Page 29 of Priestly Sins

“Patrick…”

“I had to. He needs to take his rightful place, and she would always be in his head. Hell, three years on and she’s still in his head.”

“But there had to be another way.”

“I called a marker with a man I knew in New Orleans. Dirty son of a bitch.”

“But, Claire—”

I don’t know what they said after that. Didn’t care. I snuck away as quietly as I could and went back to my room. I stood there, hands fisted by my sides, seething. I seared that conversation into my brain. The nonchalant tone in his voice. The audacity to speak plainly about murdering my mother for convenience.

He didn’t justknow, he planned it. He called a hit when I was with her. He didn’t worry I could’ve been there. He apparently didn’t care that I found her or was completely shattered and alone, or even that I was fifteen years old and fifteen hundred miles from home.

He hadn’t cared about what I wanted or didn’t want, namely being involved with him.

And that was the truth of it; he was a narcissist and certainly sadistic.

He’d been slowly trying to bring me in. It’s why I could see myself getting cooler, more reserved.

Fuck that and fuck him!

I needed a plan.

I had accepted an offer to Boston College. But, unbeknownst to my dad, I applied and had accepted another at Notre Dame. It was a pipe dream, mostly fueled by football and the idea of getting away, and not one I took seriously.

Until that moment.

They’d offered a track scholarship. I didn’t need a scholarship at BC. Dad would’ve paid and I’d have been working for him when I wasn’t studying.

Notre Dame would mean his fury.

Notre Dame would mean my freedom.

If Patrick O’Shaughnessy taught me anything, it was to never let emotion overrun your mind. Respond, don’t react. Plan and strategize, don’t ever wing it.

For the next three weeks, he’d never have known anything changed. I woke up, finished out my last semester, studied for final exams, and I ran.

I ran to plot. I ran to plan. I ran to get out the anger that threatened to eat away at me like acid.

I bought a new cell phone, one no one knew about, and made connections in Boston. Some were people my father owned. Others wanted to see him dead.

I connected with anyone in Boston’s underbelly who could help me achieve my plan. No one was too high; no one was too low.

I got a new identity, a new birth certificate, a new driver’s license.

I graduated and accepted my father’s gift, a new Beemer, with a smile and handshake and kept running and plotting.

My records at Notre Dame were changed into Sean O’Ryan. That hacker got ten thousand in cash to make that happen and another ten to forget it ever did.

And the pièce de résistance? I paid Hal Staunchley and became his client. Anything he discovered or learned was then protected by attorney-client privilege.

Lastly, and the ultimate fuck you, I decided I would find a way to kill Enzo Calabrese and my father and dismantle their operations.

Or I would die trying.

I just needed the right cover.

And the right cover also meant my father would never have a grandson to put in the same position.