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Neither he nor the Don spoke as they traveled down the elevator to the little cafe near the cafeteria that had the same terrible coffee that he had given Adrian what felt like months ago.
“Tell me about his recovery, Gatto,” Esposito said, once they were settled with lattes and pastries. “Judging by the argument we overheard before stepping in, he is much stronger than your updates have indicated.”
Felinus tightened his jaw as he removed the lid from his cup. “He is stubborn,” he said. “If he had it his way, he’d have returned to his normal routine as soon as he could stay awake long enough for a lecture. He still has cracks in over half of his ribs and in his skull. His lung seems to have healed from the puncture, but a wrong twist or turn could cause another. Strong mind, fragile body.”
“A stubborn mouse to match his stubborn cat,” Esposito mused. “Is he healing well?”
Felinus went quiet for a moment, hiding his face behind his cup. “Better than his doctors thought he would,” he said finally. “But not as well as he would have if he had been healthier. If he had people he could trust.”
“Trust is a difficult thing to give at the best of times,” he sighed.
“Let alone when your uncles plot against your parents and leave you with no one as a child,” Felinus replied, unable to keep the venom from his voice.
“There it is,” the Don said, with a smile that was not happy. “Now I understand your lack of warmth and vague answers these last weeks. I had, at first, excused it as exhaustion and worry, Gatto. But I see that it has far more to do with anger leveled at the wrong man.”
“Are you sure it is the wrong man,” Felinus replied. “Finnegan O’Riley may have been the one to pull the trigger that night, but Fergus O’Hare was the leader then as he is now.”
“As I am the leader of the dozens of men you have hunted. Do you hold the same hate in your heart for me as you do for Ferrari? Or Russo? Or Ricci? Or any of the other men who did harm while under the Family’s protection?”
“Of course not, Don Esposito,” Felinus said, unable to look at him. “But you-”
“-Have you,” Esposito said, almost gently. “Il mio gatto. Gatto and his zoo of men who can find and exterminate anyone who would dream of harming our Family. Gattino, O’Hare is not the man you paint in your mind. He is a man. A man who believed that the men he put his faith in shared his vision. For the most part, he is not wrong. Most of his men are loyal to him and his dreams of a future where they are not needed to keep their children safe. But he does not have Il Gatto and the resources you have gathered over the years.” He paused. “Snake has told you I have asked him to aid O’Hare. I assume you are in far more thorough communications with your brother and your chosen men than you have been with me.”
Felinus grimaced. “I am aware of it.”
“Then you know the undertaking he has,” Esposito said, “and his willingness to see it through.” He shook his head. “I do not blame you for your anger, Gatto, nor does O’Hare. I think he finds it somewhat of a relief that someone is angry at him for his oversights. He can only be so angry at himself before it is a hindrance, you see. He does not take your rudeness personally. After all,” he went on, picking up his latte, “you are hardly the first man to lose sight of things when the person he loves is hurting. I believe your own father once hung a man out a window for insulting your mother when they were young.”
Felinus frowned. Nona had said something similar to him about being in love, but he had dismissed it as her usual nagging to settle down and start a family. He had known Issac barely a month and the majority of that was inside of a hospital room. He wasn’t a person to fall in love- fuck, he’d never told anyone he loved them except his mother and brother and maybe Bat one time when they got stupidly drunk (or was it Lucio?) He wasn’t someone who just fell in love.
“Don’t think about it too deeply, Gatto,” he said, reaching over and gripping Felinus’s shoulder. “You might scare yourself away from something great.”
* * *
Issac watched Fergus O’Hare as he stepped slowly away from the closed door and over to the chair that had never gotten shifted back from the side of the bed after Nona’s visit. O’Hare held his eyes until he sat down and a small, uncomfortable laugh escaped him.
“Ya really do look just like ‘im,” he said setting his coat across the back and digging out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and an engraved lighter. “Used ta scare the shit outta me when he’d start glarin’ like that. Even if he wasn’t lookin’ my way, it made ya rethink ya life.”
Issac watched Fergus as he shook out a cigarette, taking it in his lips and lighting it. Carefully, Issac reached over and took the lit cigarette before the lighter had been put out, pointedly dropping it into the water cup on the tray over his legs. “This is a hospital,” he said as the man blinked at him. “You can’t smoke in here.”
Fergus stared at him, lips parted where his cigarette had been. Then he laughed, closing his lighter. “That’s yer mum’s spirit,” he said, still laughing. “Fearless woman, even before she met yer da. Never had a problem tellin’ us to fuck off. No wonder ya got so many people watchin’ ya. The two of them combined? Forget a senator, you’ll take the entire world if you want it.”
Issac watched him laugh, the same laugh he had when Issac used to tell him the stupid jokes he’d heard in school or read in a book. “I don’t want the world,” he said softly. “Why are you here?”
That seemed to sober Fergus, his lighter flicking open and closed for a moment before he set it on the corner of the tray next to the cup. “I came to beg for the forgiveness of my best friend’s son,” he said quietly, staring up at him, “for failing to protect ‘im like a godfather should.” He swallowed. “I-I wish I could tell ya something that could excuse me from failin’ ya, but the simple truth is, I let myself believe that yer parents left the city with ya when Lukas didn’t answer my call. I thought ya were livin’ a normal life in a suburb or small city far away from ‘ere, like yer mum wanted.”
“You didn’t check,” Issac said, swallowing when his voice shook. “You didn’t come by to even see.”
“I didn’ know where ya lived, lad,” Fergus said, starting to reach out a hand but pulling it back when Issac leaned away from him. “Yer mum was very strict ‘bout that. Only ever knew the street. She didn’ want us in her house.” He let out a sound that might have been a laugh or a sigh. “Given what happen’, she was right. She was a smart woman, yer mum.”
Issac looked away, his chest aching with something other than his broken ribs. “Why did he kill them,” he asked, his voice a whisper.
Fergus didn’t answer right away and when he did it was just as quietly. “I dunno, lad. Yer da… Yer da and Finnegan had been on the outs with each other for a while. Yer da might ‘ave been the German Reaper, but he didn’ believe in using violence as a first choice. Finnegan always thought it best to use shows of force to make sure no one fucked wit’ him or the Clovers.” He paused. “Lookin’ back, I tink yer da just didn’ want to ruin the friendship so he put up with Finnegan crossing lines for longer than anyone should. I didn’ think much of it. It was just how the two of ‘em were. Then Lukas started datin’ Sarah and he star’d putting down harder lines and pushing back. He wanted to be happy. Sarah made him happy. Finnegan… Finn thought we should have been enough.” He rubbed at his face and sighed. “I thought it was just drunk talk. I told ‘im that it wasn’ as if Lukas was leavin’ us or wouldn’ come runnin’ if we needed ‘im. There was room in yer da’s heart for us and Sarah.” His hands dropped as Issac stared at him, a faint smile on his lips. “Then Sarah gave birth to the most perfect little boy I’d ever seen. Lukas was so happy to be a da, to be your da. I’m not too proud to say that I cried when they asked me to be yer godfather. I loved ya the second I saw ya. Yer da loved ya the second he saw ya.” He let out a small laugh. “Yer mum loved ya first, carrying ya an’ all. We were all excited to meet ya but… issa different feelin’, looking at a person and knowin’ that ye’ll give ‘em yer entire world the secon’ they ask for it.”
Issac didn’t say anything, just watched Fergus gather his thoughts.
“That… That was when I decided I needed to make a change in the city. That the Clovers needed to clean out our streets of all other forces so our kids could be safe playin’ in ‘em. We’d been doing it before but… I start’d letting Finnegan get his way more. More force, more violence, more recruitments, more expansions… But t’ings get complicated when ya expand too fast. I only wanted to wipe out or absorb the other Irish gangs, to put us under one leadership like the Russians and Italians, but it started makin’ the very men I idolized nervous. Then-” he sighed. “Then the park happen’d.” He looked at Issac. “I imagin’ ya don’ remember.”
“I remember it,” Issac said, swallowing. “I was about eight, right? We’d been at the park when… Dad got us behind the concrete wall by the playground and held onto me. He was squeezing me so tight that I couldn’t breathe but it was so loud that I couldn’t tell him. When the gunshots finally stopped, Dad told me to keep my eyes closed and he carried me out… I looked. I saw the kids who weren’t lucky enough to have a dad who was able to get them to safety. Parents who had tried.”
