Find A Way Or Make One (17 page)

He begins pacing up and down the living room, running his hand repeatedly through his hair. Oh shit, my boy is nervous. I don’t want him to be nervous. “Tiarnan, you have to know that there is nothing that you can tell me that will make me love you or
Cian any less.”

Tiarnan stops pacing and lets out a loud snort. “Really? How about the fact that the monster that got you raped is my father? Or that Cian could be his son too? Or he might be mine? How do you feel about us now?”

Well, here it is. He has finally decided to come clean with me. In a very ironic way, I feel like I should send Wyatt a thank you card for this. “Oh sweetie, I guess I have a few things to tell you as well. Like I have always known who your father was, since the first week you came to live with me, and I talked to the head of my division at the DEA to find out what mission Toby had been on.
From there it was pretty easy to deduce who was your biological father.
I also know who Cian’s father is too, and it sure as hell isn’t you. You have loved him enough to be his father, though. Hell, since the very beginning you have loved Cian, and then Seamus with such tenacity that it brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.”

By this time Tiarnan is sitting in the loveseat opposite the couch that I am sitting on. His head is down and he keeps repeatedly tapping his fingers together. When he finally looks up at me, I can see tears threatening to fall from his eyes. He starts to speak, but gets choked up and has to
look away for a moment. When he finally looks back at me I see past the tears to the emotions warring with each other in his eyes. Hope, fear, hate, and shame; they are all there but the two winners are hope and fear. “How do you know? That Cian is not my son I mean?”
His voice became so soft that I could barely make out the last part of the question.

“Sweetie, I have been around enough soldiers and victims to recognize PTSD when I see it, and you had all the classic symptoms, night terrors especially. When you used to get caught up in the most vicious
o+f the night terrors,
you used to scream and shout. I couldn’t make out everything you said, but I could make out enough to realize that
Cian’s
questionable paternity was at the root of most of your pain. I discreetly had a DNA test done on both of you. He is your brother, not you son.”

Tiarnan bows his head again. When he starts talking again, he refuses to look up at me, and that breaks my heart.

“Regardless of how cruel and malicious he was, the woman that gave birth to me loved him; even though he never loved her. She eventually turned to Heroin to numb the pain, and would pawn her body in order to forget. She died when I was ten of an overdose, and I was forced to live with him, even though he made no bones about despising me.

When I was fourteen, I caught the eye of one of his favored whores. He wasn’t paying her enough attention at the time so she decided she would get it from me instead. At first, I thought that I was
getting back at him for all the harm that he had done to me and my mother. I thought that the blow to his pride alone was worth being used like I was nothing more than a vibrator with a person attached to it. I soon realized that he knew and just didn’t care. Shortly after that, I realized that she was doing a lot more to me than using my body; she was destroying my very soul. I told her to never touch me again, and she laughed and told me that Zan had given me to her to use as she pleased.

Not long after that, she went away for about seven months and when she came back she dumped a baby in my lap and told me I could take care of it or throw it in the river, but she sure didn’t want it. About that time, TB tried to bring Zandoville down. The day before he launched his take down, he gave me the letter and told me to get myself and the kid to you; that you would take care of us. I told him that I had been taking care of myself for a long time now and he asked me how that was going so far. I knew then I had to give the baby that could be my brother or my son a better life than what I had had so far. I honestly wasn’t going to stay with you, just drop the kid off and go, but you wouldn’t let me,” he finishes with a lopsided smile.

I slowly get up and walk over to sit beside my oldest baby. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped you get through this, just like Daddy
Samee and my mom did for me.”

He takes in a sharp breath. “You mean you don’t hate me?”

I pull him into a hug. “You have been my son since the first day I met you. Nothing ever would or could change that.”

He pulls back from me with a frown painted over his face. “What if I had been
Cian’s dad?
Obviously that bothered you enough to do a DNA test.”

Now I am getting slightly pissed. I grab his face with both hands and pull his head down so that our foreheads are touching and I am looking into his eyes. “Now listen here. I wouldn’t have cared about you being his father or not. I did that test so that when you ever felt ready to tell me about your fears, I could tell you the truth; regardless of what it is. Who your father is or who Cian’s father is doesn’t matter to me. If the test had said you were his father, it wouldn’t have made any difference. I would have loved you anyway.”

At that last statement, Tiarnan pulls me in for a hug and lays his head on my shoulder and cries.

23

“
I had the girl, but never really had her heart. You had the girl AND her heart and you threw them both away.”

Christien

Wyatt

As I sit in the commons area of the suite, waiting for Sable to get ready, I think about all the possible outcomes of tonight’s meeting, I realize that there was really no reason for me to go
through with this, this...this farce. Be
ing completely gracious, I concede
in my mind that Sable may not have been completely truthful when she said that she was engaged to this prince. Knowing what I know of the girl, she was probably sleeping with the guy and Kye stepped in and the prince’s attention was diverted. Cale obviously thought that since no promises had been made that it would prove Kye’s innocence. Kye’s innocence
; what complete and utter bullshit! She might not have destroyed a relationship, but she had gone after the guy for mercenary reasons. She had used her body and her skill in bed to enthrall him. I can’t call her a whore, my own pride won’t stand for thinking of a girl I love as a whore, but in my mind she is pretty damn close.

So I have to ask myself;
why am I actually going through with this? It won’t make Kye into the woman I thought she was; not
hing can. But it will finally get Sable out of my life. After Cale proves that she wasn’t really engaged to the prince, she will be so embarrassed that she will slink off, never to be seen or heard from again.

Finally the door to her room opens and she appears; dressed in a tight, short red dress that should be flattering, but only makes her look desperate. When I asked her if she would go out to eat with me tonight, I could see the smirk that she quickly suppressed. She thought she had finally snagged me, and that tonight she could go in for the kill. If nothing else, it would be satisfying to watch her get hers.
I know it doesn’t make sense, but even though I know in my head that everything that I have lost is because Kye is not who I thought she was, in my heart I still associate Sable with the pain that I have felt. I can’t wait until she is finally gone and she can’t get her mom to pull anymore strings.

Standing up, I give her a slow once over; even though
the sight of her makes my skin crawl. “Nice. Before we go to dinner, we have to go to a quick meeting. Shouldn’t take more than fifteen, twenty minutes tops.”

Sable doesn’t seem to like this idea. She started trying to prettily pout, but I just grabbed her arm and walked us out the door. I had given the cab driver directions that would take us to the warehouse in such a roundabout way that I knew she would never realize where we were actually going until we got there.

When we finally did reach the warehouse, the pretty pout was replaced with perhaps the ugliest and most belligerent expression that I had seen her wear. “Why are we here Wyatt baby? I don’t like being
anywhere
she
might show up. You understand that, right?”

I let out a small, bark of a laugh. “Sable, I can guarantee that
she
will not be there.”
I really could too. Earlier today, Cale had called me to confirm that I would be there, and I had asked if there was any way that he could keep my interaction with Kye to a minimum, he had just laughed.

“I can assure you, Kye won’t be there tonight.
She has already met her quota of bullshit for one lifetime if I have anything to say about it.”

The fact that Kye would not be there to plead her case was confusing. “How does Kye think she is going to get me to change my mind about her if she is not there?”

My question was met with a long, drawn out silence. When Cale finally spoke, I could all but taste his hostility. “Fucker, I don’t think you are getting the point of this little meet and gree
t tonight.
The sole purpose of tonight isn’t to get you and Kye to ride off into the sunset, happily ever after. That ship has done sailed, and I don’t think you could ever get it back again. No, the point of tonight is to make sure that you know the truth about what you threw away, so that it haunts you every day of your miserable life.”

Well hell. That sure as hell put me in my place. Kye sure has a protector in my former Seal team member. I can’t understand how Kye was able to get him to turn on his brother as much as he has, so I ask him. “What the hell has Kye done to make you her number one fan?”

A long silence follows my question. Just when I think he has already hung up, Cale starts talking in a voice that is so soft and quiet, I have to wonder if it is really Cale on the other end of the line. “A while back, I lost all faith in love. Hell, I lost all faith in fucking humanity. Kye showed me how to get my faith back, and she showed me that love, true love,
can and will always be there.”

I sit there for a long moment. Finally, the need to know is just
too
great for me to ignore anymore. “Have you had a
relationship
with Kye too?” I know the stress I put on the word relationship made anything that had occurred between them sound sordid, but I couldn’t let myself believe that Kye and Cale had actually been in love. If I did, then I would have to accept that Kye could truly love someone; and that would have me constantly looking for anything that said she truly loved me. Deep down I know that if I went looking for proof that Kye truly loved me and found out that she didn’t, I would die. Yeah, I may go on breathing, but my very essence would be dead.

Yeah, it is much better to just think she is a self-serving, gold digging bitch and leave it at that.

***

Sable and I reach the door to the warehouse, where I push on it to find that it is open.
The warehouse has been painted black by the dark night outside. The only light that I can see is a small flickering light in the conference room, leading me to assume that is where we are
supposed to go. As we reach the door of the conference room, I make out Cale and a large man standing on the other side of the conference table.

Sable looks at the man beside Cale; it is obvious that she doesn’t recognize Cale or the guy standing next to him, so she still doesn’t know that anything is going on.

Just when I am getting ready to ask Cale what his game is, a voice speaks out behind us. “Hello again Sable. I see you are still trying to wreck lives and
add notches to your bed posts I see.”

I look over at Sable. She has turned white as a sheet. I let out a long whistle and turn around. The guy is dressed all in Armani suit, and I can tell that he is used to Armani and the other fine things in life. His dirty blond hair is expertly styled and the tight smile of his seems somewhat out of place. Like he hasn’t smiled or had anything to smile about in years.

As I am trying to figure out what is going on, Sable suddenly turns around and runs off.
Cale starts laughing with the man standing beside him. Even the smile that Armani suit is wearing becomes a little more natural. He shakes his head then walks over to Cale. “Guess she didn’t want to reminisce about old times, huh?” Once he reaches Cale’s side he holds out his hand.

Cale reaches out to shake the extended hand. “No, I guess she didn’t. Thank you for coming. When I called, I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t even expect you to know who I was.”

“I know who you are. I make a point to know everyone in
her
life.”

After hearing that, my confusion takes over. “Who the hell are you and what the fuck is going on?”

“Good evening…Wyatt is it?
My name is Christien.”
Armani suit turns to address me; without holding a hand out for me to shake. Armani suit looks pissed, but I really don’t know why he is so pissed. As I stare at him for a moment, it suddenly hits me.

Holy shit!
“Your Sable’s ex-fiancé, aren’t you? The prince who slept with Kye and broke her heart.” I
barely have time to finish my sentence before Christien has both hands wrapped around my throat.

Cale and the other man move to force Christien to release me, but somehow their movements are slow; slow enough for Christien to inflict some damage. As they pull Christien away from me a catch a smirk on Cale’s face before he quickly school’s his expression. It is then that I
realize
that my suspicions had been correct. Cale and the other man had moved decidedly and purposefully slow.

Christien shakes Cale and the other guy off, and begins to pace up and down the conference room. After regaining some of his composure, Christien turns and levels a glare at Cale. “This waste of skin is who Kye loves; really? I never thought my girl would be into pain, but evidently she is, because listening to this dumbass spout his nonsense is probably the most painful thing I have ever had to endure.” He slowly shakes his head and turns to look out the window.