Page 24

24

FINN

T he car rolls to a stop outside Mick's farmhouse. I can see instantly the pain on Isla’s face. Her father isn't here to meet his new grandchild. She's hurting as much as I expect Brennan and Rebecca are. I'm here with Declan and his family to do as I promised Mick I would. I have to speak with Brennan and help her understand her cheating husband and his foolish ways. He might be a scoundrel of a man, but he's no murderer—not Aiden, anyway.

"You okay?" Declan, my older brother, asks his wife.

Isla nods but sniffles as she unbuckles the baby's car seat and begins to pull it out of the car. I climb out and suck in a deep breath of country air. We're south of the city, not quite halfway to County Wicklow but still in beautiful country. Mick chose his operations to run from this place and it was perfect for a time. For long enough, in fact, that neither of his daughters knew a single thing about his life of crime. He kept it all under wraps by running this massive farm.

"Go on in," I tell them, taking a few minutes to collect my thoughts.

Declan ushers Isla indoors with the baby while I stand in the misty fog. It's cool against my skin, moist. I sense movement in the barn but hear the flapping of wings and see a bird launch into the air. Not much is happening here now since the Garda raided the place. Mick's men have all taken jobs within the O'Rourke organization for the time being. I doubt any work will happen in this place again except for genuine farming.

I hear a horse whinny, more birds' wings flapping, and sigh. I'm on edge even when things are peaceful. I'm sure Brennan feels the same way with her husband on trial. She has to be distraught from it all. The idea of facing the future without Mick is just an annoyance, a setback to us. But to her, it's losing her life partner.

With my sails adjusted, I walk into the house. The atmosphere is heavy. It feels like someone died, not like Mick is just on trial. The curtains are drawn. Dust hangs in the air. A single lamp in the corner is on, and Brennan sits in an old wooden rocker with a lap blanket draped over her legs. There's a cup of tea next to her, tea bag still draped over the edge, but Rebecca, Isla, and the baby are nowhere in sight. Only Declan sits with the matriarch of this broken family.

I stick a finger in my collar and loosen my tie, having no hat to hold in my hand. Brennan looks up at me with forlorn eyes and nods. She looks tired, hair a frazzled mess around her head and shoulders.

"Sorry I don't have any tea for ye." Even her voice sounds hampered by sorrow and fatigue.

I sit down in the chair nearest her and allow my eyes to adjust to how dim it is in here. The faint chatter of women in the other room meets my ears and I wonder why Brennan would send Isla away with her new grandchild. Why wouldn't she want to hold the little one?

"How is he?" she asks me, and I shrug before sucking in a deep breath.

"He's a rugged old man, Brennan. He'll do fine if he knows his one true love is fighting for him." I search her expression as she frowns and looks away, into the light of the old Cranberry glass lamp. Like the woman in front of me, the lamp has untold value to the right person. "He needs you there fighting for him."

She pauses a beat, blinking her eyes a few times before smiling softly. "I know the kind of man Mick is." Her words come out distant, like she's projected herself to another time or place where life was a fairytale and no one had hurt her or wounded her sense of morality. "I know the things he does." Her eyes turn to meet mine, and I see the sadness in them. "I just didn't think he'd want the world to know."

Realization dawns on me. Brennan has known Mick for who he really is—a liar and a cheat—her whole life. It's the shame of the world knowing that he's that way, and knowing she has allowed it to happen to her and stayed with him. That's what's gotten to her.

"Loyalty isn't a thing to disdain, Mum," Declan says, touching her knee. She pats his hand and smiles warmly at him and the way he speaks with her familiarly. I'm glad for her sake that she can lean on my brother as the son she never had, especially while this trial is ongoing and she has no man in this house.

"Loyalty, against all odds, is a mark of honor." When I speak, she looks up at me and nods.

"Aye, it is." Her response doesn’t faze me at all. Women who marry into this lifestyle know what they’re getting. Men like Mick are a dime a dozen. And what man among us hasn't at least thought of what he's done?

Still, just thinking of doing that to Siobhan stains my conscience with a searing mark I'm not sure I could ever undo. Seeing how Brennan hurts makes it all too real to me. Mick is a lucky man.

"If I appear in court after that, the world will see me for who I really am, and I'm not sure I can face that." She withdraws her hands and folds her arms over her chest, tucking her hands into her armpits. I feel her pain, and I won't push her to do more than she's willing.

"He wants you to know he's sorry and he loves you." I barely get the words out when I hear a crash and shrieks.

Declan and I jump to our feet, turning toward the sound. Brennan rises more slowly as Isla and Rebecca come racing down the hallway with the baby in Isla’s arms. They look frightened and they are coughing as smoke rolls out the bedroom door they just exited.

"Fire," Isla chokes out, eyes watering, arm drawing up over her face.

"Feck's sake," Declan grunts, and I move to the large window obscured by thick, dark curtains. I pull it back and see the house surrounded. "We've got company." There are a few cars out front, but several men, each with a gun in hand and a few of them with a bottle of some sort of liquid and a wick in each burning.

"How many?" Declan asks, checking his weapon. The women are hysterical, gasping and whimpering.

"At least ten. Mother of Christ, why can't they feck off already?" I reach for my weapon as the stench of smoke meets my nostrils. I know nothing about this property or the home, so I can't begin to tell these women how to get to safety. The men outside are Doyles, sent here by Cormac Doyle himself to hunt me down because they know I have Sean McCarty in my custody.

"Isla, is there a way out of here that's not the front or back door?" Declan asks, and Brennan is already ushering the girls toward the kitchen. I race to the bedroom from where the smoke is pouring out, filling the rest of the house, and then follow them to the kitchen.

Declan moves the large dining table toward a wall as Brennan shouts out orders. The girls huddle in the corner, glancing out the window overlooking the back pasture, and I see men closing in.

"Duck," I shout at them, and I raise my weapon to fire on the men before they can throw their firebombs into the windows back here. The blasts terrify the women and baby. All of them are sobbing as Declan rolls back the carpet and opens a trap door into a cellar.

"We can't go into a cellar of a burning home," I snap, keeping my weapon raised up as the men outside scatter and take cover. Seconds later, the firebombs smash against the back side of the structure and flames erupt there. They're followed by gunshots which pepper the wooden siding and cause me and Declan to drop to one knee.

"There's a tunnel out the back side to the south pasture. Just go." Brennan ushers us one at a time, but Declan won't let her be the last to descend. He forces her to go before him, and I bring up the rear. It's pitch black down here and cold. There are shelves of canned goods and a cache of weapons too.

Declan glances at me, and I know what he's thinking. "Everyone take one," he orders, and even Rebecca and Brennan grab a gun. Their hands are shaking in fear, terrified of the war raging overhead as their home burns to the ground above us.

"We'll need lights," Brennan says breathily. Her hand floats to her chest and she nods at the shelf next to the guns where I find a few flashlights.

"We don't have time. This place will be up in just minutes. Let's go." I lead the way with my light slicing through the darkness, praying they don't know there is a secret tunnel under this house.

Together, we huddle in the narrow, damp passageway, scaring rats out and making our way toward the exit. The ground dips and descends farther, then a hill causes us to rise, and slowly, we ascend a flight of stairs.

It leads us to a horizontal door which is stuck fast. I can't budge it despite throwing my shoulder into it. We've got to be five hundred paces from the house, God only knows where, and hopefully out of earshot from the men who are laying waste to Mick's homestead.

"Let me help," Declan grunts, and together, both of us strain against the door until it rises open and fresh air sinks down into the tunnel with us.

The baby is still screaming, wrapped in Isla's arms now, as she lavishes it with kisses and soft words. I peek out first, making sure we're not being spotted, and find a hill blocks the view of where we're at from the house.

"Come on," I order Declan, and he follows me up and out of the cellar. We climb the hill and lie on its crest, watching the house be licked up by the flames. Doyle's men still surround it, like they're waiting for the shrieks of death to tell them we're all dead.

"They're not stopping, are they?" I ask him, and Declan shakes his head.

"They'll never stop. We have to get Mick out of this and we have to do it now. And then we have to make a plan because this war has only just started." I listen to my older brother and know he's right. The stench of smoke in the air carries our direction on the wind and hangs like an omen. Even if we get Mick out alive, the Doyles have started a war we can't ignore. We have to fight back now. And I have to make sure Siobhan is safe while we do.