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The elevator doors pinged, then opened into the lobby. Duncan took my hand and pulled me along behind him out onto the street. But he didn’t answer my question.

He hailed a cab, and he opened the door for me. For a moment, I considered he might close the door and send me on my way. But he climbed in next to me and gave the driver an address.

“Duncan—”

“No, Freyja, wait until we get home. We clearly have a lot to talk about.”

The cab ride was quiet as I stared out the window at the city. Boston was new to me, but while smaller, it didn’t seem that different from New York.

The car stopped in front of a brownstone. There were a dozen steps leading up to the double wooden doors. What I found when we stepped inside was not what I expected.

The front door opened to a spacious living room, kitchen, and dining area. The wood cabinets were a dark cherry that matched the trim around the doorways and the stairs leading to a second floor.

With Duncan being a bachelor, I expected lots of gray and black. What I found were warm tan walls, hardwood floors, and a stone fireplace that would be perfect to curl up in front of and watch the snow fall through the large bay window that looked out onto the street.

The L-shaped sofa was a dark burgundy, with throw pillows that match the patterned drapes.

“Did you decorate this yourself?”

“Fuck no. And if you don’t like it, you can change whatever you want.”

“No, I love it. I wouldn’t change a thing.” My stomach flipped at the insinuation that I would be living here to make it my own. I mean, sure, that’s what I wanted. And Lucille had told me Duncan was mine.

But Duncan had yet to confirm it.

“Do you want a drink?”

“Wine?” I asked, taking in the pictures displayed on the mantel.

“Red or white?”

“Red please.”

There was an old family picture of a mom and dad with a teenage girl, a young boy, and who I assumed was Duncan in the middle. There were older pictures of the young boy. A wedding day with a beautiful woman. And baby pictures of a little girl who, if she was the same as the other photos, looked to be in her twenties now.

An older version of the mom and dad sat on the opposite end of the mantel from the family picture. As if they were corralling the others, keeping them from falling off the edge.

“My parents. They’ve been gone ten years now.”

He reached over and picked up the family picture. “My older sister Darcy, and my little brother Duane. They’re both gone now, too.”

A small gasp left my lips. “I’m so sorry. What happened?”

He replaced the picture and took my hand, leading me to the couch where he sat in the corner and pulled me against his chest. The wine he poured sat untouched on the coffee table.

“My sister ran away when she was sixteen. We didn’t know where she went or even if she went on her own. A few months back, we learned she ran away because she was pregnant. I have a nephew I never knew about living in Nebraska.”

I turned to look at him. Sal had mentioned Caity had a nephew in Nebraska.

“Sal and Darcy were together when we were kids. When she found out she was pregnant, she ran off with Sal’s mom and stepfather. She let Kathleen raise her son as her own. So, Sal thought he had two younger brothers, turned out one of them was his son.”

“And he never suspected?”

“He had never met him. King is thirty-eight now. And the only reason we learned about him was because when my brother was killed a year ago, his wife Maureen bought her way out and moved out west. To the same town where Sal’s brother Declan and his son Kingston live.”

“What happened to your brother?”

Chapter Thirty-One