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“Why?”
"You forced me to bring our baby son here to live with you. I want to know what we're getting into.”
My thumb rubs my sleeve where it’s covering the eleven-year-old tattoo. “I was seventeen at the time. Didn’t think I’d be tried as an adult. Not that it would’ve mattered if I’d known.” I scowl. “Two guys jumped Aiden, trying to jack his dirt bike. He'd been working on it and was testing it in an empty lot. One of the guys wanted it for his kid. Aiden was twelve. He was already tall, but back then he was chubby with a mop of reddish brown curls. He didn't look very tough.”
“Grown men?”
“Yeah. Dirtbags.”
“I'd driven him to the field and was just coming back when they knocked him off the bike. If he'd stayed down, they probably would've just taken off with it, but Aiden never stays down. He charged them, and they beat him to the ground.”
She gasps and draws back.
“He was all right. His bones are made of concrete. From drinking gallons of milk from the time he was born, I guess.”
“You were protecting your brother and the police still charged you as an adult?”
“Yeah, well, the Boston DA and I were not on good terms. I'd been in trouble a few times before. They thought a conviction would slow me down. Maybe scare me into making different choices.”
"Did it?”
I exhale a wry sound of amusement. "I was a blond-haired, blue-eyed teenage boy about to enter gen pop in a prison full of violent offenders. I would've been meat.”
The blood drains from her face, and she sits back.
I’ve said too much. But the last time I told her nothing, it made her susceptible to someone’s lies. Time to get real.
“I made a deal,” I say with a wink. “Therefore, no, being convicted and sentenced as an adult did not slow my roll. If anything, it cemented my path. I paid the Sullivan family a million dollars, which is all I had at the time. In prison, their men watched out for me and eventually made me part of their inner circle. That was its own education.”
“So when you got out, you continued to work for them?”
“No, not for them.Withthem, at times. I have a lot of partnerships. When I was young and got in trouble, my family sent me to Ireland while things cooled off. I made connections there, too.”
"Was it always fights that landed you in trouble?”
"Nah. Youthful schemes. At twelve, I set up a gaming ring around paintball wars. Colorful and profitable.”
Her eyes soften, and she smiles. "Doesn't sound so bad.”
“Wasn't. But the law frowns on children making more than civil servants. Gambling enterprises are reserved for older criminals who pay taxes, fees, and most importantly, bribes.”
“You're very cynical.”
“Yeah, a recreational hazard of prison.”
She tilts her head, studying my face. "I'm glad you made the deals you did, so you could get through your prison sentence unhurt.”
No one comes out unscathed. But there’s no need to say that, so I don’t.
“I think he's up," she says, standing.
"I didn't hear anything.”
She smiles. "It's a mommy thing." With that, she slips from the room.
I lean back and finish my beer, thinking my son owes me a big debt of gratitude for landing him Olivia as a mother.
* * *
