Page 124 of Bad Bishop

I pinned him with a look. “I don’t remember stuttering.”

Lila giggled, reaching for her glass of sparkling water, and my chest filled with stupid, disgusting pride. Because I made her laugh. I made her orgasmandlaugh. She better fucking like me, or else.

“Mother Mary, I truly lost her.” Chiara clutched her giant diamond necklace. “Nothing in this…thishussyin front of me resembles the sweet child I put in this man’s hands only a few months ago.”

“Call my wife a hussy one more time,” I challenged, continuing to eat my meal calmly, “and her pretty little pink dress will turn red.”

“Chiara, zip it,” Vello barked. “Callaghan—no more disappearing acts while you’re on my property, you understand?”

“Loud and clear.” I flashed him a soulless smirk. “Next time, I’ll stay here and do it right in front of you.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO

Three months after their great escape, the twins reunited with their family in London.

Tyrone was tall and regal and broken. Older than they’d imagined. He was handsome, but haggard in a way a man who had lost everything was. And Tiernan knew, on first sight, that his father had never gotten over his mother and never would.

It was on his scrawny fourteen-year-old shoulders to steer what was left of the family from troubled waters. To put it back together and take over the family’s business.

One of Tiernan’s many disappointments in his father was that he looked nothing like them. He had dark hair and hazel eyes.

It was also why he took an immediate liking to Fintan. His older brother looked like a slightly older, fuller version of him, with the same crimson hair and green hooded eyes.

They flew straight to America, where Tyrone’s secondary school friend helped him set up a business in Hunts Point.

The twins spoke ASL to each other—hoping to leave Russia and the memories it held behind. They didn’t know much English, and Fintan was the one to patiently teach it to them.

Fintan talked relentlessly, making sure they heard his voice, accent, pronunciation, and slang. He taught them how to pour Guinness correctly, with the pint slanted just so, and how to curse in Irish and “Amhrán na bhFiann.” He read them books.UlyssesandThe Picture of Dorian GrayandGulliver’s Travels.Made them watch, then recite, everyFather Tedepisode.

He taught them how to play cards, how to cheat, and how to win. How to cook, do the laundry, whistle, and even how to have fun. How to steal a car. How to smile disarmingly at police officers when caught. He taught Tiernan how to flirt and how to steal a heart and how to break it.

In lieu of a fully functioning father, Tiernan leaned into his relationship with his brother. Adopted his Irishness and carved himself into something so eerily similar, no one could have guessed the brothers grew up in different countries.

He loved Fintan something fierce. A love that was different than the one he had for Tierney. With Tierney, it was all laced with worry, and anxiety, and a cloying desperation to protect her. His love for Fintan was more free. He took, not just gave.

Unlike Tiernan, his twin sister couldn’t find it in herself to forgive her surviving relatives for what happened.

She reinvented herself as a New York siren. Her accent was American, all nasal vowels and laid-back intonation. Her clothes were Italian and French. She was cordial with Fintan and Tyrone, but kept her loyalty to Tiernan only. She blossomed like a rare flower tangled in ferns. A completely different breed from the men in her family. Flirtatious, careless, and extravagant. Disarming in a way only a woman who tasted the wrath of a lethal weapon could be.

They all worried about her, but decided not to poke the wounds she concealed so expertly with makeup and designer clothes.

They let her pretend everything was okay, hoping one day she, herself, would believe it.

_______

Over the next three years, Tiernan had slowly discovered the extent of his own trauma. It was like unmooring a festering, infectious wound after a long journey. Getting the first goodlook at the pus and the clotted blood, the gore and the slithering maggots.

He didn’t like girls. No, scratch that. He detested the entire human race. Could only enjoy women the way Igor had taught him to—from behind, in the arse, when they were hurting. He had no interest in what wasn’t offered for a wad of cash. And he never formed any relationships deep enough to allow intimate questions.

He was an excellent soldier, sniper, negotiator, and executor; everything Fintan lacked in discipline and character, he made up for in spades. But he was cold, and growing colder by the day.

And he couldn’t, for the life of him, find a good reason to stay alive.

The only thing he felt was pain. It was everywhere, reminding him he was still breathing.

Breathing was becoming a chore, and he had quite enough of those already.