“But, Mom, if you’d told me then I would’ve understood why Dad left. Do you have any idea how much I’ve been hurting all these years? How angry I’ve been? It’s like a wound in my chest, a festering, bleeding, rotten wound that won’t heal no matter how hard I want it to. You could’ve helped, or at least given me the truth—but you didn’t.”
“Ronan O’Shea is a bad man, Mirella. I think I have a type.” She smiles tightly at her joke, and it’s only funny because I have the same type. “Ronan’s like your father, but from a different family, and I just didn’t want you to get involved with that life. Genaro was bad enough.”
“You didn’t have to make that decision for me.”
“I did, sweetie. I’m your mother. I kept it from you all these years, and now it’s out, and I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t want to lose you and I don’t want that man Ronan to get his hands on you, and now I’m afraid I’ll do both.”
Something breaks inside of me. All the fractures, the cracks, the bloody jagged wounds, they rip open and like a crooked nose, they reset. I see my mother as she is, not as I want her to be or as I thought she was, but the struggling woman who made one horrible mistake a long time ago and did everything she could to make it right. As much as I’ve given for her, she’s given me ten times more, and even though it was wrong to keep the truth from me for so long, she finally came clean. She finally made it right.
And I love her. I know this hurts, but she did it. The shame she’s feeling is only one small fraction of the love she’s felt for me over the years, and I won’t let this get between us.
She’s my mother and I’d die for her.
I lean forward and take her hand. She sobs once, frowning at me, and I move closer and hug my mother hard. She cries, and I’m crying too, and we cry together in a glorious and incredibly painful release of emotions. It hurts to be this close to her right now and it’s so utterly necessary, because she’s all I have in this world, flaws and all.
“I’m sorry this is how you found out,” she says, wiping her face. “But I couldn’t keep it from you any longer. Your father came to see me, and he said you’ve been in trouble because of our secret. He said it’s time to come clean, and he was right. It was way past time.”
“Dad told you to tell me?” I pull back, frowning slightly. “So he knows who my father is?”
“I told him a few years ago, around the time we started to get over our differences. You were never interested in becoming his daughter again and that’s fine, but it was nice to have him as a friend.”
I stand up, tugging at my hair as I start to put things together. “He knew I’m Ronan O’Shea’s daughter. And he wanted me to be Fynn’s physical therapist.”
“Sweetie?” Mom frowns at the window, squinting outside.
“He wanted me in Villa Bruno. He got me in the door, knowing the whole time that my half-brother is at war with that family. Why would he do that? And then act like something horrible is about to happen? Was he trying to warn me, or trying to recruit me?”
“Mirella.” Mom’s voice is sharper now. Her tears are gone and she’s on her feet, staring outside. “Someone’s out front.”
A jolt of terror runs down my spine and gathers in my stomach. I don’t go to her side. I know who’s out there, waiting for me, and I don’t want to face him. I’m desperate to run away and shove my head under the sand but there’s nowhere for me to go, not anymore.
“I love you, Mom,” I say and drift to the front door. “I’ll be okay.”
“Sweetie?” She sounds scared, and I can’t blame her. She knows maybe half of what’s happening. But it feels like the chess board in my brain’s suddenly filled with pieces and I know where they all go, how they move, how they fight together.
I open the door and take a step outside. It’s bright and hot, and there’s a large black truck in the street.
Cillian’s leaning against it, arms crossed over his chest, smiling. He holds a hand up in greeting.
I walk forward, down the steps, and onto the front walk.
Cillian pushes himself forward and comes to me. He’s a big man, handsome, dangerous. He walks like a panther stalking the jungle. Hunger bleeds from his eyes. I can see the resemblance now, or maybe I’m just searching for it: a little bit of his nose, his cheeks.