“How’s that?” I ask him.
“I’m going to marry Mack,” he tells me proudly. “She’s going to be my wife.”
I stare at him, and he grins.
“I know ye like her, deep down inside. I know ye do. You can quit pretending you don’t. Anyway, back to the picture I have in my head. I want to have a family with her. Kids. And part of that picture involves you, Fitz.”
“I don’t think I follow,” I tell him.
He looks at me, and he’s got that serious expression on his face. He doesn’t get it very often, but I know when he does that what he’s about to say is important.
“Ye’re a brother to me,” he says. “And I want my kids to know and love ye like I do. The way Mack does too. I want my kids to know their uncle Ronan. And I have no doubts in my mind that you will protect them the way ye do me. The way ye do all of your family here in the syndicate. Am I right?”
“Aye.” I nod. “I will.”
“Ye didn’t even have to think about it, Fitz,” he says. “And that’s how I know you’ll be just fine around kids. So whatever’s got you tied up in knots, ye need to let it go.”
He gets up and I follow him to the door. But before he goes, he stops to look back at me again.
“Ye know, Fitz. Sometimes people think they can’t change. But I remember that day I met you so many years ago. And if anyone ever tried to tell me you haven’t changed, I think you’d know exactly what I’d have to say on the matter.”
Chapter Seventeen
Sasha
It happened this morning.
She slipped away in her sleep somewhere in the middle of the night when the house was dark and quiet. Amy has been and gone as have the medical personnel. I watched them carry her away, and now it’s just me and Emily, sitting on the sofa, silence stretching between us.
It hasn’t really hit me yet. I think I’ve been preparing for it so long that I’m not really even sure how I should feel. Right now, I feel nothing. Just… nothing.
“So what now?” Em’s voice finally breaks the silence, somewhere in the late evening hours.
We haven’t eaten all day. Or moved. Or even spoken. But now she wants to talk. I knew it would come. She wants to get back to her life in California and pretend this didn’t happen. That’s Em’s way of dealing with things. Mine is to let her go and pretend I don’t need her. Because that’s what big sisters do. I’ve always looked out for her. Protected her. Sacrificed for her.
Sometimes I wonder if she knows how much I’ve sacrificed for her. To keep her life the way she wants it to be. So she can be young and go to school and have all those experiences I never got to. When I see her right now, looking at me like she doesn’t want to be here, I wonder if she even knows. If she even cares.
“What do you mean?” I ask her, even though I know what she’s trying to do.
She’s been spoiling for a fight ever since she got here. Because fighting makes it easier to leave. Easier to lash out at someone when you’re hurting. She’s been lashing out at me ever since Blaine came into my life. And every bruise, every stilted conversation has driven us further and further apart.
She talked to me like I was so stupid. Like I was just one of those women who didn’t know any better. The truth is, she’s the one who doesn’t know any better. She doesn’t know what it’s like to have to choose. Sometimes I resent her for that. Like right now when she’s acting like she’s too good to be here anymore. In this apartment and in my presence.
“What are you going to do now, Sash?” she asks. “Keep working at the strip club until you’re old and gray? I thought you said you had a plan.”
“I do have a plan,” I tell her.
“Really?” she mocks me with accusing eyes. “Because I saw that guy sneaking out the other morning. That mafia guy.”
I blink at her and she laughs. “You just can’t fucking help yourself, can you?” she says. “You just won’t stop until you self-destruct.”
“Now you listen to me, kid,” I yell at her as I jump off the sofa and stare at her in disbelief. “You don’t know anything about the way the real world works. And for good reason. Ma and I always protected you. Sheltered you. So that you never had to deal with these kind of realities. You have no idea the sacrifices I’ve made to keep you safe. So that you could go to college and have a shot at a normal life.”
“Oh I know,” she says condescendingly. “I know all about your sacrifices, Sash. Spreading your legs and taking your clothes off up on stage. Is that how you sheltered me?”
There have been moments in my life when I felt like nothing. Thought I was nothing. But to have my own sister say it, my own flesh and blood… it feels like I’ve just been knifed in the stomach.