I couldn’t pull her into my arms because she was so fucking delicate right now. Because of me.
The journey blurred at some point as I thought about what I was going to say, what I needed to say to clear my brain, and when Samuel parked the car, I jolted to awareness and saw that we’d arrived.
“Thanks,” I told him gruffly and climbed out to face the building where my worst nightmare had played out.
The front facade of the ancient building was pockmarked now. Bullets had sprayed into the stonework, and I knew Aidan was funding the work that was needed to restore the mess.
As I walked down the cobbled path, the gravestones on either side of me were a reminder that I might have been here this week, burying Aoife.
The pain that caused me could only be matched by the fucked-up guilt I’d endured as a kid.
It was a weird time for those memories to surface, but it was like ‘let’s hate on Finn’ week, and all the shit I’d done was just piling on top of me.
Scrubbing a hand through my hair, I stepped under the stone arch into the building proper.
Most churches were closed this time of day, but Aidan funded this one so that his men could drop in for confessional any time their schedules would allow.
A man who’d confessed had a clean soul and could meet his Maker earnestly, was his philosophy, one I’d thought to be bullshit until now.
I gnawed on my bottom lip as I wondered if I was about to turn into some religious zealot. Then, I realized I blasphemed too much to ever be that, and there was no way in fuck I wasn’t going to do dirty and despicable things to Aoife the minute she was back on her feet… things that were definitely not approved of in the Bible.
So, yeah. I needed to purge this shit from my soul and move on.
It wasn’t like we could talk to a goddamn counselor about the shit we did and saw. Father Doyle was that to us, and Aoife was right, I needed to confess my sins.
Because it was a busy confessional, there was a bell on the door. You rang it and it sounded in Doyle’s seventies chic office. If he hadn’t appeared in ten minutes, you assumed the drunken old coot had passed out, and went and sought his ass out.
The man wasn’t as pious as he liked to preach, but Aidan said that no man was a saint and seemed to think it made him a more honest priest because he wasn’t perfect. My brothers and I usually rolled our eyes at that—Aidan could spew a lot of crap.
I rubbed my chin as I took a seat inside the confessional.
It was cold in here, and I realized I’d forgotten my coat—my first penance because the Arctic was warmer than St Patrick’s on some days.
Soon, I’d be on my knees, but I wasn’t waiting on Doyle’s rheumatic pace to kneel. When he arrived, I’d take up the stance.
It didn’t take long.
I heard the slip-slip of his soft shoes against the stone flagons and when the confessional door opened, I flowed down to the floor, finding the movement strangely cathartic.
The window in the booth opened, and Doyle recounted the usual prayer. After he’d finished, I bowed my head and whispered, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been fourteen days since my last confession, and I accuse myself of the following sins…”
My voice petered out there, and I had to shudder to concentrate.
See, my trouble was that I didn’t feel like I’d sinned.
I’d killed a man.
I didn’t repent it.
I’d do it again.
And again.
Anything to save Aoife. To keep her safe in the future. So, what did I feel guilty about? The fact that she’d been hurt when I deserved the bullet? That I hadn’t kept her from danger? They weren’t sins. Not in the eyes of the Church. Just in my heart.
When I fell silent, uncertain of what to say, Doyle queried, “Finn, my boy?”
It came as no surprise that he knew it was me. Going two weeks without confession broke one of the Five Points’ cardinal rules.
“Yes, Father?”
“You killed a man, didn’t you?”
My throat closed up. “I did.”
Not that it was on record. Still, that wasn’t how the soul worked, was it?
“And do you repent?”
“No.” I released a shaky breath as I realized how fucking good that felt to admit.
“It’s a mortal sin that you’ve committed, child,” Doyle stated,