And teenagers were like mini mafiosos without the murdering power.
FML.
* * *
DECLAN
“You’re shitting me.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.
A statement because I knew Brennan was joking. He had to be, didn’t he?
Of course, there was massive concern over the fact that he was the one imparting this news to me.
After all, Brennan rarely joked.
It wasn’t that he was somber, it was that he saw the world a little differently. There was nothing wrong with that considering the world we lived in was a shower of shit, but still, he wasn’t easily amused.
And he’d never laugh or joke about the fact that I had a son out there.
A son I’d fathered with Aela O’Neill.
My throat tightened at the memories of her. She’d been the one who got away. The one I’d loved. Who I’dletget away.
At the time, a part of me had been relieved when she’d gone, so there’d been no blame. No recriminations. I’d even thought she was smart to leave the city.
A lot of people underestimated her, but never me.
She was a little ditzy because her mind was usually in a sketchpad, cooking up various things for her projects, but anyone who failed to see how smart she was deserved to be in the outer circle.
She’d been one of the best people I’d known.
Until shit had gone wrong. Until my past had come crawling up my butt and I’d had to let go of the best thing that had ever happened to me.
“How?
Brennan scowled at me. “How?”
Because I knew why he was scowling, I rolled my eyes even though that hurt, and ground out, “I don’t need a talk on the birds and the bees, Bren. I’m just talking out loud.”
“Oh.” He shrugged. “You were boning her on the side for a while. You were dumb back then. Not too hard to figure it out.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Fuck off, you never knew that.”
His lips twisted slightly. “I know everything about the family.”
That had me complaining, “When you and Eoghan say crap like that, it’s creepy as fuck.”
“Maybe, but you should be grateful. At least I know the stuff that would make our enemies come if they got their hands on our weaknesses.”
“You didn’t know about my son though, did you?” I wasn’t smug about that, because I wished I’d known about him too, but Brennan could be an arrogant shithead sometimes.
He wriggled his shoulders. “I can be forgiven for that. When you were busy boning Catholic schoolgirls—”
“I was a Catholic schoolboy at the time,” I groused. “So don’t make me out to be a pervert—”
“I was working full-time, and you know I had to work hard to make the docks ours.”