From what Brennan had told me of the night’s events, they were close. If I alienated her, then I’d alienate him, and I was the outsider here. No matter that I might want to break through the walls that were between us, walls she’d put there by lying to me, I had to protect their relationship.
She might not have considered mine with him, but I wasn’t about to give her any shit on that score. I mean, I might want to at some point, during my recovery when I was hurting. It might seem like an easy thing to do, but reality sucked because I knew what I’d been like the last time I’d seen her.
Cold. Hard. Mean.
Why would she tell me she was pregnant? Why would she share anything with me?
I was lucky she’d even come to us now. Lucky that I would get to know my son before he was a full-grown man, and even then, that was only happening because Aela had been good people.
That was her problem though. She’d always been good people. Had always given a damn about folk when she should have been selfish, when she should have thought aboutnumero uno, because that was how this miserable world worked.
If you didn’t think of yourself, you were screwed.
And I was right, because she was.
I ached. Deep inside. Not just from the pain, not just from the stupid heart attack, but from loss.
I’d missed out on so much, so much that I wished I could take out on Deirdre’s hide. It was her fault. All of this was. But she was dead, and I could only be grateful for that fact, even if her memory still lingered on with the ten grand payment I had going out every month, which made her a thorn in my side even in death.
In the grand scheme of things, ten grand was nothing. Didn’t mean I didn’t begrudge it. Getting used to shedding that kind of dough was simple when you earned as much as I did, but when I thought about what I’d lost out on? When I thought about what someone else’s greed had driven me to? I knew I could shit a brick.
And because, at the moment, my heart was dicey, rather than give myself another cardiac goddamn arrest, I decided to burst Brennan’s bubble.
Because even though he thought he knew everything about the family, even though he prided himself on knowing all.
He didn’t know this.
But it was time he did, and it was time my blackmailer died a nasty, painful death. Something that was definitely a long time coming.