30. Rory
30
RORY
When I finally pull away from Lara, she looks up at me, biting her lip. I reach down to thumb it out from between her teeth, and she smiles at me a little.
“What can I do?” she asks quietly.
I don’t know how to answer her. My head is a mess right now. I can’t stop thinking about my mother, about how kind she was to me, how she rocked Bree to sleep with both of us in her lap at night.
I can’t stop thinking about the fact that I hated her for leaving. When Bree came to me, telling me how Ma had just left us, I’d destroyed my whole room, thrown even my mattress against the wall.
Bree had just waited for me outside the door, sitting with her back against the wall. She didn’t come inside, just waited for me to come out, breathing hard.
That memory reminds me that I shouldn’t do this all on my own. I shouldn’t make any decisions right now when my head is all over the place.
“I need to talk to Bree.” My voice is hoarse from unshed tears and held-back emotion.
Lara doesn’t even blink, just grabs the phone, handing it to me after dialing a number and speaking to one of her brothers in low tones.
She wordlessly hands me the phone, and I take it outside on the balcony, letting the fall air attempt to cool my heated blood.
“Rory?” Bree asks quietly when I don’t speak, just breathing a little too hard into the phone, trying to get myself together.
“He killed her.” Those three words are all I can manage in that moment and keep my cool.
Bree goes quiet on the other line for just a moment before speaking again.
“I know.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, fighting angry tears. “He killed her, and I was so mad at her, Bree.”
“I know, Rory. I was, too. Pa and I were so close after she left... he’s been lying to us for so long now. It’s hard to believe.”
“Fuck.” My voice sounds liquid.
“Rory.”
“Yeah?”
“Take care of it.” Her voice, once gentle, is fierce now. “Take care of him for me. I can’t get anywhere near him because of Declan, but if I could?—”
“What are you saying, Bree?”
“If I were there, I’d burn the house down with him in it.”
I blink, surprised, but I can’t help but smile a bit at my normally gentle-hearted sister’s ferocity.
She’s right. He had lied to us for most of our lives.
“I’ll make sure he gets what’s coming to him.”
I’m not going to burn the house down with him in it. I’m not going to kill him. I’m done with killing. I’ve had to do way too much of it in the recent past.
But I’m going to make sure he confesses all his sins, exactly what he did to her and why .
“I love you, Bree.”
“I love you, too. Come and visit when all this is over, all right?”
“Just try to keep me away.”
I hang up the phone, taking a deep breath and trying to calm myself.
Lara’s right, I can’t just go off half-crazed and wild, because he’ll take me down. He’s proven time and time again that he doesn’t care about whether I live or die, and why would he?
He murdered the only woman he ever claimed to love.
I draw in a few breaths in the cool air, turning to walk back into the bedroom. I’ve already got my slacks on, but I’m still shirtless. I go to the closet and grab a button-up shirt, starting to button it and tuck it in while Lara watches from the bed.
“Rory,” she calls, an edge of a warning to her voice.
“I’m just going to talk to him. I just want to know why he did it.”
She makes a distressed sound. “You may never know why he did it.” She stands up, coming toward me and placing both palms on my chest. “There’s proof, now?—”
“The only proof is the word of mouth of men who have rap sheets a mile long.” I huff out a breath. “There’s nothing concrete we can take to the police, and those guys aren’t going to talk to the cops.”
Her eyes search my face. “That’s not true. You don’t know that.”
I place my hands over hers and push her gently away. “Maybe not. Maybe Gray and Patrick have something more up their sleeves, but right now, I just need to hear it from his mouth.”
Lara watches me as I turn back to the closet, reaching up to the shelf to get my gun and placing it in the back of my pants.
“If you’re just going to talk to him, why are you taking your gun?” Her voice comes out panicked and reedy.
“Just in case.”
“Just in case what ?” Lara paces around me in a circle, and I can’t help but smile at how upset she seems to be.
“Worried about me, honey?”
She gapes at me, frowning. “Of course, I’m worried about you. I’m in love with you.”
I lean down closer to her, brushing my nose against hers. “I like hearing you say that.”
“Don’t change the subject.” She clutches at my shirt, bunching the fabric in her small fists. “I don’t want you getting hurt, Rory.”
“I won’t. I just need to talk to him alone. He won’t confess in front of any of his men. He won’t want them to know. I’m sure he kept this all undercover when it happened. The clans don’t like to kill women or children, so whoever helped him are men without honor.”
“Men like Scott.”
I pause, surprised that she’d said his name, but I nod. “Exactly.”
She slowly lowers her hands to her sides, trembling only slightly.
“Be careful .”
I wrap my arms around her waist, pulling her close to me and kissing her passionately.
She moans into my mouth, but I pull away, walking backwards to the door and blowing her a kiss instead.
She rolls her eyes but smiles and blows one back.
My smile fades the instant the bedroom door closes.
I wasn’t able to tell Lara how I really felt, how I understood Bree when she said she wanted him gone. I want this over. I want all of this over, and I’m going to get the hell out of here as soon as I can. I’m going to talk to Declan and Gray and Patrick and figure out how to put him away, but first, I need to hear it from the horse’s mouth.
It’s not that I don’t believe Lara, don’t believe Gray and Bree. But some part of me, some deep, hidden part, still loves my father. Still hopes against hope that they’re wrong, misinformed somehow.
I know that it won’t fully make sense to me until he says it. Until I hear the words coming out of his mouth.
I take a deep breath and make my way toward my father’s office. I knock lightly on the door, and he calls for me to come in.
It’s still early in the morning, but he’s always been an early riser.
When I open the door, he’s sitting behind his desk with Duncan sitting in the chair across from him.
“We need the room.” I suppose there must be conviction in my voice because Duncan stands immediately, walking out of the open door, and not questioning a thing. I don’t even bother to close the door behind him.
“Son.”
His voice is calm and even, as if he’s expected this. But he doesn’t know what I know.
He thinks I’m upset about last night, but after what I’ve discovered this morning, last night is simply a drop in the bucket.
“You tried to have me and my wife killed.”
“Boyo—”
I don’t let him finish, whirling around to face him. “You tried to have us killed, but that’s not even why I’m here. You wanted to test me. Some part of me, some twisted part that you helped foster, believes that makes sense.”
He cocks his head. “You’re not here because of last night?”
I shake my head fiercely. “No. I’m here because of something that happened a long time ago, Dad.” I rarely ever call him Dad, only Pa or father. I know the American way irks him, and I watch his eyes widen and then turn into slits.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do.” I don’t move a muscle, my shoulders stiffening as I look at him, standing there as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.
He sighs. “Whatever imagined slight you think I’ve done to you, Rory, you might as well come out with it.”
The manipulative bastard.
Imagined slight. As if he’s innocent. As if he’s always been innocent, and I’ve just blown things out of proportion.
“You have no idea what I’m talking about?” My eyes narrow. “You’ve done such heinous shit in your life that you can’t even pinpoint what I’m talking about.”
He rolls his eyes. “What is it? I ran over your puppy when you were seven?”
“You killed my mother,” I hiss, almost spitting the words at him.
He doesn’t even blink, just staring at me as if I’m the one who’s lost my mind.
“Your Ma left. She abandoned you, and you can’t handle it. So, you accuse me of... what? Killing her myself?”
I bark out a bitter laugh. “Don’t try to twist this now, Dad . I know what you did. I know that she didn’t take a single item of clothing with her. No money. Nothing.”
He shrugs. “That doesn’t prove anything.”
That doesn’t prove anything. Not, “no, of course, I didn’t do it.”
“You’ve been lying to me and Bree for years. Bree took care of you after, put your drunk ass to bed every night. I helped her with everything else. We basically took over for you, because we thought you were grieving. In reality, you were just guilty .”
“You have no idea what I went through when she...” He pauses, running a hand through his hair. “I think it’s best if you leave now, boyo. Cool off.”
“Remember Ivan the Russian?”
The gaze he was keeping on the desk, as if dismissing me, now snaps up to mine. “What?”
“Ivan. Ivan the Russian, loved kids, always liked to play dolls with Bree when he’d come over. I remember him being here. It was right after Ma ‘left.’ Isn’t that convenient?”
He goes quiet, his jaw ticking as he grits his teeth. When he does speak, it’s low and quiet.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” I take a step toward the desk, and he doesn’t move a muscle.
This is his home. His office. He’s in his element. And he’s not afraid of me.
The thing is–he should be, because all I can feel right now is white-hot rage.
My brain isn’t working, it’s just adrenaline-filled blood rushing through my veins.
“Admit it.” I spit the words like they’re poison through teeth that are grinding together. “Admit what you did.”
“What right do you have, boyo? What right do you have to come in here accusing me of....” He pauses, rubbing a hand across his face. His expression is blank, but his left eye is twitching, a surefire sign that he’s pissed off.
“I’m accusing you of murdering her.” I’m not about to mince words, not now. Not when the stakes are this high. Not when I have proof.
It’s not proof that will get him arrested. It’s not proof I can use, but it’s proof that I know in my soul to be true, and I need him to admit it. If I don’t hear it from him, I’ll never move past this.
“You don’t understand, Rory. You never have.”
“Explain it to me.” I brace my hands on his desk, staring him down, and to his credit, he doesn’t look away.
I guess he knows that he can’t run from this. As much as some part of me wants to, I can’t either.
“You don’t know what your mother was like. Who she really was.”
“I said, explain it to me.”
His face changes, softens just a bit, like there’s some part of him that still has a heart.
I don’t back down, though, don’t move from my spot with my palms down on his desk, knuckles growing white from the pressure.
“She was a liar, Rory. You know that I can’t tolerate liars. Traitors.”
“What did she lie about?”
He barks out a bitter laugh. “Everything. Said she was fine with what I did for a living. Hell, her da used to be a driver for my da. It’s not like her hands were clean when we married. She knew who I was. She married me anyway.”
“You’re not telling me the whole story.”
“She made friends with a cop, Rory. What would you have me do?”
I grip onto his desk even harder. “Answer my question. Did you kill her?”
“Of course not.” He scoffs, reaching into his desk drawer, likely to get his pipe.
My shoulders relax slightly, my whole body going weak with relief.
Then he brings a pistol out of the desk drawer and points it at my chest.
“It broke my heart to give that order, boyo.”
I slowly stand up straight, and my thoughts are completely silenced by the reality of what he just said.
He hadn’t killed her himself. God forbid he get his hands dirty. But he’d killed her nonetheless, given the order that got it done.
“You killed my mother.” I laugh at him, finally standing up to my full height. “Now, what, you’re going to shoot me, too?”
“You’re my son. I don’t want to shoot you, but if you don’t listen to me?—”
“Listen to what? Listen to you give me a million excuses why you murdered the woman who gave birth to me?”
He walks toward the open door, keeping the gun trained on me, but I don’t take my eyes off him.
“Running scared, Dad ?”
Before I can taunt him further, he reaches out the door, grabbing Lara and pulling her inside.
“I’m sorry, Rory, I was scared—” Her voice cuts off when he presses the gun into her torso.
“I’m not going to kill you, son. Think I’ll kill this Burke bitch you’ve grown so attached to, teach you a lesson.”
I jump over the desk before I know what I’m doing, going for his throat, and he lets her go, shifting to jam the gun between my ribs.
Lara steps out of his reach but doesn’t leave as I wrestle him, hitting my hip hard against the edge of the desk, pain rocketing through me. I can’t focus on it, though, struggling with my father to keep his arm up, keep him from pulling the trigger.
It all happens so fast, but when his hand turns again and he points the gun in Lara’s direction, I know I have to make a choice.
I keep one hand holding his and take out my gun from my back, pointing it at his chest.
He smirks at me. Maybe he thinks I’m bluffing.
And maybe I am. I don’t want to shoot my father. I want him alive so he can pay for all his sins.
His finger tenses to squeeze the trigger.
Time is up. The world stops spinning around me and at the moment, there is no other choice I can make.
I pull the trigger and blow a hole through his chest.
His hand goes slack, as goes his mouth as his eyes widen at me.
Lara’s scream sounds in my ears, and she rushes toward me.
I hold up a hand to stop her, to try and protect her, but she keeps coming, kneeling down and wrapping her arms around me.
I have blood on my hands. Blood on my shirt, and when I look down, my father is still staring at me wide-eyed, gasping and sputtering on the ground, clutching his stomach. Blood soaks the bottom of his shirt, slowly trickling onto the expensive rug.
Lara clutches onto me, but I can’t help from reaching down to my father, putting pressure against the wound.
It’s too late, though, his eyes are already fading, never leaving mine until life leaves them completely.
I let out a ragged sob, and Lara grabs onto me. I bury my face in her neck, can’t help the sobs that wreck my throat.
He killed my mother. He tried to kill Lara. He might have killed me, if I’d kept taunting him.
But he was still my father, and I can’t help feeling a deep void from his loss.
When I finally get myself together, I stand up, wiping tears from my cheeks, and Duncan just stands there, looking down at my father with wide eyes, having come in after Lara.
“I saw the whole thing. He had a gun on you,” he mumbles, sounding like he’s in shock. “Then he grabbed Lara.”
“He would have killed her.” My voice is hoarse from emotion, but it’s strong, doesn’t shake like I’d expected it to. “He might have killed all of us.”
Duncan nods slowly, looking at me with a baffled gaze. “You’re the boss now.”
I blink.
He’s right. With all of this, I’d forgotten the Irish clan hierarchy. I’m the only son, so I’m the heir.
I run the Murphy clan now.
But I don’t want to. I don’t want to be part of any of this, don’t want to deal in any more blood and violence and death.
There is only one thing to do now.
I shake my head. “I’m not the boss. My sister is. I’m handing everything over to her.”
Chapter Thirty-One