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Simultaneously, my nose began bleeding once more, and whether that was from the pressure of knowing the horrific fate I was about to let these men endure, or from the fact Da had broken it yesterday, I had no real way of knowing but I grabbed the paper towel I was carrying for this purpose and jammed a chunk inside each nostril.
As I plunked down in the CAT’s bucket seat, Da climbed up the ladder beside me, his feet hooked into the rungs as he hovered in place. Unsure of his next move, I held my broken arm closer to my side, the pain still ricocheting through me was enough to make me feel like I could pass out, so I didn’t need him adding to that by grabbing a hold of it or anything.
All around us, there were motes of dust and debris, shards of metal and boxy squares of wreckage that glinted under the hard glow of the spotlights. Uncle Frank was watching from a distance, while my da’s crew, Mark O’Reilly, Tony Hannaway, and Paul Claren, were somewhere in the vicinity, keeping the scene secured.
“All you need to do is release the pincers,” he told me.
Their deaths wouldn’t make up for what they’d done to Ma.
They wouldn’t pay for their sins by dying no matter what Father Doyle said. Da believed that bullshit, but I didn’t.
Knowing it was pointless to argue, I licked my lips and raised my other hand to do as he bid.
Before I could tap the button, he told me, “You could have prevented this, Brennan. Remember today. Your ma would be safe at home if you’d just done as I fucking asked you. Women, be they your wife or your mother, are queens. They’re to be protected and sheltered at all costs.”
As much as those words resonated with me, I wanted to ask why he’d laid Ma’s responsibility on my shoulders if she was so fucking important to him, but I knew why.
Sure, I still went to school, but that was only to keep up appearances. Plus, he wanted his sons to rub shoulders with Manhattan’s elite, so off we went to learn BS we’d never need, before our real jobs started once that shit was over and the uniform was off.
To him, I was a made man.
To him, it was my duty to protect her.
He wasn’t wrong.
I should have waited in the shop with her until Stephen arrived to take my place. It was my fault we were running late. She’d told me twice to get up, but I’d ignored her, and she’d paid for that when I darted off to catch the bus.
I was a bad son.
A terrible one.
I licked my lips as I let my gaze drift over the Aryans. They’d almost killed Ma, had done things to her that I’d heard Da sobbing over last night as he got drunk in his office.
They deserved to die.
My hand hovered over the button, but I kept my gaze trained on them as I lowered it.
When the pincers flared wide, the men screamed, but not for long as the mechanical jaw chewed them up and spat them out.
Blood spurted everywhere like a geyser. Da and Uncle Frank laughed, but me?
I just puked.
