Page 91 of Her Mercenary

It was wrong of me to keep this from you. You should know who your father is.

You must also know that you have been the best part of my life. I have never regretted the decisions I made to keep you safe. You have been the steady light through the darkness. You are strong, resilient, a walking testimony to the strength of the human spirit.

Be who you are in your heart, Roman, not who the world tells you you’re supposed to be.

You are not him. You are mine, my baby boy. You are you.

I love you, my son.

I am always with you, watching over you. This is my dying promise to you.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you, my dear son.

43

ROMAN

The phone slipped from my hands.

I stared at the stained glass window, my vision wavering, my stomach churning, the kaleidoscope of colors merging together as one brown dizzying mass.

I killed my father.

My father killed my mother.

I’m Oisin Cussane’s son.

I’m Conor Cussane’s half brother, the brother of the man I’ve dedicated my life to murdering.

Their blood is mine, and mine is theirs.

It was as if the entire world had imploded. Everything I knew to be true—who I was, where I was from, my roots, my blood—was all lies. Devastating, crippling lies.

My ears began to buzz as I slipped into a state of complete confusion.

Who am I?

I considered my hands, my open palm, the creases running across the skin. Reality blurred. They weren’t my own anymore.

Whose hands are these? Do we have the same hands, Conor and me? Does the same evil run in my blood?

I thought of all the horrible, vile things I’d done in the name of justice, of revenge. All the things I’d allowed when I should have intervened. All for the job.

I imagined my hands that I was staring hypnotically at, moving, hitting my mother, pinning her down. I thought of the adrenaline I would feel when I watched the men abuse the slaves. When I stood on the sidelines and did nothing—in the name of fucking justice.

I’m evil like them.

I am Oisin’s son.

I’m a disgusting, awful creature.

I pictured my mother being thrown against the wall, thrown onto a bed.

These hands.