“It took you long enough!”
“Don’t be nasty,” Alannah hit back. “None of this is me fault. I’m the one who was hurt and embarrassed and have been carryin’ it around for years, not you.”
“Not me?” Damien bellowed. “I’ve carried it around since the second I did you wrong, and I fucking know it. I know what I did, and I’ve tried to make it right, but I can’t. You’ve made it impossible.”
“How?” Alannah asked.
“By being with him!” Damien roared. “I haven’t touched anyone since I touched you. I haven’t kissed anyone since I kissed you. I haven’t looked at another woman since I was fucking eighteen, but that ends tonight. If you have moved on, then so will I.”
I felt my mouth drop open with shock at Damien’s admission, and so did everyone else’s.
“Fine,” Alannah screamed, but I heard it in her voice that she was going to cry. “Go be with some bitch ‘cause I won’t be here when you get back. You say you’re done? Well, so am I!”
Damien humourlessly laughed. “You’ve been done with me for years, and you know it!”
I jumped when the hall door opened and slammed shut. Bronagh handed over Georgie then pushed away from Dominic and ran out to the hallway when Alannah’s crying could be heard. I turned and gripped Ryder’s arm after he handed Locke back to his mother.
“Go after ‘im,” I pleaded with my husband. “He will never forgive ‘imself if he gets with someone tonight. He loves ‘er, Ryder, and she loves ‘im. They just need to figure a lot of shite out before they get to the point where they both realise it.”
Ryder nodded and looked at his brothers.
“It’ll take all of us to talk some sense into him,” he said.
My heart hurt. Everything in my personal life with Ryder was perfect, but Alannah and Damien were a part of my life overall, and I couldn’t stand by while they both self-destructed.
“We have to help them,” I said to the girls.
I could hear Bronagh trying to comfort Alannah, but I heard that she was semi-crying too. It hurt her when Alannah hurt, just like it was hurting the other girls and me to see her in this state.
“What will we do?” Aideen asked while the brothers muttered to one another.
“If she isn’t serious about ‘im, then she needs to end whatever she has goin’ on with Dante,” Keela said. “I know it sounds awful, but that’s what needs to be done if she wants a chance with Damien.”
We nodded in agreement.
Keela looked at Aideen. “Your brothers are only comin’ around to Kane’s brothers now, but that progress will halt if Damien jumps Dante out of hurt and anger. None of your brothers will stand by and let that happen. If Dante gets the better of Damien, Dominic will step in, and then Harley will be on ‘im like a bad rash, and Kane will get involved and so on. It will cause nothin’ but trouble.”
Aideen sighed. “I know. I’ve messaged Dante, the stupid fuck—”
She cut herself off when her phone began to ring.
“Speak of the devil,” she muttered before she answered her phone and put it to her ear. “You’re a stupid bastard ruled by his dick, do you know that?” she snapped.
The lads stopped talking and focused on Aideen and her conversation with her brother.
“Do you realise the shit storm you’re involved in?” She continued talking over her brother, who was trying to get a word in but couldn’t. “Damien and Alannah just had a big argument, and she revealed she is sleepin’ with you, you nasty fuck. They both have a thing for one another and have for years but are horrible at being honest and talkin’ about their feelins’. Alannah is in tears ‘ere, and Damien will probably have a go at you if he comes across you.”
Aideen paused, then shouted, “I don’t bloody know where he is. He’s on his lunch break so he’s probably gone to some pub to drink it out. Why?”
She gasped after Dante replied to her question.
“Don’t you dare go and look for ‘im, do you hear me? You can’t fix this. What’s done is done—Hello? Hello?”
Aideen pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it.
“That bastard just hung up on me.”
“I’m sure he lost service,” Kane said while rubbing his right temple.
“He didn’t lose service; he hung up on me.”
If there was one person in the world who you didn’t hang up on, it was Aideen Collins.
“Forget that,” I stated. “Did he say he was goin’ to look for Dame?”