Exhaling: A Mafia Romance (The O'Keefe Family Collection Book 3) (12 page)

“It’s not a genie’s lamp,” Fallyn complained as Carrigan’s arm went around her back while the other hand roamed her belly in search of the baby he adored.

G
etting
Keenan acclimated to normal life took more than a day, but as each sun rose and fell, he grew closer to understanding how life operated again. Vince’s home became the landing point for the O’Keefes, since it housed Keenan, Fallyn and the coming baby. At any given hour of the day, there were no less than four people milling about, joking, cooking, laughing and catching up.

“You’re doing it again,” Fallyn commented, discarding a two of spades in hopes of a card with a crown on it. “That quiet thing.”

Keenan looked up from his cards at his supine sister on the couch and shrugged. “It’s all just a little overwhelming. So many choices. Like, I get to decide what to wear, what to eat, when to eat, when to get up, when to sleep. I never had this much trouble making those decisions before, but after three years of someone else mapping it all out for me? It’s just hard to wrap my mind around it, is all.”

“That makes sense. Do you want me to set your clothes out for you? Take one decision off your plate?”

Keenan tossed his sister half a smile, breaking himself out of his perplexed state. “Thanks, Mom. I’m alright. Just taking a while to adjust, I guess.”

“Rats. You could’ve been my new Barbie.”

“That’s exactly what I was afraid of.”

Carrigan tossed two cards into the discard pile atop the glass coffee table. He was sitting on the floor leaning up against the couch Fallyn was laying on. “Have you been out of the house yet? You have a two-mile radius, you know. Why don’t I take you out for dinner or something? I mapped out a whole list of places that are within your anklet’s reach.”

Keenan shook his head. “Maybe after the baby comes. I don’t feel comfortable leaving this one.” He winked up at Fallyn from his spot on the floor on the other side of the coffee table from Carrigan.

Fallyn rolled her eyes. “I’m fine. You don’t have to babysit me. I can take a nap or do whatever while you go out. Just because I’m benched doesn’t mean you have to be. Go ahead. Go have fun with Carri.”

Keenan shifted his cards in his hand. “Vince told me I’m supposed to watch you. Make sure you stay laying down and get you whatever you need. He got me out of prison, Fal. I’m not going to drop the ball on the one thing he’s asked me to do. I can go out once the baby comes and you’re up and about.”

“You’re not on lockdown,” Fallyn reminded him. “Vince never told you that you couldn’t leave the house. He doesn’t own you, sweetie.”

“I really don’t mind. I want to make good on something in my life.”

“What are you talking about? You make lots of things good.”

Keenan sighed, the weight of the world compressing a little air from his lungs. “Prison gives you a lot of time to think. I haven’t been a good person. I’m not talking about the family business end of things. That part’s unavoidable. I’m talking about taking care of my siblings. Putting something good back into the world. You lot came to see me all the time when I was locked up. That’s love. Lots of guys in there don’t ever get a visitor. I got several every week.” He kept his eyes on his cards to keep from giving away the depths of his vulnerability from a position of weakness. “It kept me going in there when things got hard. I need to make your lives better, the way you made mine.”

It was the third guilt-ridden speech Keenan had given in the four days since he’d been released. Carrigan put his cards down so he could give his brother his full attention. “Listen to me, Keenan. It could just as easily have been any one of us in there. You think all our hands aren’t drenched in blood? If I would’ve been the one the law slammed down on, I know for a fact you would’ve come to see me all the time. I’m just bummed we couldn’t figure out a way to get you out ourselves. I really hate that you feel this debt to Vince.”

“Vince isn’t all that bad,” Keenan offered before Fallyn could open her mouth to defend her husband. His siblings both cocked their heads at him, confused at Keenan’s sudden declaration of loyalty. “He doesn’t treat me like I owe him anything. He asked me to look after Fallyn because I just so happen to be here.” He ran his hands through his freshly cut hair. It was buzzed on the bottom and cropped shorter on the top, giving him a clean look to compensate for his constantly wide eyes and overwhelmed state. “You should see him with her, Carri. I wanted to hate him on instinct, but I don’t think we could’ve found a guy more in love with her than he is. I mean, Fal sneezes and he’s getting his keys to take her to the hospital.”

Fallyn shifted on the couch to try and find a more comfortable spot. “He’s a little overprotective. He’ll calm down once the baby’s here. I hope. Or he’ll get worse since there are two of us to obsess over. It’s cute. Good thing I’m used to you lot, or it would be a little much.”

“He’s decent to me, too. Doesn’t treat me like he could, being who our family is and that he freed me. I don’t know how I missed it through the years, but he’s not a bad guy. Well, not as bad as we all thought. Or maybe he’s the same version of bad that we are, which I can live with.”

Carrigan shrugged. “Well, I’m glad you’re good here. It feels like we can all breathe a little easier now.”

Fallyn rolled onto her side to try and sit up, but any kind of movement was problematic. Keenan and Carrigan stood and each gripped an arm, gently pulling her up after she insisted she was only standing because she needed to go to the bathroom. She waddled to the kitchen after using the restroom, determined to make the most of her rare moments of freedom. She pulled out leftovers from the night before and heated them up, her mouth watering at the smell of the lasagna. She ate her meal standing up at the counter – she was so tired of lying down.

As she finished the last bite, her eyes fell on her purse that Vince had stashed in one of the glass door cupboards next to the fridge. Since she had been on house arrest every bit as much as Keenan, she had not used her purse in days. Something inside of her shifted, and she knew she had put off finding out about her father long enough. There in the solace of the kitchen, Fallyn took her purse out of the cupboard and pulled out the white envelope that had long since fallen to the bottom of the pink bag. She felt like she needed to open it with a glass of whiskey in her hand, but knew that was not an option. So long had she put off learning about her parentage, that to simply open the envelope and pull out the form felt like cheating somehow.

The results were simple enough to understand, but she read them through so many times, the words began to lose all meaning.

Keenan met her in the kitchen, a look of mild scolding on his face. “I could’ve gotten you something to eat. You’re supposed to be lying down.”

Fallyn looked up at her brother in a new light as her mind tried to wrap around the shifting worldview. Her hands shook as she gripped the paper to her chest. “Keenan?” she whispered as the room started to tilt. She grabbed at the counter, but it did little to keep her upright. So enormous was the weight of the test results that her knees began to buckle – they were so unused to supporting her these days.

“Whoa! Easy, Fal.” Keenan caught his sister and lowered her to the floor slowly. “What happened? Is it the baby? Were you standing for too long?” He knelt next to her, holding her hand and brushing a piece of hair from her petrified face. “Do you want me to call Vince?”

Fallyn usually recoiled from the babying Vince did whenever she was mildly uncomfortable, and the panic he had when she was actually hurt. This time, she knew there was no pulling herself out of the depths of despair. Though it was seven o’clock and he would be home in an hour, Fallyn nodded to her brother.

“I’ll call him. What’s this?” Keenan tried to pry the paper from her hands, but she only gripped it tighter. “Okay, okay. I’ll call him now.” Keenan pulled out the phone Killian had bought him and called Vince after a few fumbles with the device that was still a little outside his technological reach. After he summoned Vince home, he called over his shoulder. “Carrigan! Get your butt in here. Help me get Fallyn to her room.”

Carrigan’s green eyes grew wide when he rounded the corner and found his sister on the floor. “Hey, you alright? You didn’t fall, did you?”

“I caught her just before she hit the floor,” Keenan assured him, gripping one of her arms. Carrigan took the other, and the two lifted their very pregnant sister off the cold floor. Carrigan tried to take the paper from her, but she guarded it like it was her last meal on death row. “Move slow, sweetie. Is it the baby? Should we be taking you to the car?”

“My room,” she insisted. “Nothing’s wrong with the baby. Just got a little dizzy, is all. Can you get me to my bed? I just want to lie down for a while.”

Keenan raised his eyebrow to Carrigan. “Now you
want
to lie down? Okay, I’m officially worried.”

The stairs were problematic, but Fallyn moved slowly up the steps to her room without incident. She was determined to make it to the bed and kick her brothers out before she broke into tears, but every step tormented her emotional state and pulled her mood further downward. When her head finally hit her pillow, a silent tear squeezed out of her eye and slid across her face. “I’m good now. You can go back down with Carrigan and hang out.”

Keenan sat next to where his sister lay on the bed. “I can’t tell if you’re legitimately upset about something, or if you’re having a hormonal mood swing. Either way, I’ll stay until Vince gets here.”

Fallyn closed her eyes to keep any hint of exasperation at bay, still clutching the paper to her chest. “I could really use a minute or two alone, if that’s alright. Just a hormonal mood swing, nothing more.”

After a few seconds of debate, Keenan kissed his sister’s forehead. “Alright. Your phone’s right on the nightstand, so if you need anything, just call. I mean it. I don’t want you trying to come down the stairs or anything.”

“Roger that.” The moment Keenan shut the door, Fallyn let herself weep for the father she loved who didn’t know her anymore. She read over the results over and over again until Vince came home twenty minutes later, bounding up the steps to the wife who finally asked for help. “Vince?” she inquired, opening her swollen eyes to find the man she loved, looking like a knight in shining armor ready to fix any problem that might befall her.

“What happened? What’s wrong? Keenan said you needed me, so I came right home. What’s wrong with the baby?” He shook his head. “Tell me on the way to the hospital. Let me help you up.”

Fallyn shook her head as she lay on her side looking up at him. “We’re both fine. Nothing like that. I’m just having a rough one.” She relinquished the paper with a shaking hand. “I had a DNA test done with me and Daddy a couple months ago, but only just had the guts to open the results today.”

Vince’s eyebrows knit together in consternation as his blue eyes flitted over the page. “Why didn’t you tell me? This is a big deal. You shouldn’t keep secrets like this from me.” His gasp won out over the lecture he was gearing up for when he made sense of the conclusion typed at the bottom of the page. “No! Patrick’s really not your father? This says Patrick’s related to you, but he’s not your father?” His stomach churned when he read further, reaching out for his wife’s hand as the revelation that had rocked her so permanently bowled him over as well. “P-Patrick… He’s… I… Oh, Fal. This is big. I don’t know what to say.”

“Just be with me.” She pulled him to sit beside her on the bed where she lay. “Could I go see Daddy tonight? I need to talk to him, even if he can’t understand. I need to try.”

Vince’s eyes were still wide as he absorbed the shock that kept coming in waves. “I, uh, no. I’ll have Carrigan bring him here. You’re still on bedrest. I won’t have you going into early labor over this.” He read the results over again, as if that might bring about a different conclusion. “Patrick’s your grandfather? Then that means one of your brothers is…”

“Don’t say it!” Fallyn begged. She reached up and gripped Vince’s sleeve, holding onto him with white knuckles, determined not to let go of the one man in her life she could trust.

V
ince did not speak
to Carrigan or Keenan when Patrick arrived on the arm of the red-headed Nurse O’Malley. Vince’s expression was that of a man who knew he was about to go on a kamikaze mission. He’d had great respect for Paddy O’Keefe as a boy. Uncle Paddy had been a great source of information on how to run a large team without having to resort to using drug money to keep a business afloat. Vince had been separated from the O’Keefe patriarch for years since the families split. When he’d seen how far the strong man had devolved due to the dementia that had too tight a grip on his brain, the loss had been indescribable. To watch Patrick forget his only girl and even raise his hand to her had been a sight too sick to stomach. Yet here Vince was, inviting pain into his home in hopes that the mumbling man who had taught Vince to throw a football could help set Fallyn’s world right again.

Fallyn wore a green sundress with a blue cardigan. Vince had never found her more beautiful or full of all the things he loved about her. He sat on the couch in the living room next to his wife, wishing not for the first time that his own father was still alive. Papa D hadn’t been perfect, but he never fell apart in hard circumstances. Perhaps he would’ve been able to shed some light on a family secret that had occurred decades ago.

Carrigan and Nurse O’Malley sat Patrick down in the beige recliner next to the couch, unsure what was so urgent Patrick needed to come for a visit that very evening. Keenan stood against the wall, observing the odd mood shifts and awaiting whatever fallout was soon to come. “This has the feel to a family meeting to it. You sure you don’t want me to call the others over?”

Fallyn shook her head. “Not yet. It might get a little chaotic, and that’s done best with fewer hot heads.” She turned to the patriarch with a pleasant smile on her face. “Patrick, do you know who I am?” Fallyn asked, breaking the silence with unswerving calm Vince knew she did not feel. Her hands were laced delicately over her belly.

“Huh?” Patrick’s green eyes were glazed over, but he was able to meet her serene determination with some amount of coherency. He pointed at Fallyn and leaned toward Carrigan. “That’s tha girl.”

Fallyn nodded, knowing that was as good as it was going to get. She held up her hand to stop Carrigan from explaining things to his father. “That’s right. I’m the girl. Do you remember my name?”

“It’s my Fallyn,” Patrick said to Carrigan in answer to Fallyn’s question.

Fallyn warmed, her voice brimming with compassion for the man who’d raised her as his own. “That’s right. My name is Fallyn. Do you know who my father is?”

Patrick’s lucidity fought through the cloudiness and grabbed onto something that darkened his face. “Tha boy. I know tha boy. He should’ve obeyed, but he had ta be rebellious. He had ta made things difficult.” His frown took on a note of anger, and he banged his larger fist on the arm of the recliner. While Patrick’s mind had lost its sharpness, his fist had forsaken none of its bite.

Carrigan leaned his head on his hand. “Really, Fal? You’re doing this to yourself? Why? You know it’s only going to hurt you that he doesn’t recognize you. Dad loves you, kiddo.”

Fallyn ignored Carrigan. “What’s his name? What’s the boy’s name?”

Patrick shook his head, exasperated. “Pick up yer toys! I’ve got things ta do here. I can’t be tripping over yer blocks.”

“Patrick? What’s my father’s name?”

Patrick refocused on Fallyn as if only just noticing her sitting across the coffee table from him. “Yer father wasn’t ready. He was a boy. He was a good boy. He grew up well. Do ya know whatever happened ta him?”

Carrigan whipped his head from Fallyn to his father in confusion. “What? Dad, you’re her father. You grew up well, and you retired at the head of your game. That’s what happened to you.”

Patrick raised his voice and pointed a thick finger at Fallyn. “That’s not my daughter!”

Fallyn held up her hand to calm Patrick and to ease the stricken faces of her brothers. “I know I’m not your daughter. Do you know my father’s name?”

Keenan’s hand was over his mouth, his eyes wide in panic as he waited for the words to finally birth to life from his father’s mouth. “No, no. We can’t talk about this.”

Patrick pursed his lips, grasping for the name that eluded him. Finally he sat back in his recliner. “It’s tha boy. Tha one with the freckles.” He chuckled as his temper ebbed. “He’s a good boy, that one.”

“Well, that narrows nothing down,” Fallyn murmured to Vince, who was doing his best to maintain his leaned back demeanor on the couch, but was failing miserably. His thumb was tapping on his knee as he chewed on his lip, calculating every movement Patrick made. Fallyn placed her hand on Vince’s to calm him. “It’s okay. I knew it was a long shot.”

Carrigan cocked his head at his sister, sensing he was missing out on something deeper going on. “What’re you pushing at, Fal? Is something going on I don’t know about?”

“Loads,” Fallyn replied, her voice steady despite the disquiet she felt. “I opened this today.” She took the test results from her cardigan pocket and handed it to Carrigan. “It’s DNA results. Daddy’s not my father. He’s my grandfather, which means one of you is my dad.”

“Huh?” Carrigan pulled back from the paper as he studied it, willing it to give him different results than the ones that confirmed his sister’s words. “What? Tell me this is some kind of sick joke! Tell me you’re doing this to get back at Declan for telling everyone the two of you were related. I don’t want in on this, Fal! I don’t want in on whatever terrible payback you’ve got cooking.”

“Declan’s not even here.” Fallyn’s nose crinkled. “Why would I joke about something like this? When Declan spilled the beans about Mom being gone longer than she could’ve been to have had me with Daddy, I took a hair sample just to be sure that Daddy was my father.”

Carrigan stood, awash in confusion and anger. “This isn’t real, Fal. That right there’s your dad.” He pointed to Patrick, who frowned.

“That’s not my daughter!” Patrick roared, meeting Carrigan’s volume and getting worked up. He looked around the house that was not his, gray eyebrows pushing together in concern. “Are we at tha D’Amatos?” he asked Nurse O’Malley. “Where’s Danilo?”

Vince shook his head. “It’s enough. I’ve had enough. Fallyn, he can’t tell you who your father is. I’ll interrogate the lot of them, and we’ll find out that way. You’re just confusing Paddy. He’s my dad too, now, and I don’t want this for him.” He helped Patrick to stand and shook the man’s hand. Though Vince was a grown man, he still felt a teenager compared to the legend that was Patrick O’Keefe. “I’ll tell Papa D you stopped by. You just missed him.”

“Ya do that. Tell him he owes me twenty bucks from poker night. He thought I’d ferget.” A genuine smile broke out across Patrick’s face as recognition swept over him. “Danilo! I knew it was ya. Where are tha boys hiding? Carri, Seamus and Finny wanted ta come over and play.”

Vince nodded through the pain. “They’re not here, Paddy. Why don’t you let Nurse O’Malley take you on home?” He turned to Fallyn, his eyes wracked with pain. “I can’t do this!” he eked out, loosening his white shirt collar that suddenly began to feel like a noose. “I’ll beat it out of them until we get to the bottom of this. But I can’t listen to him call me my dad’s name!”

Fallyn stood with much effort and held her husband as Nurse O’Malley and Carrigan led Patrick to the car. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know he’d confuse you with Papa D. Completely my fault, Vince.”

Vince pulled back from her embrace, lest it soften him from his mission. “We’ll get to the bottom of it tonight, starting with Carri.”

No sooner had Vince said his name did Carrigan come bursting back into the overlarge home. The test results were still clutched in his hand as he stomped back into the living room past a gaunt Keenan. He waved the paper in Fallyn’s face. “Tell me you did this to get back at Declan! Admit it!”

“I don’t think you want to be yelling at me,” Fallyn cautioned, her temper rising to the occasion. “I think you want to calm down. Those results are legit. Patrick’s my grandfather. Is there something you want to tell me?”

Carrigan paused and then reared back in disgust. “I’m only ten years older than you! That’s disgusting, Fal! Talk to the older guys, or keep this nonsense to yourself. I swear, if you rip up the family like this all to get back at Declan, I’ll never forgive you.”

Vince collected his bearings and shoved Carrigan hard, moving the grown man across the living room. “You’ll never forgive her? Really? That’s what you have to say about all this? Get out!”

“I was already leaving!” Carrigan said in a huff.

“Stop it!” Fallyn shouted. “Just stop it, both of you!” She pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead in an effort to smash clarity into her skull. “Carrigan, on everything and everyone I love, I promise you this is not about getting back at Declan. The math doesn’t add up, and you know it. I took a hair sample from Daddy and sent it in with mine. Those are the real results, so deal.”

“So, what? I’m your uncle now?” Carrigan grimaced and recoiled. “You’re not my sister, you’re my niece?” He shook his head angrily. “No! You’re my sister! If this is true, that means one of our brothers lied to all of us. It means I don’t have a sister.” His voice forsook the anger and plummeted into fresh pain as reality began to reason with his irrationality. “You’re my sister, right?”

Fallyn cast aside her indignation and hurt, making a beeline for Carrigan to crash into his arms. “I’m always your sister, no matter what. Daddy’s my dad, no matter what. But I still want to know. I think I deserve to know where I came from.”

Carrigan had tears in his eyes as he held his best friend. “You do. I’m sorry. This is all just… Promise me again that you’re not lying. Promise me as often as I need to hear it.”

“I’m not lying. One of you is my biological father. It’s one of the older ones.” Her eyes fell on Keenan, noticing his frozen body and face filled with trepidation. “Keenan?”

Keenan took two steps backward toward the front door before Vince lunged. Fallyn screamed as the two wrestled on the floor in the hallway. Vince punched Keenan’s kidney before Keenan finally stopped trying to escape. “Okay! Okay! I give!” He held up his hands as Carrigan tore Vince off his brother.

Carrigan jabbed his finger down at Keenan, not helping him off the floor. “Do you know something about this?”

Keenan sat up, breathing heavily and shaking his head that was tilted downward. “No, no, no, no.” He swore several times before pulling out his cell phone, his hand on his forehead. “Get over here right now. Fallyn needs you.” He hung up with the caller and pocketed his phone, covering his face with his hands. “I know who your father is, Fally,” he admitted. “I wish I didn’t know any of it. He’s on his way.”