Chapter Thirty-Five

The Brennans lived in Midtown. A penthouse on the seventieth floor near Central Park. I'd been instructed to park in the lower-level garage, given the code to the gate and the private elevator. I'd never been invited to their residence.

I was greeted by a tall, lanky, man with salt and pepper hair, kind brown eyes, and a crooked smile.

"Mr. Brennan, good of you to join us. May I take your coat?"

The name made me stiffen. I handed him my coat. "My name is Romano, not Brennan," I said.

He nodded. "I'm Ros, in case you need anything. Please, follow me."

I'd never met the Brennan family. Wondered if they brought their weapons to the dinner table considering I brought mine. It'd been three days since the incident at the dock. Since I killed Cillian Brennan. And all Graham and Henry reported was silence. His death hadn't been made public.

The place looked like royalty and smelled of spices. I'd forgotten Thanksgiving landed on my birthday this year. Not that it mattered. I'd never celebrated either.

I followed Ros through a long corridor that opened into a living area with floor to ceiling windows, crystal light fixtures, furniture that looked neither comfortable, nor cheap, deeper into the house to the dining area which was decked out for the holiday.

Everyone lifted their eyes to me, and I suddenly felt as if I'd been shoved under a microscope. Imogen sat near Declan. Maddox sat to Tristan's right. I hadn't seen my father in years. The memory of him had been tainted with my imagination of evil. The man sitting before me did not look like evil incarnate. He looked like me. We shared our deep black hair and eyes that were a shade lighter than everyone else's. Whenever I looked in the mirror, he was all I saw. There was no denying that we were blood.

"Kieran, come, please," Tristan said.

The first words he'd ever said to me in two years.

I searched the room for Cillian. It was instinct really. I almost forgot he was dead. "Where's Grandfather?" I asked.

A dark rage passed through Tristan's eyes and escaped just as fast. "He won't be joining us. Please, have a seat."

He gestured to a seat to his right, next to Maddox. I unbuttoned my suit jacket and sat down, seeing no other option.

"God, Tris, I'm so mad at you," Imogen said. She got to her feet and walked to me. I wasn't sure what to do. I thought it imprudent to just ignore her, though I really wanted to. She had that innocent naivete I hated in people who ignored that their family killed other families. She took my hand.

"I'm Imogen. You can call me Gen if you want."

"Imogen," I said, my voice thick and hard. Projecting nothing.

Her smile didn't waver. I didn't know her. I didn't owe her anything. This time tomorrow, she'd be out of this penthouse and in the streets with the rest of her family.

"He looks so much like you," she said.

I pulled my hand back and turned from her. I wasn't an animal at the zoo.

"Imogen," Maddox said. "You're making him uncomfortable."

"I can speak for myself, thank you," I hissed out. "And yes, please keep your distance," I told her.

That made her frown, and her brothers practically snarled my way. I turned to Tristan, my hands clasped in front of me. "Why am I here?"

I ignored Imogen sulking back to her seat.

"I wanted to introduce you to your family."

I snorted. "It's been twenty years," I snapped, unable to call him father. "Why now?" I couldn't hide the disdain in my voice.

When Tristan didn't speak, I slowly got to my feet, ready to bolt out of this place. "Well, this has been nice," I said dryly.

Tristan and Maddox got to their feet. Maddox seconds away from pulling a gun out, I was sure.

"Kieran," Tristan said. "Please. Just let me explain."

"Explain?" Fucking explain! I wanted to scream.

"This was a mistake," Declan said. "Talk him down or get him out. If Cillian finds him here, he's going to do worse." With that, Declan motioned to Imogen and made haste to get out. They still didn't know Cillian was dead.

"Kieran, please sit."

I saw no other way out of this unless I planned on gunslinging my way out of here. I sat. Liam and Maddox moved closer. Tristan seemed to need his brothers. Yay him.

"You are twenty now."

I held back another snort. So he did know my birthday.

"Your mother and I," he started.

The mention of my mother made me bristle. All my muscles tensed, and I had to restrain the urge to charge the fucker. I felt my blood drain from my body, and I regretted not taking my insulin before I came up here.

"We wanted you to be free of this life. To live a normal life until you graduated college. It was the reason I stayed away."

"But you didn't stay away. You took me away from my grandmother after I lost my mother. I was ten years old. Do you have any idea what he did to me?" The threads that held me together started to fray. I was going to lose my shit.

Tristan clamped his hands together in a vice-like grip. Uncanny at how similar we were in not only our appearance but our mannerisms. I hated it. I hated him. "Cillian found out about you after your mother died. I made the mistake of visiting her before … and I was followed. He took you. I…" he shook his head. "It doesn't matter."

"Like fuck it doesn't," Maddox said. "Tell him everything or I will."

Tristan looked about ready to murder his brother. I would be onboard with it too. "Your grandmother called me crying that they'd taken you. It took me months to find out where he put you. And then everything changed."

"Your wife died. Your real son needed you. You left me to be tortured, trained, used as his weapon. I get it. I've lived. Survived with it. I don't want anything from you, really," I didn't want to hear this shit, I got to my feet again.

Tristan dropped an envelope on the table in front of me. "Cillian kept a catalog of your kills with," he sighed. "with video. I don't know how he plans to use it." Maddox grunted. Tristan ignored him and went on, "but if you sign, you'll be protected as my heir. Anything you ever did will be backed up by our name, our family. Your past and future mistakes are ours."

Cillian Brennan used me. Even in death, he still had power over me, and I hated him for it. I should've prolonged his torture. He'd gone too quick. And Tristan was giving me a safety net. A way out. He was giving me what I wanted. Legitimacy. For the first time, I saw something different than the man I hated. He looked tired.

I shoved the envelope back on principle. "Why?" My voice shook. Something inside me started to swell. I swallowed that shit down. "My mother was your high school sweetheart. I am a bastard by definition. You don't owe me anything."

"Because you are my son and I failed you as a father. I want … I know my ask won't be easy, but I want to get to know you. I want to try. I know you don't remember, but I was there when you were born. I held you. We wanted to have you. I visited you as often as I dared."

"I don't remember you."

"I stopped when you were a toddler. It got too risky."

"I need to think about it."

"You have to decide today." Another white envelope dropped on the table. "This was your mother's. She wanted me to give this to you on your birthday, but I had hoped I could keep you out of all this. I was wrong."

With that, he walked out along with his brothers. Their absence made it easier to breathe.

I plopped down on the chair and opened the letter.

I remembered her clean script. It always looked as if she used a ruler to keep her lines so straight. I missed her so damn much.

Kieran,

I wish I could've been there to see you grow up. I know you've turned out to be a good person. A survivor like your father. Hopefully, you have my looks, not my heart. I could keep a grudge until the end of days. I guess for me, the end of days already came and went.

Tristan is in a terrible situation. His father is a hard man but Tristan has remained soft hearted. A good man. Maybe too good to be in the line of work he's forced into. We were so young when we had you. Fools. Not sure what we were going to do with you, but we loved you, wanted you. Always.

If you find yourself lost, please trust Tristan. He can help you if you just let him.

We kept his information from you because we both wanted to give you a chance to grow up without the money, power, and violence. To grow up like a normal kid. But now it's your choice. I hope you don't hate me for it.

I love you, baby. I know you're going to make the right decision.

Your mom

I read the letter several times trying to find the good she saw in me and came up empty. I tried to find the good in Tristan but came up empty. I'm sure if she would've been able to write the letter in the current times, it would've been something much, much different.

My whole life had been grounded on hating my father. The thought of him protecting me, trying, didn't compute.

Rumor had once told me there were two stories to every tale. The reason we should never assume. The reason we needed to ground ourselves in fact first. I had failed in that regard. I saw my father as ruthless as I had my grandfather because it's what I wanted to believe. Tristan had let me be tortured. He had done nothing to protect me.

Because he hadn't known, asshole.

I looked up just as Tomás walked into the room. My heart swelled. Yeah, no denying that shit. He had shallow wounds on his face, but the wounds seemed to have sunken deeper than flesh. I scanned the scratches on his face as he took a seat next to me. "What happened?" I asked, grazing one of the deeper ones near his jaw with my finger. His dark eyes never left mine. Two pools of onyx stones with a cast of light, so breathtaking. I had to remember to breathe.

"My mother," he said, his voice soft. With no emotion behind it. We had never talked about anything personal before and the mention of his mother obviously hurting him made me want to ask more questions. "She doesn't like me very much. I think because I remind her of my brother. My half-brother, Maddox," he added.

The one thing Henry hadn't been able to find out was the link between Tomás and Maddox and he was trusting me with that information. Offering me his own version of a truce.

"We share the same mother," he went on. "No one knows. He adopted me to protect me from his father."

The mention of Cillian made me stiffen.

"It's why I had the contract out on me. You were right, I should've gone back to school." He lowered his eyes and I cupped his chin, forcing him to look at me.

"Cillian isn't going to hurt you." I bit back what I really wanted to say. I didn't have to tell Tomás that Cillian was dead. That it had been me who saved him. He knew.

The silence between us stretched. I don't think we'd ever had a moment where we weren't fighting. Bitching at each other. Even the sex had been kind of violent. But he felt like home.

"What are you going to do, Kieran?"

I turned back to the letter. It's what I had always wanted. To be legitimate. To be someone important. Power. But it felt wrong. "It's what I always wanted, to be recognized, to be … someone, but I wanted to earn it, not have him just give it to me as a way to protect me. It feels all fucked up."

"It's just a name."

"It's more than that."

"It doesn't have to be who you are," he said with a little bit of hope in his voice.

I wanted to know what he saw in me to believe I could be better. "You don't know what I've done."

He sighed, played with his fingers on his lap. "I don't want anything to happen to you. You deserve a chance." There was a slight pause. He didn't look away. His eyes were so intense, pulling something from inside of me.

"It won't absolve me."

"Nothing will if you don't let it."

Whatever Tomás had planted inside my chest had bloomed. I felt it everywhere. "Are you coming back to Arcadia?"

"Do you want me to?"

"Yes."

He nodded. "Then I'll go back."

"If I sign this, we can't … we won't be able to really be together."

He licked his lips, his eyes lowering again. Words played in my memories, what he'd said in the car about waiting for me. I wanted that so damn bad. If I was a good person, I'd let him go. If I was a good person, I'd want to see him happy, even if it was without me. But the thought nipped at the dark part inside me. The part that Cillian had created, used, molded into a killer. I couldn't just walk away from Tomás.

"You asked if I wanted you to wait until I was ready to come out. Yes. I want you to wait for me." My heart felt about to burst.

"Why?" he asked, as if a reflexive response.

Because I love you. The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't get them out. Instead, I went with, "Because you're mine."

Unlike me, Tomás wasn't very good at schooling his emotions. He wore them all the time in his eyes. His beautiful eyes. I had hurt him. I saw that clear as day. I also saw the moment he decided to give me what I wanted. Him. Any way I could get him. He leaned in and kissed me. It burned my skin, drew all my nerve endings taut. Every cell in my body came alive under his touch and I wanted so much more. Slowly, it ended. "Okay. I'll wait until you're ready. I'll do whatever you want me to do because I love you." He slid the pen close to my fingers. "Sign."