Chapter 37 #2
“The two divorced, but he had loved her and couldn’t let go. Sucked for him. Adline met and fell in love with Bram Walsh. Oland wasn’t as big an eejit as he portrayed. Adline’s real maiden name was McDougal, not Murphy.
“However, her father didn’t want her to marry Oland to begin with and stripped Adline of everything until she was divorced, so she went by her mother’s maiden name, Murphy, until she and Oland married.
“Her father, Lennox McDougal, favored Bram and his marriage to Adline. Oland wasn’t about to go at Bram head-on with this knowledge. Back then, everyone knew you didn’t fuck with two families in Scotland.
“The McDougals and the Blacks. Those names are feared to this day. Adline married Bram and Bram took O’Shea in as if he were his own son. Not long after they were married, Adline conceived and gave birth to Angus.
“A few years later, she had Donald. Oland was furious. In his mind, that Black child ruined his life and that evil woman tricked him.
“If he hadn’t fallen for a Scottish woman, none of it would have happened. To him, women were inferior and anyone without Irish blood wasn’t worth breathing, nor could they be trusted.”
“Fucking asshole,” I mutter.
“Aye, ya don’t tell a fib,” Logan snorts. “That’s why he found a young Irish bride to give him children and submit to him. Da was born, but Oland’s hatred only grew,” Logan explains.
“How does Grandda Ian fit into all of this?” I quiz.
“Grandda Ian and Bram were best friends, and O’Shea Walsh became Grandda’s godson. When Grandda took O’Shea to America to meet some of his birth family, Oland made his move. O’Shea wasn’t killed in the attempt but a few of his family members were and O’Shea came really close to death himself.
“Grandda Ian had already had thoughts of the Alliance in mind, but this cemented things for him. Oland needed to pay. It wasn’t good enough to go to war with him.
“Grandda Ian wanted a legacy that would wash Oland and his bullshit away forever. However, it was too soon for Uncle Joe and Uncle Finlay to be groomed for what he had planned. Don Donati’s death proved they were all moving too fast.
“None of them were ready—the originals where the concept was birthed—but things started lining up for him to shake up the world as we were born. Grandda started his match when it was time for his children and the others to find brides and start families. The seeds of what if were already planted.
“LaSalle and I started to fill in the spaces as Don Alfanzo decided his successor wouldn’t be one of his sons, but his nephew, and I fell in as the firstborn grandson.
Grandda had Lennox’s ear. He was willing to fund the operation as long as it didn’t cause a war too big to handle for his Scottish clan.
“Unfortunately, Lennox’s oldest son didn’t like the idea. He also didn’t like the fact that O’Shea was next in line.”
“Let me guess. He had O’Shea killed,” I grumble.
“Aye, that day would come. O’Shea met and married during one of his visits to America. He brought his wife and daughter back to Scotland with him. Not one of them was Scottish born, but the clan was going to O’Shea.
“O’Shea was killed in a car accident when Raven was nineteen, going on twenty. Raven and her mother returned to America. However, Lennox was pissed and determined to stick it to his sons. The other three hadn’t helped Archie, but they hadn’t stopped him either.
“Raven wasn’t Scottish born or a McDougal by blood, fine. He placed a ton of assets in her name that still served the Alliance in the end. Same for Deja. Angus met and married her mother soon after she was born. Deja’s mother was widowed, losing her active-duty husband,” Logan says.
“But Ciara is a Walsh through and through. She has McDougal blood in her veins, as does Ciarán,” I say as I start putting the pieces together for myself.
“Aye, she is the true heiress. The McDougal clan belongs to her. The will names her as Lennox’s successor.
“That was Grandda Ian’s big fuck ya to Oland. He may have been dying from cancer, but everything was in place for us. I promised him we would see it through. The Alliance comes to life from Ciara’s inheritance and succession.”
“Oland had her mother and father killed in hopes he’d get to her too,” I breathe in the knowledge as the pieces finally lock in.
“Aye. Theo Young was supposed to kill her and her brother, not raise them as his own. However, once he learned of their inheritance from their mother and father, he kept them and forged documents to steal their money.
“Our dear oul grandda accounted for everything except me.
I started the rumor that ya were in the will.
Ciara would only gain it all after an arranged marriage to ya.
Instead of killing Theo Young for his disobedience, Oland paid him to keep her away from us, especially ya, until he could figure out how to use ya to gain control of the estate.
“That brought us the time we needed to find the true will that somehow disappeared after O’Shea’s death. Lennox had placed it in O’Shea’s wife’s possession right before he died from a heart attack. Queeny handed it over to Orla Murphy for safekeeping once Donald and Angus turned up dead.”
“And ya didn’t tell me all of this. Ya gave me half of the truth because ya knew I would find and kill that son of a bitch.” I seethe.
“Aye, we didn’t have the will until today. Theo Young has played a bigger part in all of this for a while. We couldn’t wipe him off the board until we were sure he hadn’t found the will himself to manipulate the situation.
“We hadn’t known the full story of why Oland chose him and allowed him to live for so long. What we did know was that he had already tried to bargain with empty hands. As for Ciara, he hasn’t counted his losses yet.
“He believes he still has options. There’s been a lot of back-and-forth; the McDougal clan has kept him thinking they don’t care for her safety, although they’ve warned us to keep her safe.
“They wouldn’t allow her to take her rightful place without the will or the original Alliance argument. Ciara’s surviving uncles aren’t against her taking over if the will says so.
“They plan to honor the Alliance as well. They just want proof. Ken has kept things going in her absence. Orla was a fierce woman herself, and she was adamant that they all honor their father’s wishes.
“I get the feeling she didn’t know what all was hidden in the black box she had in her possession. However, she trusted me to keep Raven, Ciara, and Deja safe from all of this,” Logan replies.
“Ya knew, ya fucking knew what they meant to us. Why not tell us?” Cole says, sounding lost.
“The only people who knew were those who needed to know. We didn’t want to place them in more danger. Oland had been trying to find a way to get to them and hurt them.
“He needed control of them or their assets. He didn’t care if that meant dead or alive. I fucking fell in love with her. He killed Raven because she was the least valuable to him and because I’ve always defied him and it would fucking gut me.”
“Ya motherfucker, ya let me believe this was all my fault,” Brooklyn growls.
“It is. Ya fucking hothead,” Logan snarls. “She’s dead because ya took things into yer own hands.”
“Fuck ya.” Brooklyn takes a swing at Logan, and all hell breaks loose.
It’s like two lions are fighting in the middle of my mother’s living room. They tumble onto the coffee table and smash it, glass shattering all around them. My mother comes running into the room, yelling and looking frantic.
That’s when I notice Ciara standing there with her arms wrapped around her middle as tears stream down her face. Grunting and growling fill the air as Logan and Cole continue to rumble. However, I can’t tear my eyes away from Ciara as she looks back at me with so much pain in her eyes; I feel sick.
“Stop this. Ye stop this right now,” Mom shouts.
That seems to break the stare off between us. Ciara turns and runs from the house. How much did she just hear? I’m hot on her heels. I have to catch her and explain.