Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 98000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
And I’ll kill them just as coldly.
I was fifteen when I chose my way into the O’Shea family.
Tiernan.
Sloan’s son.
I have fragmented memories of him from when we were children. We played together until that day when I was four years old and everything changed. When Riordan died and Dean was born. I haven’t been the same since, and I never will be.
I scroll through Tiernan’s photos on social media. I’m surprised his father lets him have this page. Or maybe I’m assuming his life would be anything like mine, though I don’t know why. Sure, his dad is the boss of one of the deadliest crime organizations in the country, but Tiernan didn’t grow up in hiding like I did. He didn’t have a mom who spent her life sad and alone because she lost the only man she ever loved, and working odd jobs so as not to draw attention to herself.
Now she’s gone too, and it’s just me.
My skin heats like fire is licking up my skin, so I close out of the site before I end up throwing my phone against the wall and busting it. I have a bit of an anger problem, at least that’s what Mom used to say. I’ve gotten into boxing, hoping it’ll help, but all it has done is make me a better fighter and showed me I like hitting things. Reading and drawing help and are probably better alternatives to deal with shit. And I do love both, but they aren’t always what I need.
“You’re so angry, kiddo. I want better for you. I want more. Your dad would too.” She said that to me countless times over the years.
What my dad would have wanted was to be here with me, but that didn’t happen, did it?
All because Sloan O’Shea discovered my dad wanted out.
I pace the apartment that’s decorated the way Mom left it six months ago. A stroke, they said, but I think she died from a broken heart.
I should go to my high school graduation. She would want me there, would have cheered and cried and told me how proud of me Dad would have been.
There was a time when I think she doubted I would finish school. I started a year late, and I didn’t begin speaking again until the third grade. But I did well in school. No matter how many times we moved, I studied hard because I knew it would be my way out. College had been our plan, but what she didn’t know was that all the schools I applied to were a facade—all except Ashford University.
All that matters is getting into that one place. Where Tiernan goes. Where his father had gone. Where I’ll find a way to get close to him, the boss’s son, then take his father away from him, the way mine was taken away from me.
CHAPTER ONE
Tiernan
The familiar sound of organs playing drifts around me in a way that should be comforting but isn’t. It always feels wrong to be at Sunday Mass, but it’s something I’ve been doing all my life, pretending the many sins we commit on a daily basis don’t exist within these walls unless we’re in confession—even when they don’t know the truth of it all. Because how could we admit to everything we do?
Father Nelson and the servers walk slowly to the altar as we all stand by watching. I should be singing, but I don’t. My father is beside me, losing himself in the music, despite all the blood he has on his hands.
I have it on mine too. It’s our way of life, and that will never fucking change.
Father Nelson steps behind the altar, kisses it, and I follow his lead, touching my forehead, then chest, left shoulder, right shoulder, with each movement speaking the words I’ve said a million times over the course of my nineteen years. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
He goes into Penitential Rite next, telling us to remember our sins and celebrate the mystery of Christ’s love, followed by prayer.
I play my part the whole time, through prayer, song, homily, and profession of faith. Do I believe any of this? I guess I do. It’s all I fucking know, but sometimes it all feels like a waste of time. No matter what we pretend, none of my family in the pew with us will be going to heaven.
Mom reaches over and grabs my hand—I must not be paying attention. I try to focus on the rest of the service, ready to get the hell out of here and head up to Ashford. It’s two hours away from our home, but I love the facade of freedom I have at college. At Ashford, Sloan O’Shea isn’t in charge. I am.