34. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“Are we ready?” I asked Eli as we skated off of the ice from our last practice before the invitational tomorrow morning.
Nearly every waking moment of the last week had been spent on the ice getting ready and if I did our routine any more today I was afraid I’d end up doing it in my sleep later.
Everyone was busy with prep, making it hard to spend any time together as a pack, but that didn’t matter much anymore. Now that all of us were bonded together, I knew they were never far.
Even now, I could feel Wiz’s exhaustion from his own practice on the other side of the complex, Leith’s irritation—probably at the youngest member of his team being late again—and Enzo’s amusement at something.
Artie was just as tired as I felt, but I didn’t need the bond to know that. The omega had been pushing himself harder than I liked over the past couple of days and I made a mental note to set up a spa night for the both of us once we got back home later.
While I still technically lived in the apartment with Penelope, I only ever went over there to change clothes at this point.
My stepsister, for her part, had been just as MIA. I wasn’t sure where she was going at night, but I was minding my business… for now. Once the invitational was over and I had more free time I was about to Sherlock Holmes my way through the mystery that was who Penelope Nashtos was fucking.
Because it had to be sex—there was no other reason unless she had somehow turned into a criminal in the past couple of months.
The only problem was I didn’t have any suspects because the woman worked all the time and I’d seen the men in her office. They were definitely not sexy enough to be involved in a kinky affair with my gorgeous stepsister.
“It’ll do,” Eli said, as always reserving his praise for when we skated a perfect set. “You’re still almost an entire second behind on that last move though, Ciara. You need to make sure to get into position or you risk Artie falling, which would be a disaster in front of the two thousand people coming tomorrow.”
While the invitation had been for other winter sports athletes, Colt was ever the entrepreneur and had sold tickets to civilians if they wanted to come and see not only a hockey game, but whatever ice sport their heart desired.
I opened my mouth to respond with some snarky remark to combat our coach’s cynicism, but instead only a massive yawn rippled out of me.
“That’s the tenth time you’ve yawned in the last hour, what the hell is wrong with you?” Eli asked, glancing between Artie and me. “You two keeping each other up at night?”
Definitely not. We’d barely had enough energy after practice to eat and have a quick snuggle before we all piled into Artie’s nest and fell asleep in a tangle of limbs. There was no more awkwardness or shyness between Wiz and the rest of the pack after our little group performance last week and it was nice to fall asleep surrounded by my loves… even if I hadn’t exactly vocalized the words yet.
No, I’d been sleeping like a log through the night, so the exhaustion that had seemed to settle deep into my bones made absolutely no sense. Half of the time I was worried that I was going to fall asleep standing in my skates if I wasn’t careful.
“No time for wild sex when we’ve got an asshole for a coach who’s been trying to kill us for months,” I snorted, changing the subject away from my sleepiness.
“You two were the ones who had the crazy idea to pair up even though you’ve skated solo your entire lives. That takes a lot of practice to get right—bond or not and just for that, go ahead and do it again from the top.”
Artie and I groaned but skated together to the center of the ice again anyway, flipping around so that we were back-to-back.
“He may as well kill us now,” Artie grumbled as he lifted an arm and threaded his fingers through mine over our heads.
The first strains of the music began and we were off.
An hour and going through the routine another three times and we were finally free.
“You two need to be here by nine tomorrow morning for hair and makeup. No staying out late and make sure you eat a good dinner and get a good night’s sleep. By that, I mean keep your mitts off of each other and those other packmates of yours, understand?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I waved him off as I pulled Artie’s foot into my lap and helped him take his skates off, wincing as the omega let out a groan of relief and flopped back onto the bench.
“You’re going to need to take an Epsom salt bath tonight,” I told him softly after Eli left us alone. We had another five minutes before the next hour of figure skaters showed up and I wanted to get us moving before we had to deal with any snippy comments.
“I wish I could sneak into Enzo’s stash of weed cookies,” Artie grumbled, throwing an arm over his eyes as I took the other skate off.
Charm butted his hand with her nose, checking on the omega who seemed to be melting into the wooden surface of the bench.
“You can’t, they’ll be drug testing all of the athletes,” I reminded him. “But maybe after.”
With a grunt, Artie sat back up and gestured for me to put my foot in his lap so he could return the favor with my skates. “Drug testing for an invitational is so stupid. There isn’t even any money involved.”
The immediate relief I felt as soon as the skates were off was insane as we sat back for a minute and let our bodies be still after two hours of non-stop skating.
Artie pulled on the fluffy bunny slippers that Wiz had gotten him and reached for Charm’s harness. “Wanna go shower off and have an evening cuddle on the couch?”
“I would…” I started and then remembered that Aurelia had asked me to pick Tobey up from school and drop him off at the dads’. “But I’ve got to pick Tobey up and you need to go with Leith to pick your costume up from the dry cleaners.”
Mine had been ready yesterday, but Artie’s was taking more time. “I’ll see you tonight and we can spoil ourselves with face masks?”
Kissing Artie’s pout right off of his face, I gave Charm’s head a pat.
“Promise me we’ll have the whole night together?” Artie asked, snagging my hand and tugging me down for a deeper kiss, ignoring the sounds of people approaching just outside.
Smiling against his mouth I nodded. “I’ll be home right after I drop Tobey off.”
Shooting him one last sultry smile, I left the omega behind not knowing that everything was about to change.
“Come on, Tobey, you don’t like Wheels on the Bus anymore?” I called, glancing in the rearview mirror of my car at the eight-year-old as I turned the music down.
It was clear that it had been a while since I’d driven my car because the dash was covered in a thin layer of dust when I’d gotten into it this morning. There had almost never been a need to drive the dark green sedan—before my pack I would drive with Brynn or hitch a ride with Penelope on her way out.
And truthfully I probably could have asked one of the guys to take me to pick Tobey up, but I missed having one-on-one auntie dates with the little guy.
Or, I guess, not so little anymore.
“That’s for babies,” Tobey muttered, his stormy mood from school still hanging on tight.
I thought I’d had it bad with the nightmare that was child pickup at his elementary school, but apparently Tobey’s day had been much, much worse than mine.
“Tobe-ster, what’s going on with you? You look like a veritable thundercloud back there.”
“I don’t know what veritable means.”
At least some things never changed with the little boy.
“Are people being mean to you? Do I need to go and beat up some children?” I asked, half-serious.
“No, Aunt Ciara.” Tobey rolled his eyes and I had to do mental calculations, thinking I maybe had miscounted his age and I was actually driving a teenager rather than an eight-year-old. “No one is mean to me. I just gotta grow up.”
“Oh,” I said dramatically, slamming a hand into my chest like I was about to faint as we came to a stop at a light. “I can’t believe my Tobey thinks he needs to grow up.”
Eyeing the light in order to make sure it wasn’t going to turn green anytime soon, I wheeled around to face Tobey fully. “You have your whole life to grow up, Tobey. Don’t be in such a rush. Hell, I’m almost thirty and sometimes I think I’m still a little kid.”
“That’s just ’cause you act like it.” Tobey’s words were a bit harsh, but his face was already pulling up into his trademark grin.
“And proud of it too, kiddo.” The car behind us honked, making me realize the light had turned green.
Turning to face the front, I pressed on the gas and we were off again. “People pay good money in therapy to heal their inner child, Tobe-ster. My best advice is to have fun and don’t let anyone tell you that what you like is a baby thing.”
There was a beat of silence from the back of the car and I thought I’d lost the little boy completely with our conversation… and then: “Can you put Wheels on the Bus back on?”
A satisfied smile was already filling my face. “Sure thing…”
I reached for the knob to turn the music back on when the screen on the dash lit up with a phone call from a number I didn’t recognize.
I hit the green answer button on my steering wheel. “Hello?”
“Hello, is this Ciara Callaghan?” A woman with a thick Irish accent said on the other end of the line.
A thread of unease filled my gut. “Yes, this is she.”
“Oh, good! I’ve been trying different numbers all morning and have gotten hung up on more than I’d care to admit. My name is Orla and I work at St. Agatha’s hospice in Dublin and I have been your father’s nurse for going on six months now—”
I cut her off, nausea filling me. “Ma’am I don’t speak with my father. Ever.”
“He’s told me that, but you must care at least a little bit that he’s dying.”
I slammed on the brakes, making Tobey cry out as I jerked to a stop, nearly hopping the curb as the car behind me honked yet again. The guy in the car flipped me off as he passed me by, but my mind was a thousand miles away as I stared at the active call on the screen.
“Why would I care if he was dying?” My voice sounded odd even to my own ears.
“Because he’s your father?” Orla sounded confused, like it should have been obvious to me.
“My father is a drunk who drove his wife to an early grave and did nothing for me aside from giving me years of trauma and commitment issues. I do not give a rat’s ass if he’s dying.”
There was a beat of silence. “He has changed. The man you’re describing is nothing like the one who—”
I cut her off. “I don’t care. Have a good day.”
Moving my thumb, I was just about to hang up when her voice stopped me.
“Wait!” Her sharp voice filled the car.
“What?” I asked, aggravated now that my day had been ruined by her impromptu phone call.
“If you don’t care, then why have you sent him money every month for years?”
Confusion filled me. “I haven’t sent him a single cent ever. You must be mistaken.”
There was a shuffling of papers on the other end of the line. “I have a monthly payment of a thousand euros paid from the account of one Alexei Peterson dating back fifteen years… does that name sound familiar?”
No, no, no, no. My brain seemed to turn into mush as it struggled to keep up with the revelation that this random woman had dropped on me.
“I have to go…” I mumbled.
“You should really come see him he only has a couple of—”
I hung up the call.
The car was silent as the rain that had threatened to fall all afternoon finally made its appearance, tap dancing across the hood as I tried not to throw up.
We sat for a long time, I wasn’t sure how long, but Tobey’s voice is what seemed to finally break me out of my stupor. “Aunt Ciara? Is one of the grandpas sick?”
Tobey had no idea about my life in Ireland before coming to live with the Peterson twins—in his mind I only had them as my dads.
“No, love,” I finally managed, putting on my blinker again and pulling out into the street. “They’re fine.”
“Then what was that woman saying?”
“I don’t know,” I said, tamping down on the internal panic that was threatening to spew out of my mouth at any moment. “But I’m going to find out.”
“Ciara?” Aurelia’s voice called from the kitchen as Tobey and I filed into the dads’ house.
I ignored her and hurried down the hallway to where the home office was. If there was any information about what that nurse had told me, it would be there.
That was where Aurelia found me ten minutes later, tearing through the files in Alexei’s desk.
“What are you doing, Ciara?” she asked, rolling into the room in order to stop me.
“Looking for something that disproves what this crazy woman on the phone just told me,” I said without looking at her.
“Crazy woman? What crazy woman—Ciara stop.” Aurelia reached out to stop my hands, but I slapped her away.
“The one who called to tell me that there have been thousand euro payments to my father for fifteen years.”
I watched her expression, looking for the surprise that I felt when I learned that special tidbit of information… but it never came.
Aurelia’s blue eyes were bright with emotion as she pursed her lips and looked away from me.
“You knew?” I asked, feeling faint as I stumbled to my feet. “Tell me why.”
“We should wait for the dads to get home so we can talk as a fam—”
“Tell. Me.”
Aurelia nibbled nervously on her lower lip before she turned and rolled over to the wall where a framed family picture of all of us was hanging. Tugging on it she pulled it down to reveal a wall safe.
“When did that get there?” I asked as I stood and dusted myself off.
“It came with the house so it’s always been here… it’s where they keep all important documents.”
Tapping in the code, Aurelia lifted herself onto her feet and rifled through it, finding a yellow folder before settling back into her chair again with a sigh.
“Here,” she said, holding it out to me.
With shaking hands, I took the folder and opened it.
Right on top was a custody petition with both Alexei and Maxim’s name at the top.
It was full of legal jargon that would probably take someone like Penelope to decipher, but it was obvious that it was for them to be able to take me back to the United States. The dates lined up to when I was in the hospital recovering from cracked ribs, a broken wrist, and a concussion after the accident.
I’d never questioned how the dads managed to bring me back to the United States without the entire Irish government coming after them, but now realized that I should have.
Underneath the petition was a thick stack of papers, each one nearly the same aside from the date at the top.
Wire transfers of a thousand euros on the first of each month dating all the way back to the month right after the accident.
“They didn’t want you to be stuck there while they waged a legal battle that they probably wouldn’t have won,” Aurelia told me quietly, almost pleading for me to understand. “So, they went to your dad and asked what it would take for him to sign over temporary guardianship and not contest it in court.”
“And that cost was a thousand euros apparently,” I said dryly, my mind racing back to what I could remember from those first few years in Minnesota. “Where did they even get the money for this?”
While we didn’t struggle, the dads were by no means rich. They’d given up a lot to raise the three of us on their own—even waiting to coach hockey again until we were all grown up.
“Inheritance from their parents mostly—though I know there were a few tight times when you and Brynn were in high school.”
Shaking my head, like it could dislodge the memory of the past hour if I did it hard enough, I finally looked her in the eyes again. “This is so fucked, Aurelia, why didn’t you tell me?”
Aurelia’s sigh was heavy as she reached for my hand and pulled me closer like she always did when she was trying to soothe my upsets. “You were a kid who’d just lost her mom and her dad was too busy at the bottom of a pint to take care of her. You had enough on your plate trying to grow and move past it that they didn’t want you to have to feel guilty because of the payments.”
“And why didn’t you tell me after I became an adult? Why keep the payments going?”
“I don’t know why they’re still paying, Ceer, believe me. I thought it stopped after you turned eighteen. You’d have to ask the dads about it.” Aurelia’s voice was almost pleading as she tried to get me to understand.
But I couldn’t.
Pulling my hand out of hers, I tucked the folder under my arm. “I need to go.”
“Ciara,” Aurelia called as I skirted around her chair and made for the door. “Don’t run away from me, come back here and talk.”
I wanted to yell and scream at her. To take out all of the boiling rage that seemed to be bubbling just underneath my skin from being lied to—even if it was for my own good. But one look down at the swell of her belly checked my anger. Even as angry with her as I was, I didn’t want anything to happen to her or my little niece that rested just underneath her heart… so I ignored her instead.
Nausea rolled through me and I tamped down on it hard as I tried to calm my mind which was racing with all of the information that had just been thrust in my direction.
Aurelia called my name again, but I barely heard it as I finally made it to the front door.
Then I felt them down the bond. My mates were trying to comfort me as their concern rippled out at me. Slamming my mental walls up I sucked in a deep shuddering breath and yanked the front door open and stepped out into the rain.
I needed to figure all of this out on my own before I looped them into my misery.