Page 87 of Brutal Truths

“She stays.” The warning is for Trent, no one else. “No more secrets between us. You don’t like it, then you know where the door is. I’ll gladly hand you my resignation.”

“Only one way out. You know this.” Trent lifts his drink, watching me. “I have no problem with her being here. She’s family.”

You don’t leave the mafia. Not unless you’re carried out.

A gloved finger cuts through the air between them. “Let me make this perfectly clear. I’m not family. I don’t care what a DNA test says.”

“You’re just as stubborn as Sofia was.” A slow breath leaves him as he leans back, the chair creaking under the shift. “She was the only woman I ever tolerated speaking to me like that. I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m saying it anyway.”

An uncomfortable hush settles over the room.

“I’ve only loved one woman. Didn’t choose it. Tried my hardest to fight it. Pushed her away, thinking that would stop it.” His grip tightens around his glass. “It didn’t. Nothing could.”

Isabel turns her back on him, pretending she’s uninterested. Her shoulders are too stiff and guarded to sell it.

She’s curious, and I don’t blame her. Losing someone before you ever got to know them leaves too many unanswered questions. And those don’t just disappear because you want them to.

“Do you know how I met Sofia?” His question is for show. “It was at an auction your grandmother hosted. I was there to purchase a piece she’d recently come into possession of.”

That’s enough information to hook her. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ll give them this—they did a wonderful job of keeping you in the dark.” Trent rolls the amber whisky in the glass. “You sure you want to go down this road? Some secrets were never meant to see the light of day.”

“Then why bring it up?” She glances over her shoulder after she ties off a suture. “Is it to cast a dark shadow on my family’s reputation? What exactly are you hoping to get out of this?”

Trent doesn’t even pause. “I have only one reason. You’ll probably think I’m full of shit—and maybe I am.”

He lets that hang just long enough to get under her skin.

“Are you going to share that reason or just dance around it?”

A faint snicker slips out of me. She’s got spunk. It’s one thing I love most about her. His reputation built on the bodies of those who dared to disrespect him is irrelevant. She doesn’t care.

“Because every person deserves to have choices,” he finally says. “And you never really got one. Yours was snatched away from you the moment we learned of your existence.”

I don’t trust him. He wants something. I just don’t know what. And asking now would only push things in the wrong direction. I’ve already tested that line enough for one day.

“Hear him out. It can’t hurt.” I look up and wait for her eyes to meet mine. “Might even give you answers you don’t know how to get.”

Understanding flickers between us. She knows who I am. Reads my ulterior motives for wanting her to hear him out. We could both benefit from his willingness to talk.

“Listen to your man,” Trent says, almost amused. “There’s a reason I keep him around, and it’s not because I enjoy his company.”

From his pocket, Trent retrieves a tiny square box. “I can always count on Aiden to follow through, regardless of what it may cost him. Which is why I’m returning this. Your mother took it from me without my permission, but that no longer matters. It never really did.”

With a soft nudge, he slides it closer to her. “This belongs to you.”

It’s not a coincidence that he uses the hand wearing the shamrock ring—the one that matches the brooch. The same piece I found in the gallery and returned to him.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Trent pushes it a little closer.

She dismisses that idea with a shake of her head. “I can’t. I’m not about to risk giving Aiden an infection.”

When she refuses, he flips the lid open himself.

Hot tears well up in her eyes as she stares at the exquisite brooch, its emeralds glittering like a thousand tiny stars under the sunlight.

“I don’t want it. You keep it. It doesn’t belong to me. I’m not a Doyle.”