Exhaling: A Mafia Romance (The O'Keefe Family Collection Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

pounded her fist to her chest. “You broke my heart!”
    “I know, hun. I know. I’m so sorry.” His arms went around her, drawing her into his embrace. The two clung to each other, knowing what a treasure they’d almost lost over a lie that didn’t belong to either of them.
    Her eyes closed as she tried to evaluate if he felt different to her than he had two weeks ago. “We’re half-siblings?”
    “No,” Declan ruled, his chest puffing afresh. “No! Of course not. Even if we didn’t share both parents, you’re still my sister. My best and only.”
    Fallyn softened, her icy heart melting around the sweet declaration. “You knew I wasn’t your whole sister this entire time? My entire life? Yet you still treated me as if I was…”
    “You are!” Declan clutched her tighter, squeezing her in his arms. “You’re my sister. You always have been. The point of telling you wasn’t to make you question us; it was to make you not marry your other brother! I love you, Fal. I never cared about the paternity stuff. Never looked at you as anything other than the best sister a pack of idiot brothers could ever have. I’m serious. This changes nothing.”
    “Okay.” She rubbed his back. “That must’ve been a terrible secret to keep. I’m so sorry you had to live with that all these years.”
    “No, I’m sorry I put you through that. I mean, I knew you thought you were in love with Vince, but I’ve never seen you as lost as you were last week. Even after Jeremy and that whole mess, you carried on just fine.” He turned his head toward Vince, who was fuming. “That’s a compliment to you, by the way.”
    Vince cursed him in Italian, spitting on the floor Fallyn had just washed. “I don’t need your compliments. I need you to go.”
    Declan rolled his eyes and turned back to his sister, holding her close. “I really am sorry, Fal.”
    “If you’re sorry, then make it up to me.” Fallyn burrowed her face in his shoulder, making herself at home against his emerald green dress shirt.
    “Name it. You want a new phone?”
    Fallyn tilted her head up at him. “There’s nothing wrong with my phone.”
    “Then answer it when we call! We’ve been going out of our minds not being able to get ahold of you!”
    “That’s the thing about not wanting to talk to any of you.” She shook her head. “No. You tried to break up Vince and me. You tried to end my marriage! Make it up to me.”
    “I thought it was true, Fal!”
    She slunk out of his arms and cast him a deadly glare. “Please! You were all congregated there to break the two of us up! If you hadn’t known about the paternity stuff, you would’ve found another argument to try and end us. You know you would’ve.”
    Declan deflated, his hand on his brow. “It’s Vince D’Amato, Fal. You gotta know he’s all kinds of wrong for you.”
    “It’s like you want me to murder you where you stand,” Vince seethed.
    The passion in her eyes was almost enough to start a fire in the middle of the kitchen. “I’d rather go down in flames with Vince than spend another second pretending I don’t need, that I don’t want, that I don’t love!” She pounded her fist over her heart. “Vince and I are a team now, and you’ll get on board. You’ll make this up to the both of us. You have no idea the state you drove Vince to. You did this to both of us, you know.” In a perfect imitation of her mother, she pointed her finger to the ground and stomped her foot. “Fix what you broke, young man!”
    Declan took a step back from her and shivered as if shaking off a ghost. “Whoa. You looked dead like Mom just then. Spooky.” He held up his hands. “Alright. Give me some time to think this over.” He stared at a spot behind his sister as his mind raced. “If Dad’s not your father, and Papa D’s not, then who?”

9
    Ours
    V ince clenched his fists over and over, willing the tension to release after Declan left. He wanted to go after the brother who had