“Go,” he said, pointing toward the door. His face was flushed from the performance, and sweat coated his skin. It was me after an intense workout to burn off some steam.
“After I get what I want,” I said, forcing my voice to relax. His blood ran through mine, and the rejection felt like a vital organ denying its body.
His eyes locked with mine, knowing me as well as I knew him. I wouldn’t move until he did. “What do you want?” His voice was low, shredded, full of resentment.
“The truth,” I said, standing. I grabbed Keely’s jacket, and after she stood, helped her into it. “Tomorrow. Meet me in Gweedore. Bring her with you.”
He wasn’t staring at me, though. He was staring at my wife.
She eyed him back. Then, without warning, she held her hand out to the woman with black hair and blue eyes, introducing herself. “Keely Kelly,” she said, shaking the woman’s hand, but giving my brother the side-eye.
“Fuck me,” he said, his eyes darting between her and me. “You got married, Cash. You selfish, selfish bastard.” The muscles in his arms strained against the pressure he had on the tires of his wheelchair.
“I doubt you need my name,” the woman next to Killian said, rubbing her hand on her jeans, looking at me as she did.
“No, your name doesn’t matter,” Keely said. “I just wanted you both to know whoIam.” She moved closer to me, no room between her body and mine.
She’d made her choice, no matter who I was, and she was claiming me like I’d claimed her on our wedding night. The scratches, those stripes she’d made on my back, were burning in memory.
I set my hand on my wife’s lower back, about to direct her out. “Tomorrow,” I said to my brother. “Or we’ll be seeing a lot of each other until the truth is mine.”
“Still the same marauding bastard,” Killian said. “Nothing’s changed.”
“Not a fucking thing,” I said and left.
* * *
We walked nextto each other in silence, through the music from the pubs spilling out onto the street, until we made it to the Peace Bridge.
I stopped in the middle of it, looking out over the water. It was dark, but the lights from the bridge lit some parts of it. The wind whistled every so often, but other than that, the night was peaceful.
Keely pulled her jacket closer, her hair lifting when a gust passed us like an old ghost. “Maybe he doesn’t like surprises.” She shrugged.
I leaned against the railing, clasping my hands together, trying to see past the surface of the water. “He doesn’t likeme, darlin’.”
“Because of the wheelchair.”
“Because of life,” I said. “Who we are. We’re twins, but we were born to be different.”
“He got the man and you got the animal.”
“‘Some men are born more animal than man. It’s just who they are, what’s running through their veins,’” I quoted my old man.
We were quiet for a few minutes before she cleared her throat. “Why do you care? The truth, Kelly. BecauseI’mnot moving until it’s mine.”
“The day my old man was killed, my brother took the bullet that saved my life but permanently changed his.”
“No. The truth about why you do what you do. Why you fight for a community just to turn around and ruin it. I’m not stupid. I know the game and how it’s played. Things that make the most profit are the most powerful, because they bring in the most money. Drugs are high on that list. But you’re not trying to run the world, Kelly. You’re running one small area of it. A rebel with a cause is stronger than a rebel without one. A rebel with a cause not only has something to kill for, but something to die for.”
A thick breath left my mouth, and the fire from the whiskey lingering on my tongue burned the air around me. “I steal them and then destroy them. I lace the trucks with explosives and blow them up. Ruling Hell’s Kitchen is not about only ruling it. It’s about keeping the bad shit away from the people. Giving them a better way, if possible. It’s what my old man did. What he died for.”
“What that—”
“Fucking liar said?”
“Yeah,” she breathed out. “He wanted—”
“He wanted them back for Grady, but unless he was able to lick them off the ground, he wasn’t getting them back.”
