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“Out of respect for your gift,” Jakub says, his voice terse, making Leon falter in his approach, “And all that you’ve done for the Numbers, I will forget about your desire to question our actions tonight. Go to bed, Thirteen.”
Wait!I plead with my eyes.
“Leave us. Now,” he bites back, striding over to us both and gripping Leon’s shoulder, preventing him from getting any closer. Of the three, Jakub and I were closest as children. That lingering affection, however miniscule, saves me now.
Except I can’t leave. I won’t, not until I’ve done what I came here to do.
Shaking my head, and ignoring the darkness leaching into Leon’s gaze, I pull out the letter from my skirt pocket and shove it towards him. My instructions were clear, deliver this letter to The Masks on this very night, no matter the cost.
“What’s this?” Leon asks, his voice strained and his gaze sharp, deadly beneath the black mask he wears.
“Looks like a letter,” Konrad remarks dryly as he joins us.
Jakub releases Leon from his grasp. “Fromwhom?”
With shaking fingers I write my response, then slowly turn the pad around.Nessa, Christy’s mother.I’m met with silence as my response sinks in, then Leon blinks a few times as though coming out of a trance.
“Nought’s mother is dead!” he shouts, his reaction as explosive as expected.
I school my features, turning all the fear inward and giving off that serene, calm-like state that I’ve perfected so well.Yes, she is.
Leon snorts in derision. “Why the fuck would Nought’s mother sendyoua letter from beyond the grave?”
Not beyond the grave. She sent it before she died to my grandmother, who gave it to me on her deathbed. I was instructed to give it to you today, on this very night,I explain, my fingers aching from writing so fast.
Jakub flicks his gaze at me, his shock reflecting his brothers’, before returning it to the letter still gripped in Leon’s hand. “What does it say?”
I shake my head, writing my answer down quickly.I haven’t read it. It wasn’t meant for my eyes.
“But it was meant for you to deliver it to us fifteen years after Nessa’s death?”
It’s a rhetorical question filled with sarcasm and more than a little distrust, but I answer truthfully nonetheless.Yes. I nod.
“You should read it, Leon,” Konrad interjects, eyeing me with suspicion. “Nessa has clearly gone to great lengths to get it to us, so it must be important. Right, Thirteen?”
This time I don’t dare reply, I simply wait. A shiver tracks down my spine as Konrad turns his attention back to Leon, handing him his flick knife. Leon slides the blade beneath the flap, pulls out the letter and begins to read it out loud.
To Jakub, Leon and Konrad,
You might be known as The Masks to many people, but I shall refer to you by your given names and not the name you gave yourselves. I do this because those names belong to the boys you once were as much as they do to the men you are now, and perhaps that small reminder will be enough to persuade you to let my daughter live.
By now you will be questioning how a dead woman, long since buried beneath grass, soil and stone can possibly know your intentions. The answer is both as simple as it is complicated. Let me explain.
My name is Nessa Dálaigh. I am the second daughter of Brennan Dálaigh, aunt to Arden Dálaigh and best friend to Aoife O’Brien, Cynthia’s mother, or as you now call her, Thirteen.
“Zero is aDálaigh?” Konrad’s nostrils flare as he swipes a hand through his hair. “That did not come up in our background check on her. Fuck!”
Jakub holds his hand up, his jaw clamped shut as he jerks his chin at Leon, urging him to continue. Leon nods tersely before reading on.
As you know, Thirteen’s father, Niall O’Farrell, was a close acquaintance of your father, and like your father he was a troubled man, corrupted by power and twisted by the darkness he harboured inside.
He stole my friend, just like you stole my daughter.
Aoife fought her attraction to Niall, but over time she fell in love with him. But unlike your father, Niall still had a streak of humanity, one that her love helped to bloom. Four years after he stole her, she died in a bitter war between the two families. Thirteen witnessed her mother’s death and never spoke from that moment on. She is the silent one and your only friend in this life.
I tell you all of this for one reason only: I fear if nothing changes, history will repeat itself.
Leon pauses, catching my eye. My mother wasn’t the only person to die that night. Both of the warring families lost people they cared about. It was a bloodbath, one I wish to forget. I swallow hard, forcing the memories of that night back into the padlocked recesses of my mind as he continues to read.
