Chapter 35 #2
Now that her punishment was over, her brain had nothing to occupy it but those words, played over on a loop. It wasn’t just that he’d actually told her he loved her—which still felt way too big for her to actually comprehend—it was the pain beneath the words she couldn’t stop obsessing over now.
“You’re thinking too loud again, menace,” he murmured, his voice thick with the sleep eluding both of them.
“Sorry. I’ll try to… think quieter somehow.”
“No.” The arm around her waist tightened as he nuzzled at the side of her neck. “Tell Daddy what’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s really wrong, I’m just wondering about things.” Things you never talk about.
“Then let’s wonder together. Talk to me, baby.”
Jesus, could he be any more perfect? Well, other than the kidnapping and running a criminal empire stuff. But everyone had their flaws, right?
Gathering her courage, she wiggled around so she could face him. “I’ll tell you, but you have to promise if it’s too painful you’ll tell me to shut up and mind my own business.”
A hint of a smile played on his lips. “And when has that ever worked?”
“Fair, but I’m serious, Brody.”
“All right, menace. What’s on your mind?”
Fuck, this was harder than she’d expected it to be, especially when she was staring right into those dark eyes. “I was just wondering about your parents.”
And because she was staring straight into his eyes, she saw the moment they shuttered. The moment he closed himself off to her, and everything in her ached for the loss.
“Never mind, I shouldn’t have asked. It’s none of my business.”
But when she tried to pull away, he held tight, his arm like an iron band around her waist. “Stop. I just… I need a minute.”
Settling in place once more, she lifted a hand to his face, his stubble prickly against her palm. “However long you need.”
“It’s not a complicated story.” His voice was flat, like he was simply debriefing her on some mission rather than ripping open the deepest wounds in his heart.
“Our parents had made it a point to have dinner together once a month. We’d all head over to Nana’s house for a giant sleepover, even once we were too old to need a babysitter. ”
“You have a grandmother?” Her cheeks warmed as she considered her words. “I mean, of course you have grandparents. I just assumed they were…”
“Papa—that would be Nana’s husband, my father’s father—passed when I was about five. My mother’s parents are still alive. They moved to Florida after she died. I haven’t spoken to them since the funeral.”
Fury and grief welled inside her. “They abandoned you?”
He shrugged as if it didn’t matter. But how could it not? How could losing so much, so young, not change a person? “I was an adult when it happened. And they’d never approved of my father.”
“My grandparents weren’t thrilled with my mother marrying a cop, but they were still there for us when she got sick.
” Even now, fifteen years later, the grief sat heavy on her chest. A weight she’d long since accepted would always be there in some capacity or another.
“And I don’t care if you were five or twenty or fifty.
It was shitty of them to turn their backs on you when you’d done nothing wrong. ”
His laugh was equal parts bitterness and amusement. “Trust me, menace, I’d done plenty wrong by that point in my life. I am my father’s son, after all.”
“That's not the point. They should have stayed. They should have stuck by you. They should have—”
“But they didn’t, so there’s no point in wishing it were different.”
Sucking in a breath, she closed her eyes and willed the torrent of emotions back. This wasn’t about her, or how she felt about what had been done to him. “Sorry. I’ll be quiet.”
“Menace, you may have the right to remain silent but I sincerely doubt you possess the ability,” he shot back dryly.
The banter helped to loosen the band around her chest, at least a bit. “You’re probably right. But I’ll try.”
“I don’t mind.” Reaching up, he tucked a stray bit of hair behind her ear, his smile flashing in the moonlight streaming through his bedroom window. “It’s kind of nice to be on the receiving end of all that fierce protective energy for once.”
“Good. Because you may be the Daddy but that doesn’t mean I won't kick someone’s ass if they hurt you.”
“I have no doubt about that, babygirl.”
The tenderness in his voice threatened to shred her apart from the inside. “Anyway. Sleepovers at your Nana’s house. Where’s Nana now?”
“Ireland. We still have family over that way, so Killian sent her away after our parents’ deaths, for her own safety.
She used to spend summers there as a child, and now she lives with one of her closest friends.
” His lips twitched. “It might be the O’Rourke family’s worst-kept secret that they’re more than just roommates.
But as long as she chooses to pretend that’s all they are, we play along. ”
“That’s both very sweet and very sad. Does she visit you?”
“No, but we video chat often and we take turns visiting her there every couple of years.”
“Good. I’m glad you have her.”
“Aye. I am, as well. After our parents were murdered, she was our rock until Killian was able to take over.”
He said it so matter-of-factly she almost didn’t hear the sorrow beneath the words. “Will you tell me about them? What were they like?”
“The best. And I know how crazy that sounds, given what our family is known for. But my father… he wasn’t like that with me. He never so much as raised his voice at me in anger, and my mother was much the same. They were the most loving parents I could ask for. When I lost them…”
She waited, as long as she could stand to, before pushing. “Tell me,” she whispered, too afraid to speak up for fear of breaking the spell his grief had woven around them.
“It was different to me. I don’t mean that to say it wasn’t hard for my cousins. We all suffered, but Killian and Reagan had each other, as did the twins. Murphy was already married, with a young son to care for.”
Her heart, which was already in danger of breaking, shattered. “But you were all alone.”
“Not completely. We spent a lot of time together, and even when we found our stride, I spent a lot of time at Killian and Reagan’s house.”
“It’s not the same, though. I don’t know exactly what it’s like, but I do understand, as much as I can.
When my mom died, my dad… I can’t say he abandoned me, because he didn’t.
He was present as much as he was able. But we never talked about it.
We still don’t. I tried to, a lot, especially in the beginning.
But I could see how much it hurt him to even think about her, so after a while I just stopped. So yeah, he was there physically but—”
“But not the way you needed him to be. Not the way that mattered.”
Her own grief rose up, lodging in her throat as she nodded. “Yeah. Exactly that.”
Cupping her cheek, he ran his thumb over her cheekbone, a gesture so devastatingly gentle she thought it might shatter her. “You deserved better.”
“So did you.”
“Aye. But now I have you. The universe has its way of balancing the scales.”
The heart he already held in his hands trembled. “I suppose it does.”
Still cradling her face, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You need your sleep if you’re going to have the energy to continue being a pain in my ass, menace.”
Taking that as his signal he was done talking about his parents at least for the time being, she let him pull her into his chest, her cheek pressed against the steady beat of his heart.
And she slept.