Page 125 of Bad Bishop

He was an eighteen-year-old who never smiled, never laughed, never took joy in alcohol, music, food, a passionate fuck.

He kept waiting for happiness and relief that never came, until one day, he stopped waiting.

The decision to take his own life was a pragmatic one, devoid of depression or big, morbid feelings.

Tiernan didn’t like pointless things, and he found his own life lacking in meaning. Save for Tierney, no one truly wanted or needed him. And recently, Tierney didn’t look like she needed anyone much.

As with everything else, he considered the different forms of suicide and landed on a bullet to the head. Drowning was unnecessarily cruel, and flinging oneself off a cliff was toounreliable. He wasn’t in the mood to drool in a hospital for the next fifty years in a vegetative state. He just wanted an out.

He chose a .45 caliber and drove to Fermanagh’s, considerate enough not to make a mess at Da’s new mansion. Went up to the steep rooftop of the converted church with a bottle of whiskey. Drank himself into a deeper state of numbness.

It was dark, raining, and sufficiently miserable. A good night to take your own life.

Wrenching the gun from his holster, he pressed it to his temple.

His index began to push the trigger when he heard a familiar voice.

“Don’t you fucking dare, lad.”

Fintan.

His older brother staggered across the steep roof, looking fifty shades of ossified. Fintan yanked the gun from Tiernan’s temple, slapping it away. It skidded across the roof, tumbling into the gutter.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Relieving myself of my oxygen duty, until you came along.”

Fintan tugged him up by the collar of his shirt. He wasn’t much of a fighter, or a mobster, but he was built like a Callaghan. Tall, broad, muscular, inherently strong. Tiernan whirled around to glare at him.

“You really that unhappy?” Fintan’s face crinkled softly.

“I’m really that unbothered,” Tiernan corrected on a snarl. “Nothing means anything.”

“Bullshit.”

Fintan snatched the back of his baby brother’s neck, plastering their foreheads together. He was panting hard. So was Tiernan, he now realized.

“You have everything to live for, brother.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Revenge, for one thing. You cannot let Igor win.”

Oh, but he’d already won. He shaped Tiernan into the monster he, himself, couldn’t stand.

Tiernan said nothing. Fintan clasped his cheeks, growling into his face. “You can’t die before you kill him, because it’s your duty not only to avenge your own pain, but Tierney’s and Mam’s, too. Da’s honor. You’re the only one who can take him.”

Fintan was right.

A vendetta was a good enough reason to live as any.

And Igor did deserve to die.

“If you still feel like you want to die, you can do it after you kill Igor,” Fintan bargained. “Your death isn’t going anywhere, so to speak.”

Tiernan gave him a rueful smile.

“And who knows? Maybe by the time you kill him, you’ll find something else to live for.” Fintan shrugged.