Chapter 70

Itook a hot shower to help me sober up some. Some being the key fucking word because I definitely wasn’t there. I was fucking drained. All I wanted to do was crawl back into bed and sleep for a decade.

Mom wouldn’t let me—not a chance in hell. The shower was the only reprieve I’d get before she reamed my ass all over again for answers. I wasn’t getting out of a long fucking family talk no matter what I did.

I did take an obscenely long shower though. Standing under the hot water did ease the aches in my body a little, but it did nothing to ease the chaos in my mind. I had to fucking face them. My fucking breakdown meant I was stuck with that.

Just how much could I get away with not telling?That question played on repeat in my head. All through my shower. All through pulling on my clothes. And all through dragging my ass back into the dining room, where my family sat waiting not-so-patiently for me to rejoin them. Even David was there—stupid fucker.

Okay, maybe I wasn’t all that angry at David. He probably hadn’t said a fucking word and really did get dragged along for the ride when he should’ve been on his way to Ireland with Mom. I just needed somewhere to put my fucking anger, and it was easiest to hate David over the rest of them.

“And you cook naked?” Mom was saying, a deep frown on her face. Finn sat across from her with his hands folded in front of him and lips pressed together as he nodded. “In my kitchen? You cook naked in my kitchen, Finnegan?”

“I clean everything up afterward,” he told her. Jesus fucking Christ. Like that fucking mattered. Silently, I shuffled into a chair.

“Is it like a fresh-out-of-the-box pasta situation you’re showing them or more of a limp noodle?” Sam asked as he stifled a laugh. Declan smacked him on the shoulder.

“Are you at least upcharging on what you think you’re worth?” Mom demanded. I dropped my head in my hands.

“Jesus Christ, Mom,” I muttered. Of course, Mom would be supportive and at least make sure he was getting paid what she thought he was worth for cooking with his fucking dick out.

“Okay, we’ll come back to this,” she gestured to the space between her and Finn, “because I have more questions, but this isn’t the time for that. Killian.”

“No, please,” I grumbled. “Don’t stop on my account.”

“This is a conversation we need to have.”

“Why do we have to talk about me? Are you really okay with him cooking with his dick out for anyone to watch?” I said instead. This conversation was much more entertaining.

“He’s happy doing what he’s doing with his penis,” Mom stated. Like the fucking children we were, we all fucking snorted or giggled under our breath at her saying the word penis. Some things never fucking changed. “Oh, quiet the whole lot of you. I taught you the proper anatomical terms when you were babies flapping them around like you were God’s gift to the pack.”

“Mom!” Lucas exclaimed, full-on laughing.

“You still do the helicopter, young man,” she retorted. “You should learn to shut your windows after you shower. Esther and Vera got quite the metal show from you and your pierced penis last year.”

“No,” he groaned. “Nol! You’re supposed to tell me if I don’t close my windows!”

“It’s funnier if I don’t,” Nolan said.

“Back to Killian,” Declan spoke over their banter.

“No, we don’t need to—”

“Killian, he’s happy doing what he’s doing while you’re clearly struggling,” Mom interrupted. “It’s time we talk. About everything.”

“And just what the fuck does everything entail?” Okay, I was fucking stalling. I’d agreed to this—initially—but now I didn’t want to.

“What happened between you and Genevieve, why you left, what’s happened since you came back,” she replied. “Do you need me to write you an itemized list?”

Damn, she was sassy.

“You have to promise me that if I fucking tell you, you have to leave Phillip Goodwin alone,” I said, staring hard at Mom. If anyone would intervene and start shit with him, it was her. And it’d fucking kill Genevieve. I wasn’t sure she could live with that shame. I couldn’t do that to her.“Promise me.”

“Killian—”

“Promise me or we’re fucking done,” I snapped.

“Okay,” she lamented with a small nod. “I’ll leave him alone.”

“All of you.”

“We all will.”

“Okay.” Fuck, I didn’t know where to start. I’d kept all this shit bottled up for so goddamn long. Maybe I did need that itemized list. “Phillip Goodwin is a bad man.”

“You’re going to have to elaborate,” Declan commented when I fell silent.

“I’m fucking thinking! Don’t interrupt me,” I snapped. I glanced at Mom and just knew from the look on her face that she was doing her best not to call me out on my language. “What I mean to say is the man is an abusive dick, and if I could put him six feet under, I fucking would.”

There. I fucking said it out loud. And damn did it feel good. Granted, from how they just stared at me, not a single one of them believed me. Why would they? He was a man of God, a pillar of the community. He was a fucking role model.

“The day Mr. Waverly had me walk Genevieve home, she said something to me that didn’t make sense at the time,” I began because going back to the fucking beginning seemed like the best idea. “She talked about how the pumpkin she picked every year had to be the perfect pumpkin because it was the one thing her dad let her have. It was hers. Which at the time I thought was weird, but I didn’t quite grasp just how much.”

I paused. There was a lot of shit I could say after that—weird fucking things leading up to me wanting to take her on a date. While they were things that stuck with me, it didn’t feel like something they needed to know. I wanted to preserve as much of Genevieve’s dignity as I fucking could. I already felt like shit for saying a fucking word.

“When I wanted to take her on a date, do you remember how he came over to talk to me?” I asked Mom.

“I do.” She nodded. “I thought it was a little odd, but he’s her dad. He was just worried about her.”

“He wasn’t—at least not in the way you’d think. He gave me a very long-winded speech about appropriate behaviors for two people engaging in a relationship.”

“I’m sorry, he what?” Mom demanded.

“I wasn’t allowed to put my arm around her, sit too close to her where our legs touched, and so on. No kissing, no hugging, and hand holding only allowed when in the presence of him or his wife.”

“That’s absurd.” It was, but it wasn’t the worst part. I could handle the rules. I followed his fucking rules like a goddamn champ just for her.

“He’d make Genevieve undress after every date so he could do a full inspection and make sure she hadn’t been… inappropriate with me,” I whispered. My head tipped back against the chair, my chest tightening. “I only found out one night when I went back to give her the sweater she left in the car and saw it through the window.”

The look on Genevieve’s face that night was fucking seared in my brain forever. Fear and guilt like he’d find something in all his scrutiny. And when she saw me through the window? I thought she’d die right there on the spot.

“Killian,” Mom began quietly, “what you’re describing… that’s sexual abuse.”

“Don’t tell her that,” I scoffed. I tried. Once and only once. She didn’t talk to me for over two weeks and not until I fucking groveled. It wasn’t that I had a problem with purity culture—I didn’t. What I had a problem with was the way her father abused his power over her and used purity and religion as an excuse for his behavior. The fear, guilt, and shame Genevieve experienced about her own body and her own life choices because of him… that shit was awful. That had nothing to do with purity or religion. That was all Phillip. “That wasn’t even the worst of it. He’d take her in for unannounced, periodical checks at a clinic in Copper Spring to make sure she was… to make sure she hadnt had sex. Gabby, too, when she was old enough.”

God, the words felt wrong coming out of my mouth.

“No.”

“She wasn’t allowed to say no, and he stayed in the room.” My voice broke. Fuck, my heart broke all over again for her. No child deserved that. “She always said he wasn’t… watching when the exam happened, but I still don’t quite believe that. I can’t lie about how fucking awful he is to them.

“The way he talks to her, the way he treats her… he groomed her. He fucking groomed both of them to be subservient wives. He had husbands picked out—arranged marriages with some like-minded fucks from another small town. There’s a whole community of them that share these fucking rules. Gabby got out when he tried to enforce it. The only reason he didn’t do the same with Genevieve was because of me. Because I’m a Byrne. Because the fucking status of being married to a pack leader was more. My name meant more than whoever the fuck the other guy was.”

I couldn’t entertain the thought of what would’ve happened to Genevieve if her parents went through with an arranged marriage.

“Image is everything to her father—how the community sees them, how others in whatever the fuck their religious group is sees them, how God sees them. Clothes were picked out for them, hairstyle, no makeup, limited mirror time to prevent vanity… all of it was designed to put their best foot forward. Skirts only, high necklines, long sleeves—proper attire for girls was what they called it. They even made her chemically straighten her hair when she turned seventeen because her curls were too much.” I sighed, doing my best to steady my breath. I fucking hated talking about it. I hated thinking about it. “Everything that made Genevieve unique, they actively destroyed. He dangled the… the eternal condition of her fucking soul as the reason why she had to listen. God wanted this for her, and if she didn’t, she’d go to Hell. If she didn’t, bad things would happen. If she didn’t, no one would want her. No one would love her. They made her into this… this fucking God-fearing Stepford wife. Serve God, serve her husband, serve her family, serve the community. Such fucking bullshit.”

“Why… why wouldn’t you tell me this?” Mom asked. “I could’ve helped. It was my job to protect everyone in the pack.”

“Because it’s not my place to tell.” I kept using that sentence over and over again. I just wanted them to fucking understand. “She loves him. God help me, that woman has a heart of fucking gold because, for all the awful things he’s done, she still loves him. And she wants him to love her—thinks that he loves her.”

“That’s not love,” Nolan said. The profound sadness on his face mirrored my own.

“When that’s all you know from the people who are supposed to love you, that becomes your standard of love.” What a horribly depressing fucking thought. “She doesn’t want people to know. I don’t think she could handle people knowing. She carries the shame so fucking deep, I don’t know that she can get away from it. I thought… at one point, I thought she could.

“When we got married and we moved into that crappy fucking apartment, I thought it’d get better. But it got worse.” I clenched and unclenched my fists. My hands were shaking. Alcohol? Anger? Anxiety? Who knew? “She… became this shell of a woman. Distant and quiet. She cleaned and cooked and did it all on repeat. Her parents sleep in separate rooms so she expected us to do the same. And when it came to…”

I faltered because fuck me. I couldn’t tell this story without divulging more personal shit than I ever wanted to with Mom. I frowned, staring at her. Damn it. No grown man wanted to talk about his sex life with his mom.

“I can’t get away with talking about this if I don’t fucking bring up our sex life,” I muttered. I glanced at my brothers, expecting a joke or snide comment but none came. “This can’t leave the fucking table. It’d kill her.”

“You already have my word, Killian,” Mom reminded me. “Safe space. And if these five give you any trouble, I’ll take care of it personally.”

That’d have to do. Still, I went back to staring at the ceiling because I couldn’t look at her.

“We waited until we were married, obviously,” I said. “But it didn’t happen on our wedding night. Or even that weekend. Six months. It took six months of trying to figure out what the hell she and I were doing before we did. And we only did it because she said it’d satisfy my curiosity. After that? Not a fucking chance. Sex was for procreation only, not pleasure. It was back to the fucking couch with me.”

“Oh, that poor girl,” Mom whispered. My poor dick. The case of blue balls I had sleeping in the fucking living room and not being allowed to touch my wife had been fucking awful.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I was fucking miserable. She never smiled and meant it. She never laughed. I couldn’t touch her, couldn’t hold her. I didn’t have a fucking wife. I had a fucking housekeeper who slept in what should’ve been my bed. We fought about it—well, I tried to fight about it. She’d cry, and I’d give up.”

I hated seeing her cry—always would.

“I made it one year before I realized I couldn’t do this for my whole life. It wasn’t fair—to either of us. So, I sat her down and gave her two options: we go to couples therapy and she goes to individual therapy, or we get a divorce. Divorce is a sin, so to her, that wasn’t an option. So, we started therapy,” I said. “It wasn’t about us—not for a long fucking time. It was about Genevieve and helping her work through her trauma. We fought about pants, t-shirts, her hair, the decorations in the house, sleeping in the same room with me on the floor.

“But then it just sort of happened… there were pumpkins everywhere, ridiculous coffee cups, and wildly colored blankets. She wore leggings and fluffy socks, and I’d come home to her sliding around the house in them with that smile on her face.” I paused. Fuck, those days were something. “And it turned into dancing with my wife in the kitchen while she let me cook. It was seeing her hair return to its normal texture and satin pillowcases in colors I didn’t know existed. She became… the version of herself the world had been deprived of. And fuck it if I didn’t love having a front-row seat to watching it happen.”

And it was probably the most incredible thing I’d ever fucking witnessed. That kind of growth… she was the strongest fucking woman I knew.