“Da… he attacked me—”
“Brody. Fucking. Murtagh,” Da growls.
He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to. His tone does all the heavy lifting. “What were you thinking?”
“I was defending myself.”
“Yourself?” Da spits. “Because my sources tell me that you risked everything for a fucking girl.”
I bristle at that. The reaction is immediate and I can’t tame the burst of anger that courses through me when he brings up Saoirse.
“She’s not just any girl,” I snap.
“No, apparently not,” Da says. “Apparently, she’s Padraig Connelly’s daughter.”
I stop short.
My father is nothing if not prepared.
“Now, I would never have concerned myself with the likes of a lowly debtor,” he continues. “But when my son decides to fuck his daughter—”
“That’s not all it was.”
Da steps closer to the cell, his eyes flashing dangerously. “Don’t tell me you’re that goddamn stupid.”
“Da—”
“My bookies are telling me that the debt owed by Connelly has been paid,” he says. “Recently, in fact.”
I don’t offer up any information.
“Did you pay off the debt yourself?”
I don’t want to claim ownership of something I didn’t do. But I don’t want to out Sean, either. Da would only see it as another sign of weakness.
“What does it matter?” I argue finally. “What does it matter who paid the debt, as long as it’s paid?”
“That is not how this family operates.”
“It was two thousand euros. You could find that in the couch cushions.”
“Two thousand euros can go a long fucking way in the right hands,” he replies. “But I wouldn’t expect you to understand. You’ve never worked for anything in your life.”
I frown. “What the fuck are you talking about?” I ask. “I’ve worked my whole entire life.”
“You’ve always been an O’Sullivan,” Da rebuts harshly. “Whatever you’ve done has been connected to me. To the family name that I built. You and Brody Murtagh are alike in that regard.”
That’s meant to piss me off, and it succeeds. “I am nothing like that miserable son of a bitch.”
“I thought you were smarter than him,” Da muses. “But apparently not.”
“Are you not hearing me?” I snarl. “He attacked me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know—because he’s a fucking pathetic wannabe gangster who likes throwing his weight around?”
“You should have stayed out of his way. For God’s sake, you should have just let him fuck the girl if that’s all he wanted.”