“He’s your boss.”
“You’re my wife.”
“He obviously thought you were going to tell him it was all right, or he would have just said that in front of me.”
“He wouldn’t say it in front of you.”
I glance over at my husband, wondering if he’s really that blind when it comes to Sean. I remember what Teagan said about the hooker, and I ask Deklan to tell me more about it.
“She was just a hooker,” he says. “She didn’t mean anything to him. After she overdosed, he went a little off the deep end.”
“Why would he go off the deep end if she didn’t mean anything to him?”
Deklan glances at me, furrowing his brow. I suddenly realize how right Teagan is and how blind to Sean’s behavior Deklan has become. When he doesn’t come up with an answer, I ask another question.
“What did Sean do after she died?”
“Fought with his father, mostly. Sean went on a lot about how he would run the business better than anyone else ever had. They had one big argument over a supplier, and Sean took it upon himself to blow up the delivery van.”
“He blew up a shipment?”
“Yeah.” Deklan shakes his head. “He was a kid blowing off steam and arguing with his father. I don’t think it was all that abnormal.”
“Blowing up a van is normal teenage angst to you?”
Deklan chuckles, but I don’t find anything funny.
“Well, not in a normal family, I guess. For the Foleys, maybe it is.”
“So, Fergus Foley probably did the same sort of thing when he was a kid?”
“Fergus? No, he was always very levelheaded. Sean’s mother was a trip, from what I’ve heard.”
“I don’t know anything about her,” I say. “Is she gone?”
“Gone, not dead.” Deklan finally starts the car and pulls out of the lot. “She’s in an institution somewhere upstate.”
“A mental hospital?”
“Yeah. She’s schizophrenic or something like that. Some kind of personality disorder, maybe. I don’t remember. Fergus hated doing it, but he had to have her committed. She wouldn’t keep up with her meds, and he couldn’t run the business and deal with her at the same time.”
“Do you think Sean might be the same way? I mean, is he like his mom?”
“I don’t know.” Deklan sighs. “I didn’t have a lot of contact with her before Fergus sent her away.”
“Maybe that’s what’s wrong with him,” I say quietly and then bite at my lip, wondering if I should just keep my mouth shut.
“He’s the boss, Kera,” Deklan says. “I swore loyalty to the Foley family when I was a teenager, and Sean is the head of the Foley family. Without them, I don’t know what might have happened to me. I would probably be dead, and Brian would be, too.”
“But that was Fergus, not Sean.”
“That doesn’t change my loyalty to the family.”
I watch Deklan out of the corner of my eye, wondering why he can’t see reality. Sean is insane and needs to occupy the room next to his mother’s, but Deklan won’t admit it. Even Sean’s own sister sees it, but my husband can’t. He can’t see past his loyalty to Sean’s father.
Where does that leave me?
“You really would do anything for them, wouldn’t you?”