Olivia glared, but nodded. “Yes, sir…”
“Neal, I hope you’ve corrected this situation,” he cut her off to give his attention to his favorite.
“Actually, grandpa, Olivia has been handling things just fine on her own,” he hissed out. But that anger had more to do with Olivia’s rape, and the fact that we couldn’t find Harvey yet, than grandfather’s words.
“Huh.” He frowned, looking over at Coraline. “Nice hair, when did you become a lesbian?”
“Never,” Declan and Coraline said at the same time. They didn’t speak much when Shamus was around.
“How far you all have strayed from tradition,” he said, cutting his lamb.
For a decrepit old man he had a strong grip.
“How long do you plan on staying, Shamus?” Evelyn asked softly as she ate.
“As long as I please,” he snapped, causing my father to grab his knife. However, my mother held his arm. I wished she hadn’t.
“For someone who says he came so far to see me, you and I haven’t spoken much. I don’t care how long you stay, my question is: why are you here?” Mel glared.
Shamus chuckled at her, taking his time to chew. “It’s a shame you aren’t male. I could respect you more.”
“It’s a shame you don’t have manners. Now answer my question, old man, or I will pull it out of you,” was her reply, causing Shamus to just laugh, allowing us to see all the food in his mouth.
“You try so very hard to be something you can never be. A woman will never be a boss. No matter how many people you kill, no matter how much you threaten. You will always be a cunt. All women are cunts, I wish my grandson would have found one with even a drop Irish blood in her veins to make up for it.” I expected Mel to flip out, but instead, she regarded him carefully.
“You’ve lowered your standards. I’ve heard even being half Irish wasn’t good enough for you,” Mel stated, much calmer than I was.
He had come into my home uninvited and insulted us all. He spoke as if we were nothing but gum under his shoe. As if we weren’t even family. Shamus was a pig. Every time he spoke, the pressure from keeping my mouth shut built up behind my eyes.
“I was not unreasonable. After all, if my son had chosen the woman I’d gotten for him, I’m sure he wouldn’t have a dumbass, a mouse, and a cripple as sons. But apparently, my words fall on deaf ears.” The pig snickered.
A dumbass…Neal
A mouse…Declan
A cripple…Me
We all knew our titles, he had made it clear to all of us when we were children, but he always said he’d rather have a dumbass than a mouse or a cripple.
“I would have sooner killed myself than marry Catharine Briar,” my father snapped, and again my mother held him back.
“Maybe you should have and saved me so much trouble!” Shamus yelled. I prayed the man would have a stroke.
“So you’re here due to the Briar’s,” Mel stated, eyeing him carefully. “Let me guess, you wanted Liam to marry her daughter.”
“Look at you, using that pretty little brain of yours. I wish you would have done the same when you locked Natasha Briar away.”
I tried to figure out where the dots connected. As far as I knew, the Briar family didn’t have anything worth taking, and yet he seemed adamant we marry the trash.
“That was your grandson’s idea. I wanted to kill her. I came close one time in church,” Mel confessed.
How she could manage to stay composed was beyond me.
Shamus turned to me as I watched him, biting my tongue once again. He looked me over, held his nose up high, as if I were filth.
“How did you two, of all people, become the Boss? You, Liam, will never be great,” he said. “You will always be the crippled boy trying so hard to be a man. I guess that was why you can handle being married to someone with bigger balls.”
I grabbed the table knife just like my father, wanting to ram it into his goddamn throat, but Melody squeezed my leg.
“I do believe I will take that as my queue to leave. These old bones of mine need to be rested,” Shamus said as he rose with the help of his cane. “You all enjoy your evening.”
“Father,” Sedric called out to him, stretching out the word to the point where he grimaced just by saying it.
Shamus stopped, turning back to him and looked just as surprised as I was.
“Do not spend the night in our house,” he said.
“That’s where you are wrong, son. It’s my house. All of this—everything you have, everything you have accomplished—is because of the deals I made.”
With that, he left.
MELODY