Chapter Twenty-Six
Finn
WasI up or was I down? That was pretty much the mind fuck I had going on inside my head.
On the one hand, the man I’d loved like a father actuallywasmy father.
On the other, the bastard I’d believed had sired me, who’d abused me and beaten me, actually hadn’t.
A cause for celebration?
Maybe if the ties that went with it weren’t bound to Lena’s perfidy—the death of Aoife’s mother.
Even if the news was worthy of celebration, it was forever linked with the accident that had robbed Michelle Keegan of her life.
I had no doubt it was an accident.
Aidan had believed it too. And this wasn’t some spiritual bypass. He’d asked Lena’s guard, who’d concurred. There was no reason to lie when there were no concerns about the consequences.
And there was the rub.
The lack of consequence.
Lena had to pay. Didn’t she?
There had to be some reparation made, something done to…
Nothing would bring Aoife’s mother back. Nothing. Not even Lena rotting in a jail cell for a few years on vehicular manslaughter. A notion that had my heart pounding in my chest as it was the last place I’d want any of the women in my life to be. If Aoife came to me as Lena had to Aidan, I’d have done everything in my power to cover this shit up.
This was my world.
We ignored society’s inbuilt checks and balances as we chose to go to church and confess our sins rather than be punished for them. Going to speak with the Father was far easier than serving prison time, after all.
Had Lena confessed? Had Father Doyle, when he’d said how sad it was that Aoife’s mother couldn’t be there for her on our wedding day, heard the truth spill from Lena’s lips?
I knew he had.
It was how Aidan worked.
He’d have dragged her there, whatever the time. He’d have made her confess and then—and I could see it in my mind’s eye—he’d have hugged her afterward, given her a kiss to make it all better, and after she’d worked her penance, they could go on as if nothing had happened.
But something had.
Someone had died.
I knew I was being a hypocrite. What was it? Okay for people to die so long as they weren’t related to family close to me?
I’d watched Aidan slaughter the Colombian this week. Had seen so many deaths, it was a wonder the spirits didn’t visit me in my dreams. But this one mattered more than any of them, and yeah, it did make me a hypocrite. I knew that.
Aidan wouldn’t change. Lena wouldn’t change. My brothers wouldn’t change, but I could.
I couldn’t go far. My life was tied to the O'Donnellys. I loved them. They had been my family before I’d known about the tie of blood. They were all I knew, and all I wanted to know. I wanted to have kids of my own, and even though Aidan and Lena were fucking psychos, I needed them to know my children.
In their heart of hearts, when it came down to family, to those two nutcases, it was all that mattered.
Family and love were what they got out of bed in the morning for.
Retiring from the Five Points was only optional when you had a few years left on the clock. Samuel would be nearing seventy when Aidan let him go, and if he lived to be a hundred, good for him, but even then, Aidan kept his pensioners tied to the mob. He helped them out every Christmas, and their pensions were tied to my hedge fund.