Chapter Five
Caity
I smiled as Brian Buchannon leaned over and kissed my cheek before sitting down in the chair across from me.
Harbor Heights was a new restaurant on the outskirts of the North End of Boston. The owners weren’t beholden to Sal as of yet, so as long as I didn’t run into someone I knew, I could keep this meeting a secret for now.
“Thank you for coming, Brian.”
“For you, always. How are you, Caity?”
Brian Buchannon was a handsome man. He stood well over six and a half feet tall, with red hair that had darkened over the years, and piercing blue eyes.
He was the oldest of the cousins, and the head of the IRA in Ireland.
Brian was already a teenager when I came along, but he’d always been my favorite.
“I’m sure you know what’s been going on.”
“Your brother keeps me up to date on business dealings and anything that is affected by that.”
“Then you know what happened in New Orleans,” I said, my eyes looking down at my lap. I didn’t want him to know my shame, but there was no keeping it a secret now. Cian would never deny Maddie as his.
“I do,” he said.
“Sal moved Maddie and me back to Boston before they went to Louisiana. We’ve been staying at my father’s house.”
Brian didn’t speak. He held me hostage with his icy blue eyes. He didn’t ask questions; he knew if he waited long enough, I’d tell him everything. He was always patient with me.
“Sal never cleared the house. When Maddie and I moved in, everything was exactly the same as when I was growing up. It was like a fucking mausoleum in there.”
“Your brother took your father’s death hard.”
I looked up at him and cocked an eyebrow before I rolled my eyes. I knew the truth behind my father’s death. I might not know the exact details of why Sal did what he did, but the files I’d found were telling.
My whole life I’d known my father wasn’t a good man.
But the things I learned. The information I’d found made me sick.
Like every spoiled daughter, I’d held my father on a pedestal.
Ignoring the rumors I’d heard. Forgiving him for the way I’d seen him treat my brother, convincing myself that it was for his benefit.
For Sal to take over from him one day, he’d need to be strong.
Even after learning about my nephew and what Darcy had done, I blamed her. Never my father. But now I couldn’t hide my head in the sand any longer. The truth was staring me in the face.
“Doing what’s right doesn’t absolve us from the guilt we feel for the choices we make, Caity.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I whispered, thinking about the secrets I’d held for years.
With a heavy breath, I looked at Brian. When Sal found out I went over his head, he’d be angry. Having an affair with his best friend would be easier to forgive than the betrayal I was committing now.
“I started cleaning out the house myself. If I have to live there, I want it to reflect me and what I want. Not my father’s decades-old décor.
” I chuckled. “The office was locked, but being Eamon O’Malley’s daughter, I’ve learned enough through the years that a simple lock on a door won’t keep me out. ”
Brian sat forward and leaned on the table. I reached for my drink and took a sip. A little liquid courage to get through this next part.
“I found something. I know I should have gone to Sal. But this will break him, Brian. I don’t know how to tell him what I found without destroying him.”
I pushed the file folder across the table, and Brian opened it up and looked at the information inside. “Fuck!” he cursed. “What else have you found?”
“Nothing. I just started going through everything. Does that mean what I think it means, Brian?”
“Leave it with me, and I will find the truth.” His hand lay heavy on the folder. He studied my face before asking, “Will you be able to keep this information from him until I know for sure?”
I nodded. “I’m pretty good at keeping secrets.” I looked away, not wanting to see the disappointment on Brian’s face.
“Caity, you did what you felt was right.”
“But it wasn’t right.” I blinked away my tears.
“The choices we make don’t always make sense, but they are our choices to make. No one else’s.”
“And if it affects someone else’s life? What then?”
Brian leaned back in his chair, bringing the glass of whiskey to his lips. Emptying his glass, he held it up in a silent request for the waitress to refill it.
She hurried over and filled the glass. As she turned away, he caught her wrist. “Leave the bottle.” She nodded and placed the bottle on the table. Brian picked it up, and with a lift of his eyebrows, he asked a question. I pushed my glass toward him and allowed him to fill it.
“Every decision you make in life affects someone else. Sometimes it’s a detriment; sometimes it’s a blessing. Sometimes you won’t know until after the decision has been made. All you can do, Caity, is the best you can. You made a decision to protect your daughter.”
“A decision that cost her everything.”
“Her decisions cost her everything. Not yours. She had options you didn’t. She had a father who, while he didn’t know she was his, loved her unconditionally. And she had an uncle who would have burned the world down for her. She chose not to trust either of them. That’s on her, not you.”
In my head, I knew he was right. But in my heart, I’d failed my daughter. My only child. That wasn’t something I could easily forgive myself for. If I ever could at all.
The banging on my front door woke me from my sleep. I groaned out a curse. What could be so important this early in the morning? My mind immediately went to Maddie, and I jumped out of my bed and threw on my robe.
She still wasn’t speaking to me. If only she’d let me explain, maybe she’d forgive me. Brian’s words from the night before ran through my head. Maddie was responsible for her own decisions, but maybe if she’d known who her father really was, she would have made a different choice.
I rushed down the stairs as the knocking persisted, getting louder. I yanked the door open, and Cian stood there.
“Cian,” I breathed. “Is Maddie...”
“Maddie is fine.” He pushed past me, not waiting for me to invite him in.
“Then where’s the fuckin’ fire?” I clipped, my anger building. It was my defense against him. If I were angry with him, I wouldn’t throw myself into his arms and beg him to forgive me. “What are you doing here?”
“Why were you meeting with Buchannon last night?”
I gaped at him. “How do you know that?”
“Because I fuckin’ saw you.”
I pressed my lips together. Turning away from him, I walked to the kitchen, pulling my sash tighter around my waist. I moved to the coffeemaker, giving my hands something to do.
“Caity,” he growled.
“That is none of your business. Brian is my family. If I want to have dinner with family, it’s no concern of yours.”
“How often do you meet him for dinner? How often does he show up in town without telling Sal?”
“I really couldn’t answer that. I’m not his secretary, nor am I Sal’s. I don’t keep track of either man’s schedule because it is none of my business.” I looked over my shoulder at him. “Maybe that’s something you need to learn.”
The sound that rumbled from the man I’d loved my whole life had an effect on me that I wasn’t willing to put into words. Not even in my own fucking head. I squeezed my thighs together to ease the throbbing between my legs, thankful for the long robe that hid my movements.
“Caity.” I heard the pleading in his voice, and I closed my eyes against the desire to walk into his arms. Let him hold me, let him love me.
“You need to go.”
“I have to tell Sal.” His voice was a whisper, a breath from my ear.
“Do what you have to do,” I countered, feigning indifference.
“Why do you hate me, Caity? What did I do?”
His hands went to my hips, and he held me in place, moving in close, crowding me against the counter.
His chest felt warm against my back, and it took every bit of strength I had not to lean back against him.
He wasn’t mine. He never would be because I didn’t deserve him.
I didn’t deserve happiness when my daughter was miserable.
“I don’t hate you, Cian. But you’re a reminder every day of how I fucked up my daughter’s life.”
“Caity,” he breathed.
My body stiffened, giving strength to my resolve. I slipped away from him and walked down the hallway to the stairs. “You need to go.”
Without another word, I walked up the stairs and slammed my bedroom door. I sat on the bed and waited until I heard the door downstairs close. Only then did I let myself feel. Let myself hurt.
My entire life I was Eamon O’Malley’s daughter. Braesal O’Malley’s little sister. I was expected to always be strong. To always hold myself higher than the others. I was expected to keep my emotions under control.
Never let anyone see my weakness. My father used to tell me that weakness was the difference between the leaders and the followers. As an O’Malley, I was expected to be a leader.
He used to tell me that I might not have a dick, but I was still expected to live the O’Malley way. Anything less than perfection was unacceptable. Feelings were for the workers. The soldiers. A whiny woman wasn’t a woman worth having.
So I kept it all inside. I was ice cold in front of others. It was the only way to survive this life. Even now, twenty-plus years later, I could hear my father’s voice.
“Friends are a weakness. There is only one seat at the top, Caitlin. And it will always hold an O’Malley.”
I hadn’t realized at the time that it would never hold me or my children. Even if I’d had a boy, he wouldn’t have been an O’Malley. When I mentioned that Brian’s last name was Buchannon, he slapped me across the face for my insolence.
Still, I forgave him.
I’d never told anyone what had happened. Not my mother, not Sal. Not even the priest. It was my shame to carry. I had been insolent. I’d known what I was doing by bringing up Brian. I knew it was a sore spot with my father.
My grandfather, Casper O’Malley, had been the head of the IRA. He’d banished my father to the States when he was in his thirties after one too many scandals. Casper had bypassed his only son and passed on the IRA to his son-in-law, Sean Buchannon, who had passed it down to his oldest son, Brian.
Sal didn’t care that Brian was over him. The two of them bickered at each other as though they hated each other, but I knew the truth. Sal and I had both been raised here in Boston; it was our home.
Sal loved his position as head of the family here. He wasn’t just the head of Boston, but of New York, New Orleans, and Chicago. That was enough for Sal. He’d said on more than one occasion he was happy to let Brian deal with the international shit. He had enough to worry about here.
I wasn’t sure if he realized how different he was from our father. Sal had a heart. It might be cold, but it wasn’t dead. There was still a small piece of him in there that did the right thing when it was needed.
Like taking out my son-of-a-bitch husband. He may have been stealing from the family. Lord knows, he betrayed Sal on more than one occasion.
But Maddie was the real reason Nolan was dead, because to Sal, family was everything.