I’d monitored him over the years. I’d been compelled to.
Not only to make sure that we were under the radar, but also because it was a sick, bittersweet need to check in. To see what he was doing. To make sure the life hadn’t killed him.
Even while I’d run, far and wide from him, I’d never stopped caring.
Couldn’t stop.
This kind of love didn’t just die. Didn’t just burn away.
It stayed there, pretty much like the Olympic goddamn flame—
“Mom?”
Seamus’s voice was a little squeaky, but I was getting used to that. He had zits on his chin that he moaned over in the mirror too, and when I said he stank at the end of every day? I wasn’t joking.
Hormones weren’t only a bitch for him.
“What is it?” I called, moving toward his voice because he sounded a little on edge.
Sure, he was randomly squeaky, but at moments of high pressure, it stayed that way.
As I trudged down the hall, with its tribal red and white rug that I’d picked up on a job in Dubai, where Seamus and I had lived with a Bedouin tribe for three months, I stared at all the trinkets I’d picked up over the years.
I couldn’t take everything with me even if I wanted to.
And want I did.
These things were my past. Each item had a memory.
Like the massive seashell on the stand from when Seamus and I had gone out to collect sea glass in Devon over in the UK. Then there was the wooden mask from the Zulu tribe we’d interacted with when Seamus was about four.
He didn’t remember it, but I did. They’d painted him up like he was one of their own and he’d run around, wild and free, more wild and free than most kids could ever imagine.
He’d had more opportunities with my career than any boy could hope for. Had seen things, done things, lived more in his fourteen years than most did in a lifetime.
I had to believe—
No, I hadn’t done wrong by him.
I hadn’t.
I refused to believe I had.
So when I found him standing by the window, peering out into the yard in the dark, I wondered what he was doing.
We were vigilant by nature. I had two alarm systems that worked simultaneously, and I had two guns. One that went in my nightstand, and one that I stored in a cupboard on the wall in the hallway.
Seamus knew about that one.
He also knew that I’d kill him if he took it out and used it.
Guns were supposed to be stored in a safe place, locked away and secured. And this one most definitely wasn’t. But Seamus was a good shot too. He knew how to lock and load a pistol, knew how to clean a weapon and strip it down—because with his heritage, I had to train him. I had to make sure he knew what he was doing, just in case this ever happened.
Just in case we were back in the life.
I bit my lip, on edge to see that he had the gun in his hand, and rasped, “What are you doing with that, son? And why are you in the dark?”
He cut me a look over his shoulder, and at that moment, it was more than just a similarity to Declan.
It was like I was looking at him that first day I’d met him.
Fuck.
They’d been similar ages, only Declan had been lucky. He’d somehow turned into a jock from a teen rom-com movie. Not a zit in sight, and I don’t remember his voice ever squeaking once.
I was pretty sure it had, and maybe he’d used foundation, or maybe his hormones were controlled to the extent where he never even had to worry about zits because he had them under his domination.
Either way, aside from the few differences, it took me back to my youth seeing him standing there. One occasion, I could easily remember Declan getting a gun out of nowhere and using it to protect Deirdre and me. I’d been so shocked that, to be honest, I couldn’t even remember why he had to get his weapon out. What I did remember?
Being jealous.
After Declan had kept us safe, she’d clung to him like a limpet, making an octopus look like she had fewer arms as she stuck to his side, all arms and legs around him, tangled up in him.
Me? I’d been out in the cold.
All while over her shoulder, he’d stared at me with the deepest look. A look that still made my skin heat, my blood rush. God, I could remember that so well. The way my adolescent body, one filled with urges I’d never experienced before, had responded to his, to that fire.
I’d been too young to know what that felt like, and yet, I was one of the lucky ones.
Even if Declan was my end, even if it brought me back into a fold I wanted nothing to do with, I could never regret knowing what those emotions felt like.
I considered it my superpower.
Nothing could ever replicate the magnitude of what I’d felt, so I never looked for it. I just had a few hookups, discreet so it would never inflict an ‘uncle’ on Seamus, and I’d even messed around with some clients while I was working on projects for them.
Why not?
I was young, free, and single. I could do whatever the hell I wanted with my body, but I never wanted my heart to be engaged again.
Why would I?
It was the sweetest torture. The most devastating torment.
Love was pain.
Love was pure.
It hurt.
If it was done right.
And because I’d experienced that so young, I knew what it felt like, knew that it wasn’t for me anymore and that I didn’t have to go out there and find something to replicate it. You couldn’t replicate the un-replicable, and to be honest, I had no desire to ever find myself feeling like I’d once felt. It was an insidious weakness, and I hated being weak.
I liked being strong.
I’d taught my son that too. I’d taught him to be independent, resilient, but seeing him armed with an intent to use the weapon I’d instructed him with set my nerves on edge.
“Look at the car on the street.”
Scowling, I stepped forward. His tone had me hugging the wall, moving over to him on the other side of the window so I could peer out. His gaze was intent, his concentration absolute—so absolute, in fact, that I wished he could be that dedicated to his frickin’ math homework so I didn’t get any bullshit from his teacher. I peered out onto the street, trying to see what he was seeing.
We lived in the city, but it was a good part of town. I hated driving, hated commuting even more so I made sure that, wherever we lived, it was near where I worked. I only had to walk a few blocks to hit the college campus, which made this neighborhood incredibly expensive, but I could afford it.
I’d long since stopped caring about how much things cost, and only instilled a sense of value in objects so that Seamus wouldn’t grow up to be a precocious spoiled brat.
He didn’t know how wealthy I was, wouldn’t until the day I died and he inherited everything, but that was for another time, another place.
The street was neat, manicured in a way that I didn’t like but dealt with. Everything was perfect. And when I said everything, I meant it. The roads wouldn’t dare get potholes, the houses were all flawlessly painted, not even needing a second coat of paint on them. Driveways were cobbled or tiled or paved without a single weed sticking out from between the cracks.
It was the kind of street where not even the lightbulb on a streetlamp would flicker. And if it did? The city would have someone out within the day to make sure it was replaced.
So what he saw—