Page 73 of Sins of Innocence

"I can't believe the children in her class are calling her that. And I really can't believe the teacher didn't let me know it was happening." I'll definitely be having words with Mr. Wrye. He thought an apology was sufficient? In what universe? "But why didn't Neeve tell me?"

It feels like I failed my kid. Heck, I did fail her if Neeve didn't think she could come to me with something like this.

"Probably trying to protect you." Kieran's hand moves down from my nape to rub circles on my back.

I don't deserve his comfort though. Do I? I let my daughter down. I let them all down by listening to Kenneth Shaughnessy and staying in New York.

"That's not her job." Shoving against Kieran's chest, I try to climb off his lap. "Let me up."

"What's wrong?" Instead of letting me go, he wraps both arms around me to keep me exactly where I am.

"I failed my daughter." Tears I refuse to shed burn the back of my eyes. "I failed all of them. Sadie wouldn't have been attacked yesterday if I had moved out of New York when I found out the truth about Troy."

"You were trying to protect them."

"Because I stupidly believed everything Kenneth Shaughnessy said to me and put them in more danger than they ever would have been if we had moved out of state six years ago." I swallow against the bile trying to rise in my throat.

"Once he told you what he did, the threat became real."

Because I knew too much. Only, "Kenneth would never have admitted to Mick Fitzgerald what he'd told me. So, there wouldn't have been any threat from the underboss."

"The rat would have come after you."

"No." I shake my head, dislodging a tear I'd been trying so hard to blink back. "He couldn't risk dragging me back and putting a spotlight onto his plans."

"You don't know that." Kieran brushes the moisture from my cheek. "He's a cunning asshole. He never would have gotten this far in his campaign against Mick if he wasn't."

Tilting forward so my forehead rests against Kieran's chest, I whisper the words that are tearing at my heart. "I'm a bad mom."

"No. Goddammit. No, you are not a bad mom," Kieran says fiercely, his thumbs pressing up on either side of my jaw to lift my face so our eyes meet again. His are filled with fierce certainty. "You are willing to marry a stranger to protect our daughters."

Our daughters. This man!

"Maybe that's just another terrible decision in a long string of them." Unable to hold them back anymore, tears spill down my cheeks. "What if marrying you only puts them more at risk? You're a mobster. Your world is unforgiving and brutal. Children can be killed for breaking your laws!"

"The boys are not going to die for attacking Sadie." He returns to rubbing my back soothingly.

"But they could have." What am I thinking? "How is knowingly marrying into this world any better than what Troy did?"

Kieran's big body vibrates with outrage. "Bullshit! Troy was a traitor. He didn't put you at risk by working for the mob. He put you and our girls at risk by betraying it."

Again with the our. When this man decides to do something, he's all in.

"But—"

Kieran shakes his head decisively, cutting me off. "No. Mick was never going to kill the boys for attacking Sadie."

"He would have. If he wasn't married to Kara."

"Mick's a sociopath, but he has his own code of honor. Even without Kara in his life, he wouldn't have killed them."

"You have a lot of faith in man who doesn't have his own conscience." The underboss said it himself. Kara is his conscience.

"There's a reason for that," Kieran says quietly. "Mick let me live when he should have killed me."

Harsh surprise courses through me. This man could have died before I ever got a chance to meet him.

And why is that thought so devastating?