48. Ronan
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
RONAN
NOW
This is weird.
There’s no other way to describe being alone with your godfather after almost two decades. All of which I spent hating him for taking my mom away, something I’m no longer confident is the full truth.
I wasn’t old enough when the accident happened to understand the gravity of what Dad was telling us, and after he lost his mind when Mom asked for King not long after the accident, I knew better than to ask any questions.
But the one thing that never made sense to me was that she always kept a photo of them beside her bed, even though it drove Dad mad.
If he were responsible for her accident, would she want that reminder beside her while she slept each night, even if she had lost her sight?
It never sat right with me, but questioning Dad only ever ended one way, and I learned quickly that I was better off accepting whatever he told me as gospel.
He’s in the driver’s seat as we make our way to a town an hour away from the cabin. He was kind of vague about what we were doing, but I’m pretty sure he’s not using this as an excuse to kill me.
“Was it you I spoke to when I called Hawk Security looking for Chloe?” I ask after forty minutes of silence.
It didn’t click until I had Chloe fast asleep in my arms this morning, but now I have to know if my suspicions are true.
“It was. I knew you’d call eventually, and I wanted to give you what little peace of mind I could.
” He glances over the SUV that appeared out of nowhere this morning, his dark eyes open and unguarded.
“I wanted to believe that you had nothing to do with what happened to her, but I couldn’t take the chance.
So I gave you what I could at the time.”
“Why didn’t you tell me she lost the baby?”
“It wasn’t my place to give you that information. I honestly thought Chloe would find a way to reach out eventually, to let you know what happened. But she was scared.”
I nod. Now that I’m able to look at everything with a clear head, I can understand why she never contacted me. It would have been a risk, and putting herself back on Dad’s radar would have been the last thing she wanted to do.
“Thank you for taking care of her through all of that.” I swallow down the emotion that tries to push to the surface. “I would have given anything to be there for her, but I’m just glad she wasn’t going through it alone.”
“It was my privilege to hold her through those days.” His voice is thick, and I don’t miss the way his eyes glisten.
Men like us aren’t supposed to show emotion. It’s not the way of the Mafia man. But Chloe has a funny way of bringing a softer side of us out.
“Why didn’t you stay with her at the time?” I ask. “It’s clear you care for her, why did you send her away to the De Marcos?”
“It wasn’t safe for her at the time. Hawk was still in its infancy, and I was gathering more enemies by the day.
After everything she went through, she deserved to be safe.
I’d known John De Marco a long time, and I knew he had the resources to keep her safe.
I never could have dreamed how healing it would be for her to help raise Camilla after losing the baby. ”
My chest tightens at the reminder of the child we never got to meet.
Sometimes when I’m alone, unable to sleep and staring at the ceiling, I allow myself to think about what could have been.
It used to hurt so fucking much, but at my lowest, it reminded me what happiness felt like. What love felt like.
I’d imagine that Chloe and I went to college. I’d think about sunny afternoons in the Californian sun, lying in the grass with my hand on her swollen belly.
My mind would wander to how my love for Chloe would have grown watching her bring our child into the world, and then to the little being itself.
Sometimes my mind would conjure a little girl with bright green eyes and vibrant auburn hair like her mom, and other times it was a little boy with Chloe’s nose and my hair.
But we were always happy. In every version of my own imagination, our lives were perfect because we had each other.
If there’s one thing I’ll never forgive my father for, it’s how much time we lost.
I’m dragged back from my thoughts when we turn toward our destination.
“We need to pick up some burners and a few other things. The cabin is well stocked, but most people don’t keep backup phones and satellites at their vacation home,” Kingston explains.
“You don’t think our current burners are secure?”
“They likely are, but if I know your father as well as I do, he’ll be pulling out all the stops to find you and your brother. Plus Camilla has been blowing up my phone, demanding to speak to Chloe, but Salvatore will be waiting for that.”
I scoff. “That doesn’t surprise me. She’s kind of terrifying for someone her size.”
“She has to be to corral all those men of hers.” He smirks, but it quickly falls away. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Do you trust your brother?”
I open my mouth to say yes, to tell him there’s no one on earth I trust more than Damon. But something stops me. A niggling doubt that hasn’t shut up since he arrived at the airfield. “I don’t know.”
“Ryker also has his doubts, but I would like to believe he’s here for the right reasons. Until we can confirm his intentions, he is not to be alone with Chloe at any time. I won’t risk her being hurt again.”
“Understood.”
Leaving Damon and Chloe alone is risky at the best of times given the animosity between them, but if he was sent here by our father to bring me back into the fold, Chloe is the bait he knows I’ll chase.