AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Twenty-One
Lena
“Stay here, Jamie,”I directed before tapping on the door to Michael’s hospital room.
“Come in,” he croaked out, his voice weak and frail.
Wincing at the sound, I headed on in with a smile I wasn’t feeling.
I didn’t need a medical degree to know that Michael’s cancer treatment wasn’t working. I’d only been away two days to celebrate Declan’s nuptials, but he looked to be even thinner than before.
As I plunked the carrier bag on the side of his bed and began pulling out some crossword books I’d bought him as well as some grapes, I chided, “You’re looking like a hot mess this morning, Michael. Don’t you shave for the ladies anymore?”
He sent me a sleepy smile as he reached for the remote on his bed to raise the backrest. As he did, the sleeve on his gown pulled taut around his arm, and when the loose fabric gathered high on his bony bicep, I saw the ink on the ball of his shoulder.
It was a testament to how thin he was that the fabric had shifted that much, but as I looked at the design, a design I’d seen practically every day during my childhood, for a second, I froze, unable to process that the past and the present were blurring in front of my eyes.
My father, his shirt off, suspenders hooked over his white undershirt as he ate dinner… Shoulders hunched because of how he ate, elbows on the table, one hand hovering over his plate as he scooped up food.
The flag that damnable phoenix was holding seeming to flicker like it was caught in the wind with the movements of his muscles.
Then my brothers had gotten one, and I’d been surrounded by phoenixes.
I thought I’d escaped them when I married Aidan, but the way Michael’s hand snapped up to his sleeve and he tugged on it, I knew my eyes weren’t deceiving me, and I knew they hadn’t left me alone.
As I flashed him a look, he sighed and stopped fussing with his sleeve. Instead of trying to cover the ink, he raised it. Which was when I saw his pride.
God, they were always so prideful.
“How—” I broke off, tried again, “When?”
The time he’d have enlisted, seeing as he was a good fifteen years younger than me, Father would have been in the nursing home. My brothers were all dead, most of them in that bombing in London, and my connection to the ECD had been cut short.
By chance, I’d bumped into acheileon the way out from visiting my father in the nursing home, and I’d learned the new leader was Eamonn Keegan. On a personal level, that was about all I’d heard of the group for over twenty-five years.
I guessed the when and the how didn’t matter. He was acheile.The web I’d felt certain I’d escaped years ago clung to me as tightly then as it did now.
My throat felt choked, but I managed to croak, “Does Aidan know?”
He nodded, and the sight had me staggering back, slumping into the chair beside his bed.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one of them,” I whispered dumbly, staring at the phoenix that had haunted me for years, trying to reconcile that Aidan was aware of his real identity.
What did the ECD have on him?
That was what it boiled down to.
They had to have some leverage, otherwise he’d never have trusted Michael with me.
“Since your father?” Michael asked.
For a second, I didn’t know what he was answering, then I realized it was about the ink and the last time I’d seen that godforsaken phoenix with the flag of a unified Ireland between its talons—a white shamrock on green.
I swallowed. “You knew Father?”
“Yes. Not well. I joined too early for that, but he’s beloved. Your brothers too. Their memories live on through thecheiles.” He tugged on his sleeve. “The phoenix doesn’t mean much here.”
“Wouldn’t mean much to anyone,” I countered, “unless they know what it signifies.” Our gazes collided and I questioned gruffly, “How many ECD brothers are in the Five Points?”
