One
Rory
Aboot nudgesme in the side for the third time and there’s a groan. I believe it’s coming from me, but it’s anyone’s guess.
“Feck off.”
“You told me to wake you up.”
Conor’s voice is like a bag of bleeding cats to my ears right now.
“I said no such thing. Now piss off and let me sleep.”
There’s a sigh. Footsteps moving away from me. For a minute, I think the lad is actually going to listen. Until the ice water hits my face and I come up swinging.
I don’t manage to hit him since Conor is shielding himself with my sofa. And the woman I brought home with me last night since she’s passed out on top of it.
“Real gentleman, ye are,” I tell the lad. “Hiding behind a lady.”
He makes a face as his eyes wander to the slumped form of the blonde with raccoon eyes and her mouth hanging open while she snores. Her name is Ivy, so she says.
“Yeah, a real lady,” Conor scoffs.
The lad’s voice is hard and bitter. Conor is never hard and bitter, in fact, he’s dopey as fuck most of the time. This is how I know for certain my suspicions were bang on about this girl.
“I brought her home for you, ye fucking muppet,” I tell him. “I saw the way ye were making eyes at her all night long. But then ye disappeared and couldn’t be bothered to come back here to sort her out.”
He looks away, and just like that, he’s back to himself. The awkward, fumbling lad I first met when he decided to go Wild West on the Lenox Hill Crew. Thought he’d go down in a blaze of glory, but instead, he ended up working for our crew instead. He should know me well enough by now to know this ride isn’t my sort of fancy at all.
“Get her some breakfast and then give her a lift home,” I call out as I walk down the hall.
“You need to be at the church in forty minutes,” he says. “Don’t be late, or Crow will have both our nuts.”
I hate him right now. But the lad is right.
The only timeyou’ll ever see a whole load of mafia men in church is either something grand or something bad.
Weddings, funerals, repentance.
Today, we’re all here for Keeva’s baptism.
Crow’s baby daughter, who has just entered a lifetime of protection better than the president himself.
She’s a sweet little girl with the looks of her mother Mack. And this is the reason we’re all here in a church on Sunday instead of hungover at Slainte like usual.
Being that Crow’s now the boss of the Irish syndicate, there isn’t a lad in our crew that isn’t here today. We’ve all come to show our respect and support.
Family is important. Family is everything.
And apart from my mammy, these lads are the only family I’ve got. My brothers. There isn’t a thing I wouldn’t do for them. This is the code that we live by. We are in it together until the end, and there’s nothing that will change that.
I’ve got it in my head though, that I’d like a family of my own someday. A thought only driven home when I see Crow and Mack together. Even Ronan and Sasha. The lads have all reached the age where they are settling down and changing their ways. At least as far as life outside the syndicate is concerned.
I have a good life. I get to do what I’m best at. Hustling and fighting. I spend my days with the lads, fucking shit up, and my nights with whatever hot ride catches my fancy.
But right now, in this pew, hungover and hungry, there is a moment of clarity. This hunger inside of me- this emptiness- is for something more.
I have a vision of myself like that someday. Like Crow is right now, holding his daughter. And when I imagine my wife beside me, there’s only one face that comes to mind. It could only ever be her.
