Page 27

DECLAN

Song- Something in the Orange, Zach Bryan

“ F uck, I hate today,” Conan whispers beside me.

I clap him on the shoulder and squeeze.

“Even after five years, it doesn’t get any easier,” I say, looking down at our father’s grave on our estate. Right next to our mother.

Even though they both died in Dublin, we buried their ashes here, together. How it was meant to be.

“He’s with Mom. I bet they’re having a grand ball up there, aren’t you, Da?” Finn tips his cap to the gray stone.

He died protecting us. I shake my head. The old man knew what he was doing.

Sacrificing himself to stop the war.

He gave himself over to the Bowens and let that cunt Arthur lodge a bullet in his head.

It should have been for Conan. Clenching my fists by my side, anger radiates through me. If I wasn’t running from the cops in Italy, I might have made it home in time to stop him from making that decision.

My father may still be alive if she hadn't planted that bloodied knife.

“We are doing him proud,” I tell my brothers, a lump in my throat forming.

Conan should have been the one. He killed James. We should never have let that happen. But we would have fought a war.

Our father knew that, so while we were in Italy, he took it upon himself to end it before it started.

It stopped the war from beginning and gave us our roots in Pennsylvania. All the money, the distillery, and his army all became mine.

“I can imagine he’s watching us now and laughing. He would have been amused by our Decadence games idea,” Conan mutters.

I laugh, looking at the name on the grave.

“Da only ever had eyes for one woman. He wouldn’t have got it,” I reply.

Perhaps that's my own problem. My eyes are firmly looking in the past at one woman. My fists clench just thinking about her. Those eyes haunt me. That still image of her planting the knife haunts my dreams.

While I was on the fucking run from the cops in Italy, our dad was killed. I’m standing here at this gravestone, placing flowers for my father, and I blame her for that.

Her first mistake was betraying me. Her second, the one I can’t forgive, is this.

For the first year, I did everything in my power to hunt that bitch down. Grief and anger consumed me to the point I became a monster.

Whoever she is, she’s damn good at hiding. Not even Enzo can find a trace of her.

I know in my gut, one day, I’ll get my answers as to who she really is.

“I can hear you scheming, brother.” Finn grins at me.

“Pointless scheming.” I shrug.

Conan shakes his head.

“Well, maybe next year will be the year she turns up at the resort and you can drag her ass back here.”

I roll my eyes.

It was a dumb idea, but one I couldn’t shake.

“At least I get a vacation and a tan every year before the fun begins here.”

Every damn year, to the date, I return back to that Italian resort. Waiting. Hoping. That my heartbreaker comes back for me.

If what I believe is true about her, that she’s part of another group, then she will be far too clever to return. She knows it’s a death wish.

Yet part of me still thinks that night we had was real.

You don’t fake that. You don’t fake that hurt behind her eyes. That was raw and real. Someone is causing her agony.

And now, five years have passed; every year, more fury is added to my fire.

I want to be the one inflicting the pain on her.

She is mine to destroy.