“Before I was taken, I overheard my mother talking on the phone,” I start, recalling what happened that night. “She told whoever it was, Patrick I assume now, that she won’t allow me to see him or visit him. I went up to my room, and when I came down for dinner, she was gone. I was in her office when I found a folder in one of her drawers,” I speak, hoping he’ll let up, and slowly, ever so fucking slowly, his fingers release my hair.
“What was in the folder?”
“Information about Patrick Bragan and the paternity test confirming my lineage.” The memory of what I’d learned is burned into my brain. I can never forget where I come from. A long line of dangerous people.
“And then what?”
“There was someone in my mother’s office, and he knocked me out with a cloth wet with chloroform.” A shudder wracks through me when I close my eyes and remember that smell. “When I woke, I was in Bragan’s house.”
“So ye woke up in his house. He kept you there all that time?” Monster asks me before stepping back.
I’m thankful for the reprieve of his anger, but also, I miss him being close. The man is a danger to me, but not to my life. No, the man before me is a danger to my heart. Because when he looks at me, I can tell he’s at war with himself. His words,you’re a distraction,ring in my ears.
“Yes,” I tell him. “Patrick questioned me about my mother, her business, and her whereabouts. But I don’t know anything. All my life she’s always told me she’s in banking, and I believed her because I didn’t think she had a reason to lie.”
He watches me. He doesn’t move, and it’s almost as if he’s not breathing either. The air in the room sparks with volatile energy. I want to run, but I also want to force him to listen and believe me. I don’t know why it means so much to me for him to understand, but it does. The man has given me a home when he didn’t have to. He’s given me a job, something to keep me from having to leave the club. Which also means safety. I’m safe from my father’s men, and it seems my mother as well.
“There’s somethin’ you don’t know then,” Monster tells me as he steps away and heads over to a filing cabinet against the opposite wall where I’m still standing. He takes pages from a drawer and turns back to me. “These will fill you in.” He places the documents on the table.
My feet move slowly. It’s like coming face-to-face with a wild animal. No sudden movements to anger it. I take the pages and scan the information. All of them are documents from MI5 as well as Scotland Yard. The name Amanda Walsh is mentioned, which causes my gut to twist in recognition. And then the link makes itself known under the headline—The search continues for the Head of the Irish mob.
“I don’t understand.” I look up to meet Monster’s gaze.
“Your Ma,” he tells me. “She’s the one who runs the organisation. She’s the one who ordered a hit on my mother years ago. All these years I thought it was Patrick, but I was wrong.” As he tells me this, his eyes turn glossy.
The thought of my mother killing his makes me sick to my stomach. All these years I believed my mother when she told me what her day was like. How her colleagues knew her. From partnerships around the world, to day to day running of a finance company. Nothing ever stuck out at me as strange. Not even now when I think about it.
But, there’s no doubt, the documents in my hand confirm she is the dangerous one.
“What about Patrick? If she’s running things, why is he included in this?”
“When she took over, yer da became second-in-command. If she were dead,” Monster tells me, “then he would inherit the whole feckin’ lot of it.”
I drop my gaze to the pages in my hand, and I notice I’m trembling. I was in his house; he could have so easily killed me. All those questions he asked now make sense. The money, the partners, everything. Even our trips we took. “I don’t understand why he waited so long, though. I mean, we lived in London my whole life. If he truly wanted to find her, he could have.”
And it’s true. We weren’t far away. Being in Northern Ireland, we’re only a ferry trip or flight away. It would not have stopped him if he was so adamant to step up as head of the organisation.
“It seems that was all yer grandda’s doin’.”
Monster hands me another document that he pulled from the same drawer. It’s a copy of my grandfather’s will. I never met the man. He died before I was born. But it’s clear in black and white, if something happened to my mother, the organisation would automatically fall under my name. There’d be a custodian who would step in if I were under the age of twenty-one, and once I come of age, I would automatically be forced into the head seat. So, no matter the outcome, I would always be the leader, and not Patrick. Either way, he’s lost out, and he’s angry. I was in his home, he could have killed me.Why didn’t he?
“I don’t understand. My grandfather should have foreseen that Patrick would want to kill me. It didn’t matter how old I was. He had me in his home, right under his thumb, and yet all he did was question me.”
“Aye, he coulda killed ye, but I have a feelin’ the man had a heart when he saw ye. However, yer mother forced his hand. There was a rumour going around the organisations that she was to fake her own death. I think she chose to trust the wrong people, men who were loyal to yer da, and they told him. Which brings us to the here and now. Yer ma is in America somewhere. I have a feeling she didn’t tell ye because she knew yer da would torture the truth out of ye.”
“I didn’t know any of this,” I say as the betrayal hits me. All my life has been a lie. The woman I loved and trusted lied to me. I may have kept my real name from Monster, from the club, but I never once lied to them. All the things I told them have been me. “I…” Shaking my head, I sink into the chair and allow my face to fall into my hands. It’s as if waves are crashing over me, and I want to sink into them. I want to drown. It’s the only way this will stop.
“Look at me,” Monster says in a deep, commanding tone. He doesn’t speak until I obey him. “This is shite,” he says. “But you’re stronger than that. Aren’t ye?”
“I don’t know.” The brutal honesty makes my throat burn. The tears I’d been fighting take over, and I allow them to fall. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you who I was. Who I am. But I didn’t know either. It seems everything I knew about my family, my life, it’s all been a lie.”
Monster rounds the table and stops right beside me. He offers me his hand, which after a moment of uncertainty I accept. And then he pulls me to my feet. Moments ago, this man was going to kill me. He wanted to hurt me. And now, he’s cupping my face in his large, strong hand so gently I tremble.
“I can tell you’re a strong woman, Miren.” His words offer the sweetest comfort. “Ye should fight back, show them what ye’re made of.” This time, he chuckles. “Ye can fight me well enough.” His words make me smile. I can’t stop it. And he offers me a grin. The anger that was so clear in his gaze earlier is gone, and I’m met with the man under the Monster façade. He’s not as bad as he thinks he is. If he was, if he truly was a monster, he’d have killed me.
“So, he’s going to come for me.”
“Aye,” Monster says. “I don’t believe he died in that explosion, and I am convinced he killed Donahue.” There’s a hint of sadness in his eyes. He was obviously close to the priest. My heart aches for the lives lost because of my father. Because of my mother.