Page 43 of Irish Daddies
CAROLINE
I wakeup in the middle of the night shivering, gasping. The man’s face sends me to hell in my nightmares, and I wake up there, in the brothers’ guest room.
This time, when I wake up, I’m wrapped up in something soft and warm. Someone’s hoodie. Rian’s, I think. It smells like cedar and clean laundry.
For a few long minutes, I let myself believe I’m just a tired mom who fell asleep after a long day. That I’m safe. That the man who helped me pull the trigger didn’t whisper, “Good girl,” in my ear while someone died in front of me.
But I’m not safe. And I’m not okay.
I sit up slowly, the memories rushing back. The gun. The blood. The way my fingers trembled afterward, like my body couldn’t decide whether to scream or shut down.
The way Declan’s arms around me felt good, safe even, and I allowed myself to relax in them. I allowed him to kiss me.No, that isn’t true. I didn’t just allow him to kiss me. I kissed him back.
And Rian, wrapping me up in a hoodie, the hoodie he’s put on me now, guiding me slowly to the couch and lying me down on my side. Getting me water and softly pushing my hair off my sweaty forehead.
How can these men ruin my life, and it still feels so good when they touch me?
“You did good,” he had said. None of them had left me in that moment, mocked me, or called me weak. They forced their father out of the room. They told him to leave me, and they watched me fall apart and tried to put me back together.
Now, I can feel Rian behind me on the bed, his hoodie draped over me again. It’s the same position I was in that night on the couch. He leans over me and looks into my face. I’m prepared for him to give me the same speech he’s been giving me for days, or weeks now.
But he doesn’t. He sits behind me quietly, and eventually, I look up at him. His eyes are softer than I remember them being before all this, like he’s laid down a piece of his armor.
“You didn’t want to do it,” he says.
“No.”
“And even if you did it to survive, or because he made you, it still feels like you did it.”
I nod. My throat is sore, like I’ve been screaming in my sleep.
“Do you feel like a murderer?” he asks.
I nod again.
He brushes a piece of hair from my cheek and says, “I’m not going to tell you that you aren’t. Maybe you are. What I will tellyou, Caroline, is that if you hadn’t done it, you’d be dead. You chose life. You chose your boys.”
“It didn’t feel like much of a choice.”
“Sometimes they don’t.”
I meet his eyes, then look behind his shoulder and see his brothers behind him, watching us. I move into a position where I’m sitting up. I crawl into his lap and wrap my arms around his neck. I blink fast, trying to hold back the tears, but one escapes onto his neck. He readjusts so his hold is even steadier.
Kellan and Declan step toward us and sit on the other edges of the bed, reaching out to comfort me, their hands rubbing my back and petting my hair as Rian holds me tightly.
We sit in silence for a while. Then Kellan says, “The first time I killed someone, I couldn’t sleep for two nights. I thought I’d never eat again. I washed my hands until the skin cracked.”
“What happened?” I ask him, turning out of Rian’s hold and settling into his lap, my arm still poised around his neck. His touch is comfortable, easy, casual.
Kellan chuckles low and shrugs. “I didn’t have half as good a reason as you did. I mean, in a way, I had the same reason, I guess.Daasked me to. So I did. But no one was holding my finger, there was no one in my ear telling me I had to. I was just…asked. So I did.”
“You grew up around violence,” I say quietly, nodding. My finger traces circles on Rian’s shoulder.
“I did. Is that an excuse?”
I blink at the question, confused by it. “What do you mean?”
“Is it different? Is it better that I was raised in it than that you were thrust into it? Does it change your opinion on it?”
