Chapter Twenty-Four
Caity
“You fuckin’ lied to me!” he shouted the moment the elevator doors closed with our daughter behind them.
I crossed my arms over my chest, a futile attempt at protection my heart knew I didn’t need.
“And what exactly did I lie about?”
I knew this was about Maddie, but I needed to know where he was coming from before I could attempt to make him understand.
“You knew she was mine. From the moment you found out you were pregnant, you knew she was fuckin’ mine.” He slammed his fist against his chest, and I closed my eyes.
“I couldn’t tell you,” I whispered, my voice so soft I wasn’t sure he heard me.
“Why the fuck not, Caity? Why did you keep my daughter from me?”
“I never kept her from you!” I shouted back.
“I never told you no. You were in her life more than he was. And do you know what that did to me? Every fuckin’ day, knowing her father loved her but couldn’t claim her, while the man on her birth certificate wanted nothing to do with her? She didn’t deserve that!”
“NO, SHE FUCKIN’ DIDN’T!” he yelled.
He turned away and stomped toward the kitchen. I knew I needed to tell him the truth. Tell him everything. But I knew how he’d react. I knew it would sever something between us. Something that could never be put back together.
“How long did he know?”
I licked my lips; my throat was dry as I opened my mouth to answer.
“When did he find out?”
“I don’t know,” I said. And I didn’t. What I told Maddie was the truth. If he’d known before he disappeared, he would have beaten me so badly I would have ended up in the hospital, or I would have been dead.
I wasn’t foolish enough to think that he had any sentiment left for me by the end. He’d never loved me, that was clear. But in the beginning, he’d been nice. It was all a rouse. A part he thought he had to play to get my father’s approval.
“Did he know Maddie wasn’t his when he handed over Valentinetti?”
I shrugged. “I don’t think so. I don’t think he knew until he disappeared. If he did, I would have known,” I scoffed.
Cian turned toward me, his eyes sharp and assessing. “What does that mean?”
“He would have said something.” I shrugged, hoping he’d let it go.
Instead, he stalked toward me. His hand went to my throat. I looked him in the eye, letting him see how much he affected me, but not with fear.
“What did you mean, Caity?”
“Nothing, I...”
His hand squeezed, and I felt the moisture pool between my legs. His eyes darkened at my reaction, as if he could read my thoughts.
“Don’t bullshit me, Caity. Tell me,” he growled.
His aim was to intimidate me, but I loved him too much, trusted him more than I’d trusted anyone in my life.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. He’s gone.”
Cian dropped his hand and stepped back. Shaking his head, he hissed, “Tell me he didn’t. Tell me he didn’t put his hands on you, Caity. Please, for the love of God, tell me you didn’t keep me from knowing that he was hurting you.”
“Ci.” I didn’t know what I was looking for with my whispered plea. Salvation, maybe, or perhaps redemption.
“Goddammit, Caity!”
“There was nothing you could have done.”
“I COULD HAVE FUCKIN’ KILLED HIM!”
“That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you.” I turned away from him and gathered the teacups Maddie and I had used. I walked to the sink as though my body wasn’t trembling inside. Placing them in the bottom of the sink, I braced my hands on the edge.
“Why can’t you understand?” I asked. “You grew up in this life. You know how it works.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. My father never laid a hand on my mother. And he never would. Donal Murphy never laid a hand on Bridgit.”
“Well, I guess they were the lucky ones.” I shrugged and turned around. “That wasn’t my life. I didn’t get to choose who I wanted to marry.”
“Caity.” Cian dropped his chin to his chest.
“We can’t change the past, Ci.”
“Then what the fuck are we doing with the files, Caity? Why didn’t you just burn them?”
“Because even though the past can’t be changed, some wrongs still need to be righted.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do, Caity. I need you to let me in. Stop fuckin’ keeping things from me.”
“What do you want to know, Ci? How often he hit me? How many times he cheated on me? How about the women I thought were my friends who betrayed me in hopes of their husbands moving up the ladder by spying on the boss’ wife?”
He didn’t get it. He would never understand what my life was like. No one would. They hadn’t lived my life. I was the only daughter of Eamon O’Malley. A bastard so evil that his own father banished him from the homeland.
I never knew my grandfather. He’d never come to the States, at least not to see us. I’d met my uncle Sean a few times, Brian’s father. After he’d taken over the IRA when my grandfather stepped down, he made visits regularly to check on what my father was doing.
I didn’t understand as a child why my father hated him so much. But as I got older, I listened. I watched.
When Sean was killed and Brian took over, he was only thirty-five. My father was almost sixty. I remembered how angry he was. It was the year Maddie was born.
“You don’t know what my life was like, Ci.”
“Because you wouldn’t tell me.”
A growl ripped out of my chest. “Because I wouldn’t put your life at risk. Why can’t you understand that? I loved you too much. He would have killed you.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I can know that!” I shouted.
Cian tilted his head and looked at me. I closed my eyes, trying to ward off the question I knew he would ask.
“What else haven’t you told me, Caity?”
“There is a lot I haven’t told you. There were a lot of files in my father’s office. He held a lot of secrets.” I shrugged, hoping he would let it go, but knowing he wouldn’t.
I didn’t want to tell him what I knew, what I learned about him, and why my father hated him. Daniel McCarthy was a friend of my father. He was the reason Cian was still alive. Though if my father had known about Maddie, Daniel’s loyalty wouldn’t have been enough to save him.
Not with who his parents truly were.
I was sure Cian had no idea he was adopted. He would have told me, or at least told Mac, or Duncan or Sal. No, I was positive he had no idea that the parents who raised him, who loved him unconditionally, were not his biological parents.
And I was sure he wouldn’t want to know who his parents were. Not after reading through the files and knowing what they had done.
“What haven’t you told us?”
I looked him in the eye. I felt the fear, the apprehension descending like a cloak. It engulfed me. If I told him what I knew, he would be devastated.
If I kept it from him and he found out anyway, he would hate me. There was no winning move for me. No matter what decision I made, I would be hurting the one man I loved with all my heart.
“Caity,” he growled.
“Ci, please leave it be. Secrets from the past have a way of destroying people’s lives.”
“What secrets, Caity?” He stalked toward me, his steps filled with purpose. His eyes held a warning, one that I knew would force my hand.
“I need you to be sure you want to know the truth, Ci. Because there is no putting that genie back in the bottle.”
His face paled. “Is this about me?”
I nodded as I bit my lip. Cian took a step back, then turned and walked to the windows. He braced a hand on the glass and hung his head.
“Is this about my birth parents?”
“You know?” I whispered, afraid to speak aloud.
“I know I was adopted. My parents told me when I turned eighteen. They wanted to give me the choice of joining the organization or following a different path.”
“So you know?”
He glanced over his shoulder at me before turning completely and leaning back against the glass, his hands buried in his pockets. He shook his head.
“I never asked. They didn’t want me.”
“I’m not sure the man who fathered you knew about you,” I said quietly, watching as his eyes snapped up to mine.
“What?” He pushed himself off the window and stalked toward me. “What do you mean?”
“Ci, I don’t think—”
“Tell me, goddammit!” His anger was warranted. I knew it wasn’t directed at me but my father.
“The woman who gave birth to you was raped. She came to my father because he was the bookkeeper. He had the information on the breeding farms, and the families waiting for a child. She wanted you gone.”
“Then how did I end up here?”
“She never told Eamon the identity of the man who raped her. He knew your parents had been wanting a child, so he brokered the adoption.”
“So he knew who I was?”
I nodded. Waiting for him to catch up. Emotions flitted over his face: surprise, sadness, anger, then recognition.
“Who was she?” I bit my lip, hesitating to reveal the truth. “Who?” he growled.
“Sylvia St. James.”
His knees gave out, the back of the couch preventing his fall.
“Jesus Christ.” He ran a hand over his face.
He parted his knees wider as I stepped between them. My hands cradled his face. “It doesn’t matter, Ci.”
“It fuckin’ matters, Caity. Aside from Jane Craven, Sylvia St. James was the head fuckin’ bitch. What does that make me?”
“It doesn’t change who you are. You are the son of Daniel and Tabitha McCarthy.
You are who you are because they raised you; they loved you.
It’s nurture versus nature. Who you share DNA with doesn’t make you who you are.
The people who influenced your life as you grew and matured—they’re who made you the man you are today. ”
He looked up at me. “What about my father?”
“Your father was Daniel McCarthy,” I stated emphatically.
“Caity.” I dropped my eyes to the floor. I didn’t want to tell him. I didn’t want him to know how close he was to everything. How it could have been him. If he’d been raised by either of his biological parents, he would be a different person completely.
“Who was it, Caity?”
“Ci, it doesn’t matter who he was. He was a monster, and that’s not who you are. Just because you share DNA doesn’t mean you are anything like either of them. You’re a good man, Ci.”
Cian stood from the couch, his hands on my arms as he set me back away from him. I was on the verge of losing him. Once he knew the truth, he would walk away from me. He’d believe he was evil, like them.
“Caity, please, tell me who he was.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. My eyes burned with unshed tears. Tears I knew would unleash as soon as he walked out the door. And he would walk out the door. He’d leave me. Leave the family. Leave Maddie.
Maddie!
“Maddie needs you, Ci. You can’t walk away from her. You can’t leave her now she knows.”
“Who. Was. He?” His voice was low. With a dark tone I had never heard from him before. I took a deep a breath and told him the truth.
“Fuck!” he cursed.
He grabbed his jacket as he walked toward the elevator.
“Cian! Please don’t leave!” I shouted after him, but he was already in the elevator, the doors closing him in.
Then he was gone.
And I didn’t know if he would ever come back.