Chapter 35
Sean
Iwait, clinging to my sanity as I lurk in the shadows. Connor and James are talking about the Russians like this is just another day.
No, it’s fucking not.
I’m not sure what I’m waiting for. The old me would be in there beating the shit out of James by now. This sober, more reasonable me is not hesitating, but calculating. Attacking James while Connor is in the room is potentially a bad idea.
But as if the killing gods are shining down on me, Connor leaves the room moments later, heading to the kitchen, leaving James alone in the study.
The decision is made before I’ve even taken my next breath.
I enter the study to see James pouring a glass of Bushmills. He turns when he hears me.
“Sean,” he says. “Drink?”
He pours another glass and holds it out to me.
I stare at it, wanting to take it, but if I do, I’ve let myself down, and with it, I’ll let Ciara down. “No, thanks,” I say, bringing my gaze back up to his.
James raises an eyebrow and shrugs, placing the glass back on the drink’s cabinet. I move to the desk, calmer than I’ve ever been in my life.
“I believe you know my wife,” I say, staring at the silver letter opener, sheathed on Connor’s desk.
“Ciara? Of course. I was at your wedding, remember?”
Were you? I barely remember being there. “Hmm. I mean from before.”
“I don’t think so…” He trails off, but I’m not sure if he genuinely doesn’t remember or is playing me for a fool.
“She remembers you,” I say, my voice dropping to a low rumble that vibrates in my chest. “From fourteen years ago.”
I don’t look at him. I stare only at the letter opener.
“Oh, that,” he says with a soft laugh. “I was wrecked. You know how it is—”
The sound of the letter opener sliding from its sheath cuts him off. “Don’t try to get me on your side by making us the same, James. What you did was despicable.”
“Sean?” Connor’s voice is a sharp reprimand in the room, but now isn’t the time to fail my wife. Now it’s time to show every fucker in this godforsaken world that if you mess with her, you mess with me. Past, present or future.
“Did you know your brother has a thing for young girls?” I ask Connor, still not taking my eyes off the letter opener.
Connor goes still. The air in the room turns solid, sucking the oxygen right out of my lungs. I look up to see his gaze go from me to James, his expression unreadable, carved from the same stone as the cliffs of Moher.
“What did you just say?” Connor asks, his voice dangerously quiet.
James laughs again, but it’s brittle now, cracking under the weight of the accusation. “For Christ’s sake, Connor, don’t listen to him. He’s delusional. Drunk.”
“I’m stone cold sober,” I say, my voice devoid of emotion, deadly calm.
I turn the letter opener in my hand, the metal cool against my sweating palm.
The weight of it feels right. “And you tried to use my addiction to justify your perversion. You think because I’ve spent the last ten years in a bottle, I’m just like you?
A fucking pervert who fingers young girls? ”
“Sean, put it down,” James says, backing up until he hits the bookshelf. His eyes dart to Connor, begging for intervention. “He’s crazy, Connor. Look at him.”
But Connor doesn’t move. He stares at his brother, his face a mask of granite. He’s seeing the truth in James’s panic, the guilt sweating out of his pores.
“I’m not like you,” I whisper, closing the distance in two strides.
James tries to raise his hands, but I’m faster. I shove him hard against the spines of the leather-bound books, pinning him there with my forearm against his windpipe. The tip of the letter opener hovers an inch from his left pupil.
“I don’t need a drink to do this,” I snarl, watching the terror flood his eyes. “I just need a reason. And you gave me the best one.”
“Sean!” Ciara’s voice cut through my cold clarity, but I don’t let James go.
“Is this true?” Connor’s voice is like ice.
There is no noise. I can’t see what happens behind my back, but then I hear footsteps. I hear the muffled protest of Ciara, and I hear a door closing behind us, sealing us in.
I smile. “Looks like you lose,” I say and slam the letter opener into the side of his neck.
Blood sprays hot and fast, coating my knuckles and the spines of the leather-bound books in a gruesome abstract art.
James gurgles, his hands flying to his neck, grasping at the silver handle protruding from his flesh, but I don’t let go.
I twist it, hearing the wet tear of muscle, watching the light dim in his eyes as shock overrides the pain.
Not because I enjoy it. Not because I'm a monster.
But because fourteen years ago, this piece of shit put his hands on my wife, and she's been carrying that weight ever since.
“This is for her,” I whisper, watching the light leave his eyes as I let go of the letter opener.
He slumps against the bookshelf, sliding down until he hits the floor, a heap of dying breaths.
I step back, breathing steadily. There’s no adrenaline shake, no thirst clawing at my throat to numb the violence.
Just the cold, hard satisfaction of a debt paid in full.
I tear my eyes from James to the bottle of Bushmills on the drink’s cabinet.
I stare at it for one long moment where the world clears around me.
No more haze, no more incoherence. Simply a cold, hard clarity.
The addiction isn’t gone. It may never be gone, but it’s under control. For me. To feel this clear-headed sense of achievement. The rest, Connor’s approval, Ciara’s support, it’s all just gravy.
She wanted me to do this for me.
I didn’t think I could.
Until now.
I turn my back on my uncle, on the booze, and I walk out of the study, straight to my hovering wife and, ignoring my father, I crush her to me as she clings to me, sobbing her heart out, but for all the right reasons.