Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
My shoulders droop, my face pressed against my big sister's shoulder, and the breath I've been holding for weeks finally comes out all at once. My voice is shaky, and I'm going to cry again, and maybe we'll just have to cry for a little while.
Erin holds on and doesn't try to fix things. She's just here, and I need that right now.
After a while, I sniff.
“I thought I was having a relapse,” I say. “At first.”
Erin sits very still. “Aye. We all did.”
“When the nausea started, the tiredness, I was just… I was certain, you know? I had the whole thing planned out in my head. How I'd tell Dr. Rosenberg, how I'd tell you, how I'd…” I stop. “How I'd tell Declan.”
Because what's the use in hiding it now? “I was terrified, Erin. And instead it turned out to be this.” I pause. “At first, I didn't know if that was worse or better or what.”
“Of course it's better,” Erin says furiously. “Obviously, that's better, Bridget. Anything is fucking better than you getting sick again.” Her voice ends on a sob, and I’m reminded of how much my illness and her endless vigils cost her.
And then I'm holding her.
“I know,” I say. “I know.”
She pulls back, and I wipe my face with the back of my hand.
“It was just, at the hospital, when I looked at the test and thought… This is Declan's. Because it could only be Declan's. You understand that.”
“Of course I do.” She nods. “So how did Declan react?”
I smile. “He cried, Erin, then kissed me and told me that he would make it right.”
Erin nods. She's not surprised.
“I didn't want him to feel responsible because, you know, fuck.” The words aren't coming out right. “I know it's Valentina and the alliance and the family breathing down his neck, and it's one more thing to manage in a sea of difficult things to manage.”
Erin's hands are still in her lap. She stares at them. “We've said from the beginning that things about Valentina haven't added up. I don't know if it was her family or what, and that Bronwyn doesn't really like her, but…”
“I know,” I say. “I’m afraid it's just that we all hope they don't.”
“Exactly.” She exhales. “There are things that Cavin doesn't discuss with me, operational things, because he doesn't want me to be complicit if shite goes down, according to him, anyway. But things are different now, and I think it's because Keenan’s sick.”
I nod. “I know. Declan's said as much.” Nobody wants to say it out loud, but the responsibility of fortifying this family is on all their shoulders in a way it never was before. In a way that means they don't have time.
I think about the dinner. About the way Valentina smiled, sitting with her hands in her lap, her expression smoothing a half beat too late. It seems like she's acting, and I don't understand the intricacies of it. Don’t we all perform when we’re out of place? And why is she nothing like the person she is online?
“I don't know,” Erin says, “but here's what little I do. Cavin's been trying to reach her family and is getting nowhere—her brothers are always traveling, always unavailable. She's here, the wedding's in place, and she's pushing to move the date up.”
“But is it just the way things always are with the McCarthys? I mean, we know who they are, Erin.” And we were raised in the Irish mob ourselves, though our family was smaller and less influential. We’re not like “normal” people.
“Don’t know. Listen.” She straightens. “We're going to find you somewhere safe. I don't know exactly how or where, but we will.” She frowns. “You know, I advocated my arse off for you to be here. Pushed for it and fought for it, and Seamus wasn't having any of it until…” She blows out a breath. “Until I told him that you were my sister. And if I was staying, so were you. And you know the McCarthys will not have anything to do with divorce.”
She looks at me steadily. “Seamus has always held the line where the family's concerned. It's not really cruelty; it's just the way things are. Expected. It’s very black and white, so I don’t blame them, not really. Our father made choices, and in their world, those choices have consequences. Exile was a mercy from the beginning, practically revolutionary for him, going from execution to exile. But you know, it wasn't Cavin or me who talked him out of it, Bridget. It was Declan.”
I blink. “What are you talking about?”
“You know Declan's always been loyal to his family,” she says, “but he's loyal to you in a way that nobody else really understands.”
I understand it. Every divination card I’ve pulled, every tea leaf I’ve read, every sign I’ve looked for from the universe has said the same thing over and over: soulmates. I twist the crystal around my neck. It’s a pale pink, the crystal of love. I know Declan rolls his eyes and Cavin mocks, but my intuition knows best. And they’re… well, they’re men.