was upset too. I laid a hand on her back, and she turned her head away from me.
“Baby, I know you’re upset.”
She moved so fast, when she sat up, I almost fell off the bed.
“Upset?!” she shrieked. “Upset? I lost everything because she lied. I lost my husband and my son because the man I thought was my father wanted to get back at her.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?” I asked quietly. “I would have helped you. I would have protected you.”
“There was nothing you could have done. It wasn’t just my da.
..” She stopped herself, and a part of my heart sealed back together that she could discard Kelley so quickly.
I wanted to believe it was because she would easily accept my place in her life, but I knew it was because of what he’d cost her.
“Uncle Sal would have killed Salvatore.”
“I would have fuckin’ killed him,” I mumbled.
Maddie glared at me.
“Don’t look at me like that; he was too fuckin’ old for you. He never should have touched you.”
“You never should have touched her,” she spat back.
I closed my eyes and released a heavy breath. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have. But I don’t regret it, and if I could go back, there are things I would do differently, but being with your mother isn’t one of them. Without that night, I wouldn’t have you.”
“You didn’t even know I was yours.”
“You think that stopped me from loving you? You think that stopped me from wishing you were mine?” I asked. Maddie bit her bottom lip, and her eyes filled with tears. “Come here.” I pulled her into my arms. “You’ve always been mine, Maddie, even before I knew.”
“Why didn’t she tell us?”
“She was scared.”
Maddie pulled away, backing up against the headboard. “Don’t make excuses for her. She made a choice.”
“She did make a choice. She made the choice to protect you. You never told us about Henry because you were afraid of what Kelley would do. What do you think he would have done to her? What do you think Eamon would have done?”
Her hands played with the hem of her shirt, and she kept her head down. She knew I was right. I didn’t like the way Caity had handled things; I didn’t like the way Maddie had either. Neither of them trusted me enough to come to me. They were more alike than either of them wanted to admit.
“Why aren’t you mad at her?”
“Maddie, I am mad. I am fuckin’ pissed. But I love her. I always have. Love makes you forgive things you probably shouldn’t. Sure, I could be angry with her. I could scream and yell and walk away. But I’d only be hurting myself.”
“She kept my dad from me,” she whispered. “The dad who loved me.”
“Did she?” I asked. “Because I remember the day you were born. I might not have been there to see you come into the world, but I held you in my arms that day. I looked down at you, and fuck—” I had to look away to get the emotion I was feeling under control.
It was like I was back there, seeing her for the first time.
“I loved you the minute I met you. I’ve always been there, Maddie. She never kept you from me.”
“But she kept you from me,” she argued.
“In a way, yes. I didn’t get to see you every day because you lived in New York.
But every holiday, every birthday, school play, sports game, I was there, baby.
Cheering you on. So fuckin’ proud of you.
Graduation. When you started college. I’ve always been there, Maddie.
She made sure of it, the only way she could. ”
“I thought you hated her.”
“I could never hate her. She’s everything to me. She always has been,” I admitted. It was the truth. Caity had always been on my periphery, always on my mind, ever since she was a little girl.
She was three years younger, but always around. My father had worked for Eamon. We grew up in this life. When I got tight with Sal and Duncan, I saw Caity even more. Then I got to know her as a person.
I’d finally worked up the courage to talk to Sal about her, and then work my way up to Eamon, when the bastard announced she was marrying Kelley.
“I took too long, and I missed my chance. But I’ve never loved anyone the way I love her.”
“Then why do you fight all the time?”
I blew out a breath. How did you explain to your daughter that fighting with her mother was like foreplay? I loved Caity’s temper. I loved the fire in her eyes when she was mad. The passion she tried to hide. Passion I’d experienced all those years ago.
“Did you and Valentinetti ever bicker about stupid things?”
Maddie smiled. “Yeah, he used to do things just to make me mad. When we made up, we—” She stopped talking and looked up at me. “Ewww!”
I threw my head back and laughed.
“Ew, ew, ew. No!” She made gagging noises, and I only laughed harder.
“I know that’s not something you want to think about regarding your parents.”
She shoved my shoulder and demanded, “Stop talking!”
Maddie’s smile dropped, and she looked up at me. “How long have you and her...?”
I sobered up as I realized what she was asking. “Only the one time. When she refused to leave, I walked away.”
“Why didn’t she leave?”
“Divorce is a sin, Maddie.”
“So is adultery,” she muttered.
“Maddie,” I warned.
She rolled her eyes at me. “She doesn’t even go to church. Except for Mass on Christmas and Easter.”
I shrugged. “We grew up Catholic, Maddie. That shit is ingrained in us. If she were divorced, she’d never be able to get remarried in the church.”
“But now he’s dead.”
“And we can’t tell anyone,” I reminded her.