Page 74 of Sins of Innocence

"I don’t believe you ever broke one of the mob's laws that's punishable by death." I won't believe it.

Kieran is too good a man.

He grimaces. "I wasn't part of the mob then. I was working freelance and I broke into one of the mob's facilities with three men from my client's syndicate."

"Why would you do that?" Kieran's a smart guy. Breaking into a mob warehouse, or whatever, is not a smart move. Even I know that.

"They were supposed to steal a piece of technology. I was supposed to keep the syndicate leader's heir alive." There's disgust in his tone when he mentions the man he was supposed to watch out for.

"You got caught?" I don't know why that shocks me, but it does.

"I made a mistake trusting the intel provided by a syndicate I had no confidence in. The security at the facility was next level, way beyond what their information said it would be."

I sniff back more tears and swipe at my face with the back of my hand. "Why did Mick let you live?"

"He saw something in me," Kieran says with gratitude laced pride.

"What?" I see a lot of things in Kieran, but what would a man like the underboss see that would make him spare Kieran's life?

"Strength. Integrity. Intelligence." He lists the qualities off like they're no big deal.

Like a man who is strong, honorable and intelligent isn't as rare as a good day at work in the Shaughnessy household.

"I see those things in you too." And that's one of the biggest reasons I agreed to this marriage, but what can I really know about him after less than twenty-four hours? "I thought I saw them in Troy as well though."

And, man, was I wrong about that. My dead husband was none of those things. He'd been good at putting on a pretense though.

Not for the first time since his death, but for the first time I let the thought come to the forefront of my mind, I wonder if we'd still be married if he were alive.

"We all make errors in judgment in our teens," Kieran says, dismissing my colossal mistake in judgement.

"I bet you didn't." Not the mobster version of Captain America.

"I should have forced my mom to run with me as soon as I realized what her piece of shit husband was doing to her." The grief and regret haunting Kieran's gaze leaves no doubt he believes what he's saying.

But it's my turn to object. "No. Kieran, you were her son, not her savior. You were too young to make your mom do anything."

"You don't know that."

"I do." Cupping his cheeks with my hands, I ask, "How old were you?"

"Eleven."

Eleven? "That's like expecting Neeve to save me from Kenneth Shaughnessy." Can't he see how ridiculous that thought is?

How impossible?

"I wasn't eleven when she died," he dismisses. "I was sixteen. A man."

I swallow down more tears, these ones for the boy Kieran was and not my own grief over failing my family. "Sixteen-year-old boys are not men. You were a child."

His shrug says too much. It's the past. It can't be changed, but he doesn't agree.

No wonder he went right to Neeve thinking she had to protect me. That's the kind of kid Kieran was too. And he's right about her. My middle daughter takes on the troubles of the world if I let her.

But I failed to protect her from that too. If I hadn't, she would have told me what had been happening at school. The fact she told Kieran shows my daughter instinctively trusts him like I do though, but what if I'm making another mistake?

"You can trust me," he says like he's reading my mind. "I will keep you and our family safe. No matter what it takes."