I run a hand down her spine while craning her head back just enough so I can look at her properly. I brush her wet locks away from her face and kiss her temple. Then her cheek. Then the other cheek. Then the tip of her nose.
“Tiernan,” she whispers again, her palm going to the nape of my neck, while her other hand presses up against my pec where my family crest is tattooed.
“You had a bad dream, acushla. All is well now.”
“No.” She shakes her head adamantly, tears still freefalling. “It wasn’t a dream. It was real. It was real, Tiernan.”
My palms cup her face so she can look me in the eye.
“Just a dream, wife. No other demon here aside from your husband.”
She sobs on a hiccup at my failed attempt at humor. Shay has always been the funny one in the family. I lack the capacity.
“I can’t have children, Tiernan. I can’t,” she cries, making a large lump clog my throat at the desperation in her eyes. “God is punishing me. For what I’ve done. For what my family has done. I’ll never have children because of it. I don’t deserve such a blessing when all my life I’ve lived at the expense of other people’s suffering.”
“Stop.” My tone is so severe that her sob actually stops midway. “You are not being punished. God has a long list of assholes who deserve his wrath way before you ever make the list. You are good, acushla. So fucking good, my soul weeps sometimes at how good your heart is.”
She tries to shake her head, but I force her to keep still.
“God does not punish the kind-hearted. He does not punish those who still see beauty in this world. He does not punish the frail and delicate. If that is the kind of God you believe in, then fuck him. He doesn’t deserve your kind soul. In fact, I don’t think there is anyone who does. I sure as fuck don’t.”
Her lashes beat a mile a minute, as if stunned with all the things that I’m saying.
“You don’t think you deserve me?” she asks, apparently the only thing she got out of my rant.
“I know I don’t, acushla. Not after everything I’ve put you through,” I confess mournfully.
Not after last night when I purposely hurt you with my lies just so you wouldn’t see my fear.
Her eyelashes continue to flutter, but at least there are no more tears.
“Why are you here, Tiernan?” she asks outright, pushing herself out of my grip. My arms feel naked without her in them, but I don’t make a move to pull her to me.
“Because I heard you hurting,” I admit, hoping she hears the truth in my words.
“Why did that bother you? You’ve done worse than just hear my pain and done nothing to stop it. You’ve even gone as far as to provoke it,” she accuses, but her tone is so soft that it pains me further that there is no malice behind her words.
“I know.”
Shit.
Fuck.
How can I start making amends when I can’t even find the right words to explain myself?
I turn onto my back and stare up at the ceiling, feeling her gaze on me the entire time.
“I lied to you.”
“When did you lie?”
“Last night when I told you that I didn’t want to have a child with you because I would hate it. It was a lie.”
She doesn’t so much as breathe, waiting for me to explain.
“I’m sure by now someone must have told you about my brother Patrick. My mother, perhaps? Shay or Colin?”
Again, she stays silent.
“Whatever they told you about him, it’s true. He had the purest of hearts. So pure that it was easy to wound and hurt. When we were children, Ma used to say we were each other’s shadows. Where I went, Patrick was never far behind. Maybe it was because Patrick and I already had a strong brotherly connection before Shay and Iris were born, or maybe it was due to the fact that we were closer in age than we were with our other brother and sister. Whatever the reason, we were more than just brothers. He was my best friend. Where I was cocky and hard, he was humble and kind. Opposites in every way, yet we never fought. Never said one mean thing to the other.”
Rosa’s breathing begins to slow down so as to not miss a single word, completely enthralled by my story.
“But once we became teenagers, we started to drift apart. I was so hungry to do my part in the Mafia Wars, help Athair fight the enemies that wanted to see us buried ten feet under, that I badgered my father until he relented and let me fight. I made my first kill just days shy of my fifteenth birthday. It was one of the proudest moments of my life, but Patrick didn’t speak to me for a full month when he found out what I had done. He couldn’t understand how I could condone taking a life in any capacity. He said there was no honor to be found if my actions spilled even one drop of innocent blood. That someone needed to be brave enough to put old feuds aside. That was the only way we could ever guarantee our family’s survival. And for me to pick up a gun and knife and intentionally steal any life was a sin in his book. My brother spoke passionately of peace, while my heart burned only for vengeance.”