Chapter 32
Sorcha
My hands shake as I turn on my heel and march back to the changing rooms. When I first saw that name on the piece of paper, I didn’t want to believe it. I thought Arthur Collins was mistaken.
But he’s not.
I shower in record time, drying off and yanking on my clothes with jerky, furious movements.
My brain is a fucking mess of memories I’ve tried to bury—Mum passed out on the sofa, the smell of stale cigarettes and cheap vodka, her string of useless boyfriends who looked at me like I was something they could take.
And Oisin. The man whose blood runs in my veins, who I only ever met once, who apparently gave enough of a shit to hand over a fucking fortune to my mother. Why her and not me? I guess he thought she cared.
The guys are waiting for me outside the changing rooms. “Where to?” Axl asks, his voice neutral.
“You don’t have to—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Ciar snarls. “If you think for one second we are sending you off to confront her alone, you really don’t know us very well at all, and that will make me question our entire relationship.”
I stare at him, my chest tight with something I don’t have a name for. It’s not fury. It’s not even annoyance. It’s the bone-deep certainty that these men, these violent, possessive bastards, are mine. And I’m theirs. All the way down to the fucking marrow.
“I don’t,” I whisper.
He nods briefly and strides towards the shell of the townhouse where Axl’s Brabus is somehow still intact from the blast.
But as we get closer, I notice it’s a different colour. A new one.
“Courtesy of dad,” he says when he sees me notice.
I don’t say anything as I open the back door and climb in. Ciar takes the passenger side as Cillian slides in next to me.
I give Axl the address, a flat in one of Dublin’s rougher estates. The place I swore I’d never go back to once I got out.
The drive is silent.
My mind races, rehearsing what I’m going to say, how I’m going to keep my shit together when I see her face.
The woman who birthed me but never mothered me.
The woman who chose her lowlife guys over me every time she could.
How am I going to walk in there and keep my shit together when every cell in my body screams at me to end her abuse in the only way that I can?
Twenty minutes later, we pull up outside the block of flats, and my hands shake noticeably enough for Cillian to grip one of them tightly. The grey concrete, graffiti-covered walls mock me as I pull my hand out of his and climb out of the car.
“Stay outside,” I say to them. “I don’t want you inside when I talk to her.”
“No—”
“Ciar, please,” I beg him, tears springing to my eyes. “Please, just do this one thing for me, okay?”
A war rages behind his eyes. Every protective instinct in him is screaming to follow me in there, to stand between me and any potential threat.
But he sees something in my expression that makes him pause.
This isn’t about protection. This is about confronting the ghost that’s haunted me since I was old enough to understand what a mother should be.
His jaw works, muscles ticking under the skin. “Five minutes,” he finally grates out. “You get five fucking minutes, and then I’m coming in.”
It’s a compromise I can live with because I don’t intend to be there any longer than that.
I nod and turn towards the entrance, my legs feeling like they’re made of lead.
The stairwell reeks of piss and decay, the walls covered in layers of tags and painted-on dicks.
Third floor, flat 3 B. The door with the peeling green paint and the broken doorbell.
My hand trembles as I raise it to knock. For a second, I consider just walking away. I don’t need this money, I don’t want it—if there is even anything left of it. I’ll accept Axl’s offer to pay O’Donnell. It doesn’t have to be a fight.
But I need answers. I need to know how long she has had this money.
I rap sharply and wait.
I hear her shuffling towards it, and the door opens.
She stands there, looking a fucking mess, a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, an oversized cardigan pulled around her to combat the chill I know will hit me when I walk into the dump she calls home.
Her eyes rake over the guys behind me, but she ignores them. “What do you want?” she asks, turning from me and shuffling back inside.
Ciar growls behind me, but I shoot him a fierce glare.
I follow her into the flat, closing the door behind me.
My nostrils are immediately assaulted by the familiar stench—stale smoke, cheap booze, and something sour that I don’t want to identify.
Nothing’s changed. The same threadbare sofa, the same overflowing ashtray on the coffee table, the same fucking misery seeping from the walls.
She collapses onto the sofa, taking a drag from her cigarette. “Well? Spit it out.”
I stand in the middle of the room, trying to keep it together. “You paid for my tuition at St. Bart’s.”
She doesn’t even have the decency to look surprised. Just takes another drag, her eyes dead and disinterested. “And?”
“And?” I repeat, my voice rising despite my best efforts to keep it level. “Where the fuck did you get that kind of money?”
She shrugs, a lazy movement that makes my blood boil. “Your useless sperm donor left it for me in his will.”
“Left it for you?”
She nods. “To make up for the sins of the past. Fecking eejit.”
“Why did you pay for St. Bart’s? And why the fuck are you still living in this shithole if he gave you money?”
Her glassy eyes meet mine. She doesn’t say anything for a while. Leaning forward, she picks up a glass I know is filled with cheap vodka, and she takes a long drink. “Figured if you were there, you weren’t here pissing me off. Thought maybe you’d met some rich cunt, and he’d take you off my hands.”
“I wasn’t in your hands,” I grit out. “I was on my own, making my own way.”
She shrugs. She doesn’t give a fuck. In her mind, this is her justification.
“What’s left?”
“Of what?”
“The money he left you,” I say, my jaw clenched so tight that I give myself a headache.
“Nothing.”
I stare at her, not surprised in the least. “Nothing? You fucking blew through it all already?”
She takes another drag, the cigarette burning down to the filter. “It’s my money. I can do what I want with it. Besides, I spent it on sending you to that fancy school, didn’t I? What more do you want from me?”
“Nothing,” I say, my voice flat. “I want absolutely nothing from you.”
Her eyes narrow. “Then why are you here?”
“I wanted to know how long you had that money. I know now you got it after I left to make my own way. For whatever reason, you decided to blow thousands on paying my tuition at St. Bart’s. Fuck knows why. Fuck knows how you even knew I was planning to go there.”
She shrugs, but I’m not done. Even when Ciar opens the door and states, “Time’s up,” I’m not ready to leave yet.
“Why? Tell me the honest truth for once in your fucking life! Why did you spend all that money on me when you could’ve spent it on yourself?”
She stares at me for the longest time. Ciar is motionless, knowing I need the answer.
Eventually, she straightens up and crosses over to me, standing in front of me, a worn, used, booze-ridden hag. She reaches up to cup my face, and I flinch. “To do right by you for once in my fucking life.”
“Don’t,” I say, slapping her hand away, but I see the sorrow in her eyes. I see the truth… and it fucking hurts.
“Let’s go,” Ciar says quietly, taking my arm and leading me out of the flat.
I got what I came for. The money is gone, and that’s all I need to know.
Mum falls to the floor and sobs, but I’m done. I close the door on her and walk away, my head held high, knowing I will never see her again in life or death.