Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Over time, she grew cold and hard, or more accurately to say life had made her cold and hard. I knew everything about her, Sadie Rose, and she barely knew I existed.
Typical of my life, but I didn’t mind. Being near her, being around her and watching how she smiled and laughed with Cillian was enough. It was more than I thought I deserved, so I accepted it, took any crumb of acknowledgment from her and let it sustain me for days, for weeks.
For fucking decades.
Sadie wasn’t just the only woman I ever loved, she was the only reason Cillian and I had ever fought. The old man knew what was happening to her; the evidence of the beatings was impossible to hide completely, and she didn’t know enough about makeup to effectively hide the bruises and black eyes. The broken ribs and sprained wrists were harder to hide. Cillian knew that. He knew, yet he didn’t do shit about it.
I hated him for that.
He knew everything from the beatings she took to the men she had to service when he refused to pay off Colm’s debts. He knew what was happening to his own grandsons, again because Colm couldn’t control his gambling. He knew it and did nothing, claiming that Sadie was where she needed to be.
Cillian laughed when I finally screwed up the courage to confront him.
“Fuck that,” he sneered, “I don’t believe it.”
He stuck his finger in my face and insisted, “I could call Sadie in here right now, give her the choice to leave with a ton of cash and her children, and she would stay. She would take the beatings and everything else.”
I shook my head in confusion. “Is her love for him truly that strong?”
“Not at all, probably hates his fucking guts at this point. But like you, Sadie Rose is a survivor, and she knows that this,” he motioned to his dark, smoky office, the same room that would, decades later, serve as Sadie’s parlor, “is her son’s birthright. After everything she’s put up with, she wouldn’t dare leave and deprive them of this future.”
At that moment, I truly understood the depths of Sadie’s strength, the grit within her to grin and bear her pain silently. She was a master at playing the long game, which only made me love her more. “Wow.”
Cillian nodded and flashed a knowing grin my way. “Tough as nails, that girl is. She has to find her strength and none of us can do it for her, Thomas. She’ll get there. Trust me.”
And she had. It had taken a long damn time, but Cillian had called it right. Right before my eyes, Sadie had become a force to be reckoned with.
I sat at Cillian’s side for months as cancer ate away at his body, turning him into a fragile shadow of the man who’d found me and took me in, turned me into a man.
I stayed with him day and night, listening to his stories, reliving his glory days with him, while Colm did his best to gamble away the entire Ashby fortune.
Sadie had been in and out of his room, inconsolable half the time and as stoic as a statue the rest of the time. Losing Cillian was killing her, but the stubborn woman refused to show it, refused to share her burden with anyone.
Sadie leaned on herself, keeping him fed and hydrated even though she’d hired a full-time nurse to look after him.
“Sadie girl, have a seat. Watching you run around is exhausting me, and I don’t have enough time left to be exhausted.” Cillian patted the side of the bed for her to sit. She let out a long, sad sigh and did as he asked.
“Don’t talk like that, Cillian. I can’t bear the thought of not seeing your face daily.” She swiped away one lone tear, smiling at the old man through her pain. “I’m not ready to live without you, old man.”
“Old in body but young at heart, remember that.”
“I will.” Sadie gently squeezed his hand and brushed a kiss over his knuckles. It was the most vulnerable I’d ever seen her, probably because she didn’t realize I was in the room. I never forgot that moment.
“Now make sure you take care of yourself. You’ll be busy enough real soon.” Cillian’s ominous words stayed with me for the next week when his organs began to fail, and he could barely speak.
It was clear that the end was imminent for the old man, and he beckoned me closer, the paper-thin flesh of his hands practically transparent. The very act of summoning me exhausted him, and I took the chair beside the bed and slid in close. “I’m here, Cillian.”
He flashed a ghost of a smile. “You’ve always been here, Thomas, at my side. My valet, my tutor, my protector and my friend. My brother. I’m not a sentimental man, but you have been an important part of my life, son. I hope you know that.”