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Dusty’s eyes were bulging from their sockets, his lips turning a blueish hue I’d only seen in the corpses left behind by my father’s business. I had done this plenty of times before, but the act was always different. This time, it was worse than usual; I had known Dusty, I did consider him to be family.
It was a shame he had chosen to act out the way he had.
A part of me reveled in this moment, relished the power I held over this man who dared to tarnish our family name. Another part was repulsed by what I was about to do.
The room fell silent, save for Dusty’s guttural groans of fear and pain. The usually mundane ticking of the clock on the wall screamed out his impending doom, each second overpowering the last.
I let him go and he sputtered. “I’ll make this quick,” I told him. “I know you have kids.”
He looked shocked, but then the surprise disappeared, replaced by a mask of resignation. “They might be better off without me, Tristan. Just like you’d be better off without him,” he uttered, gesturing vaguely behind me, at the pub my family owned.
I wanted to deny his words, to shout at him that we were nothing like him. But there was a sting of truth in his words that I couldn’t ignore. Malachy’s rule had shaped me into the man I was today. A man who would strangle another with his bare hands if killing meant protecting family secrets, ugly as they may be.
Kieran was quiet as I drew my gun, its weight a familiar comfort in my hand. His eyes met mine briefly, flickering with something I couldn’t define before he turned away, stepping back into the shadows.
I pulled the trigger.
Like pulling the trigger was nothing.
Because we were Callahans and our family had always dealt in bloodshed.
The silencer muffled the brutal finality of the act, almost like I’d done nothing more than push a button to end his life. Dusty slumped in his chair, any trace of life instantly erased from his features. It was over. The room returned to its former silence, the tension slowly ebbing away.
I stood there, staring at the lifeless body before me. The blood pounded in my ears, and I could feel the cold sweat trickling down my back. A bitter taste lingered in my mouth as I stared at the man who had been a part of our lives but was now just another casualty of our father’s business.
Kieran stepped forward, his face unreadable as he regarded Dusty’s remains. “Let’s clean this up,” he broke the silence that had settled in the room. His words felt jagged, larger than the room itself.
The following hour was spent in methodical clean up—a routine we’d become all too familiar with growing up as Callahans.
“You don’t think he was right, do you?” I asked as I started to unbind the ropes on Dusty’s wrists. “You brought a chainsaw?”
“About what?” Kieran asked, his voice strained as he scrubbed down the back of the chair. There was a detachment in his gaze, a faraway look I’d come to associate with these gruesome tasks. He was here, yet miles away. “Nah, there’s one here.”
“Smart. About us,” I said, struggling to keep my voice steady. “About us being cursed.”
“There’s no such thing as curses, lad,” he replied. “And you know as well as I do that a dying man will say anything to get out of it.”
I wanted to believe him, to dismiss Dusty’s words as the desperate rambling of a man at the end of his rope. But his words had hit closer to home than I cared to admit.
“Curses can come in different forms,” I said after a long moment of silence. The only sounds in the otherwise quiet room were the scrape of Kieran’s brush and the occasional drop of water from the leaky faucet in the sink.
Kieran paused for a moment before resuming his scrubbing. “I think we’re only cursed if we allow ourselves to be,” his voice was barely audible over the sound of bristles against wood. “We’re not our father. We don’t have to repeat his mistakes.”
I nodded as I helped Kieran take off Dusty’s shoes. “Right,” I said. “So…what do we do?”
“We do what we’ve always done,” Kieran replied, his voice steady despite the blood smeared across his hands. “We survive.”
I supposed, in a way, that had to be enough.
Chapter Three: Tristan
The opulent chandeliers glinted above, casting a low glow on the gathering as a thick haze of cigar smoke weaved its way through the air. The crystals made light dance over the tablecloths, our families mingling as they laughed with each other. I had called her to invite her to this event, even though I knew she had to go.
I just wanted her to hear about the party from me first, because that felt like the right thing to do. A show of friendship before everything in my life changed.
As if the Callahans and the Orsinis had ever been friends.
This was a gathering of the most powerful mafia families, and I stood among them, watching as alliances were forged and enemies were tested. Kieran, my brother, elbowed me softly in the ribs when he saw me standing by myself. My youngest brother, Liam, was already incredibly drunk. He’d brought his girlfriend along, and she laughed as she leaned against him. At least I thought she was his girlfriend. I’d never seen her before.
