Chapter 115
Kieran's POV
I pushed through the heavy wooden door of our triple-decker, and the smell hit me immediately—fried food, old carpet, damp plaster. Downstairs, Murphy's Pub was already in full swing, bass-heavy rock music and men's laughter bleeding through the thin walls like they always did. I took the stairs two at a time, my fingers automatically going to the Zippo in my pocket, tracing the engraved letters like a talisman.
Stay warm, K.
At the third-floor landing, I stopped. Light leaked under our door, and I could hear my mother's voice inside, muffled and thick with tears. Mrs. O'Brien's lower murmur answered her, patient and worried.
My chest tightened.
I opened the door. The apartment looked the same as always—threadbare sofa piled with folded blankets, chipped mugs on the coffee table, peeling paint exposing gray concrete underneath. But Mom was curled into the corner of the couch, hands covering her face, shoulders shaking. Mrs. O'Brien sat beside her, one weathered hand patting her back in steady, useless circles.
"Mom." My voice came out rougher than I meant.
She jerked her head up. Her face was swollen, eyes bloodshot, lips trembling like she couldn't form words. Mrs. O'Brien looked at me with an expression I'd seen before—pity mixed with something darker. Fear, maybe.
"Kieran, sweetheart." Mrs. O'Brien stood, smoothing her cardigan. "I should go. Your mother needs you." She paused at the door, glancing back. "If you need anything, you know where to find me."
The door clicked shut. The silence that followed pressed down like a physical weight, broken only by the muffled pulse of music from downstairs and Mom's ragged breathing.
"What happened?" I crossed the room, crouching in front of her, keeping my voice level.
Her fingers dug into my forearm, nails biting through my sleeve. "He called." The words came out hoarse, fractured. "Drake called."
Every muscle in my body locked.
"He said—" She choked on a sob. "He said he's been good. Really good. They're letting him out early. February." Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. "Eight weeks, Kieran. He'll be out in eight weeks."
Eight weeks. Two months. The "three years of peace" I'd bought with my right hand, now compressed into eight goddamn weeks.
"He asked about Lily," Mom continued, her voice getting smaller. "Asked what grade she's in now, if we got her the implant yet. He said—" She swallowed hard. "He said he misses us. That he wants to come home."
"He doesn't have a home." I stood abruptly, the words coming out colder than I intended. "Not here."
"Kieran, he's your father—"
"He's not." I turned toward the window, staring out at the rain-slicked street below, the broken reflections of streetlights in puddles. My right hand started that nerve pain, the one that reminded me exactly what that man had done. What I'd let him do.
"Did you give him my number?" I asked without turning around.
The silence stretched too long. "Mrs. O'Brien's husband went to see him last month," she finally said. "Drake got down on his knees, begging them to tell him we were okay. They thought—they thought I'd want to know."
So Drake knew how to reach us. Knew Lily was in school somewhere. Knew I was at St. Jude's. And the O'Briens, with their big hearts and loose lips, had probably told him more than they should have.
"Does he know where we live?"
"I didn't tell him!" Mom's voice cracked. "I swear, Kieran, I didn't say anything specific. But—"
"But the O'Briens know." I laughed, a harsh sound with no humor in it. "And Drake just has to follow you home from work once. He'll find us in a day."
She started crying again, silent tears this time, streaming down her face. "I'm sorry. This is all my fault. If I hadn't been so weak back then, if I hadn't kept taking him back—"
"Stop." I moved back to her, awkwardly placing my hand on her shoulder. "It's not your fault."
But we both knew that was a lie.
I looked toward Lily's closed door. Behind it, my eight-year-old sister was probably already asleep, her hearing aids charging on the nightstand, her stuffed rabbit clutched in her arms. She had no idea. No idea that the man who'd slapped her deaf in one ear was getting out. No idea that her brother had traded his right hand for three years that had just been cut to eight weeks. No idea that the fragile safety we'd built could collapse any day now.
"Listen to me." I pulled Mom's hands away from her face, making her look at me. "Tomorrow morning, you're changing your number. All of it. And you're telling the O'Briens that if Drake asks anything else, they don't know. Understand?"
"What if he comes looking for us anyway?"
"Then I'll handle it." The words came out more confident than I felt.
Mom searched my face, and I saw the exact moment she decided to believe me, even though neither of us knew what "handling it" would actually look like. She nodded slowly, wiping her face with shaking hands.
"Go to bed," I said quietly. "You need to sleep."
She stood on unsteady legs, pausing to grip my arm. "I don't deserve you."
I didn't answer. Just waited until she disappeared into her room before I finally let my shoulders drop.
The apartment felt smaller suddenly, walls pressing in. I walked to Lily's door, opening it just enough to see her small form curled under the blankets, her mushroom-cut hair spread across the pillow. She was smiling in her sleep.
I closed the door softly.
Back in the living room, I sank onto the couch, pulling out my phone. The screen lit up with our call history, Mom's number repeated over and over, and then—there, at the top—an unknown number with a prison prefix.
I stared at it for a long time, thumb hovering over the "block" button. But blocking wouldn't help. In eight weeks, Drake wouldn't need a phone to find us.
I pocketed my phone and pulled out the Zippo instead, running my thumb over the engraved words. Stay warm, K.
Summer. Who was in New York right now, probably settling into some warm dorm room, surrounded by people who belonged in places like Juilliard. Who'd sent me that text about missing me, and I'd actually said it back, like an idiot. Like I had any right to want her when my life was this—a rotting apartment, a mother who couldn't protect herself, a sister who needed surgeries we couldn't afford, and a father who was coming back to destroy whatever was left.