AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Forty-Nine
Brennan
Sunday lunch had gone betterthan expected, so much so that most of us had stayed overnight.
Only Conor had fucked off back to the city, pretty much as soon as he’d finished dessert. I’d only had the chance to grab him by the arm as he was shrugging into his coat with one hand, hauling his massive laptop case in the other.
Kid looked like he was getting ready to leave for the airport he was in that much of a rush, but before he did, I managed to ask him, “Any news about that McKenna guy?”
He’d shot me a dead-eyed stare, which was unlike him. But everything about lunch had been unlike him.
Quiet, moody, taciturn when he did eventually speak. None of the wry humor, the jokes or the sarcasm we were all used to. Leaving early was unlike him too. Especially when there was a game on.
“He’s dead.”
I blinked at him. “He can’t be. Why the fuck would Coullson give me that name if the bastard’s dead?”
“I don’t know, Bren. You’ll have to ask Coullson that, won’t you?”
He’d pulled his arm out of my hold before he’d stormed off to kiss Ma farewell, then he’d left, speeding off down the drive in his Ferrari like he had ants in his goddamn pants.
His weird behavior didn’t appear to be noticed by anyone but me, so I let it go, and immersed myself in one of the few times we got together for a full day and night.
Holidays we gathered here and spent the night, but otherwise, we always went home. It was a day for drinking, though, and we all got a little hammered, Da included.
With every drop of single malt he supped—the Glenrothes Camille had bought him, I noted—he got louder and more boisterous, and would start cackling every now and then which we knew was related to how Camille had taken down Abramovicz.
I was glad the rest of them could get a laugh out of it. For me, I knew I’d be scarred for fucking life. Whether Camille would be or not was another matter entirely, but she seemed to find it amusing too. Only Victoria and me didn’t, whenever Da’s cackles grew loud, she’d hunch her shoulders and would disappear to the bathroom.
Da was definitely not to everyone’s taste.
Mostly, I was glad he got slushed simply because it meant I could avoid talking about business.
I knew Mark had to have been making waves about his son, because Priestley must have been worried sick by now. I’d fucked up by killing the cunt, but learning he was behind the drive-by that had my eldest brother spiraling into addiction, that had almost killed Aoife, and that had triggered every single downfall that had befallen us recently—was it any wonder I’d broken?
I needed time.
Time to fix things, and Da getting pissed helped, especially when he talked about planning the funerals of the guards we’d lost yesterday, as the single malt stopped him from getting angry, and just made him weep instead.
I talked to Ma a little, watched the game with my brothers, shot the shit in general, but mostly, I kept an eye on Camille who seemed to fit in fine. She hung out with the other women, and they laughed and joked and cooed over Jake. Aoife and Aela didn’t drink, Shay, and Victoria either obviously, but the rest of us let our hair down.
It didn’t matter that Da had rejected Camille—yesterday had changed things.
The Russians had gone after an O’Donnelly, which meant his loyalties shifted.
I was glad for her sake, even if the end didn’t justify the means.
Sometime during the night, I pulled a Victoria and took a break from the rowdy noise that a big family gathering created. After I went to take a leak, I found myself in the hall staring at the photo Camille had mentioned.
My da with his favorite brother, Frank, in Coney Island.
Like it was fate, a laugh echoed down the hall, one I recognized as Finn’s thanks to the deep tenor of his voice.
Finn had been with us for so long that he was like blood now, and this kind of get-together would have been hollow without him, Aoife, and Jake, as much as we felt the lack of Conor today.
But Camille was right.
I’d just never noticed it before.Why would I?
