Page 41 of A Trap So Flawless

She sits up at once.

“I didn’t know that.”

“How would you?”

The only people who ever knew about it before are dead now. My mammy, who lost custody of me for a good long while. My da, who maintained custody, and who was supposed to stay away from her, but didn’t. My grandda, estranged from his only son, who couldn’t do a fucking thing to help me until he eventually found me sleeping rough just before my fifteenth birthday, nearly a year after their deaths.

Most people think I avoid drugs because of the way my parents died.

But it has just as much to do with how I was born.

“Darragh…” Her eyes are searching my face. There’s sorrow in them.

And, fucking hell, there’s pity.

And the pity isn’t even the worst part. The worst part is the way I want to submit to it. The way I want to get down on my knees before her and lay my fucking head in her lap like a dog.

Or a child.

If I did it now, would she push me away? Or would she stroke her fingers through my hair? Let those long nails of hers scratch – so fucking gently – against my skin?

I want it. I want it so much it leaves me terrified and searching for something safer. Something that doesn’t make me feel like I’ve actually got a heart, and it is breaking.

Something like her anger.

“We need to find out what’s happened to Vinny,” I say abruptly, my voice cold. Cruel.

The sad softness in her gaze vanishes.

“What do you mean?” she asks warily.

I think of the video. The wedding. The will.

I’m full of vengeful rage once more. And I’ve never felt more at home.

“Because I haven’t seen a single announcement or article anywhere actually saying that he’s dead,” I reply. “And if he’s not, then I have got some goddamn work to do.”

Chapter 16

Valentina

Darragh seems to grow more agitated as the day goes on. He doesn’t threaten to kill Papà again, but I know he’s thinking about it, because I can hear him talking to Rowan about getting some updates from Tommy. At one point, Darragh steps into the small courtyard to make a call. I see him out there as I head into the kitchen for something else to eat.

Rowan is in there, evidently with the same thought I had. He’s holding the fridge open with a massive, meaty hand, but at the sight of me, he lets it fall shut.

“Hi again,” I say.

“Is there something I can do for you?” He says it stiffly. Grudgingly. Like the only reason he speaks to me at all is because of his boss just on the other side of the glass door at the back of the house. We’ve been here all day at this point. The sun is setting, brushing Darragh with strokes of indigo and bronze while inky shadows pool at his feet. He’s got his phone against his ear. He isn’t moving. His back is to me.

“Is he talking to Tommy?” I watch Rowan’s wary look, and flap my hand at him. “Darragh already told me Tommy’s his man in Montréal right now. Is he calling for information on my papà?”

My mouth goes chalky and dry at the question. I can’t decide if I even want to know what’s happened to papà or not. Right now, I can exist in a floating sort of limbo. Nothing’s certain. No decisions have to be made. A nice little protective cloak of bubble wrap, inflated with ignorance instead of air.

Rowan gives me a slight nod.

I nod back, much more enthusiastically.

“Tommy’s the one who got me on that plane, too, right? And sent Darragh that wedding photo? Ha! To be a fly on the wall when Darragh saw that.”

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