I stand on the front lawn of the house, hands in my pockets and a scowl on my face as I stare up at it. This isn’t the house I grew up in - that one got sold to cover debts after my parents died. It’s also not the one I lived in with my uncle when he became my legal guardian, and God only knows what happened to that wreck of a place since I left.

This new one is huge, a turn of the century style brick thing probably built by some shipping tycoon in the era of Vanderbilts and Carnegies, up in the East Promenade of town overlooking the harbor.

Declan’s apparently done well as a small-town crook since I’ve been gone.

Fuck it.

I blow air through my lips as I step up to the front porch.

“Oh hi, Silas!”

I blink at the familiar face of the girl who answers the door. Okay, I’ve known that Declan married Stephanie at some point in the last eight years, but that doesn’t make it any less weird seeing her here.

Stephanie, the consummate party-girl who Ivy and I went to highschool with. Stephanie, who I’m pretty sure Rowan got his first blowjob from. Stephanie who was never really the brightest bulb in the pack, who as far as I’d heard had picked up an exciting career in pole dancing after graduating highschool.

I’m still not sure if it’s funny or sad that she’s ended up marrying a two-bit small-town gangster two and a half times her age.

There in the doorway though, Steph throws her arms around me. “Oh my gawd, Silas!” She hits my shoulder, grinning widely at me.

“I heard you were in Africa or somethin?”

Well that’s a new one.

I shake my head. “Ireland, actually. Not Africa.”

Stephanie rolls her eyes and waves a hand at me, as if it’s an easy everyday mix-up. She turns and breezes through the house towards the kitchen, grabbing an enormous glass of wine from a side table in the hallway.

“So you’re here for your uncle?”

I nod as I follow her into the kitchen.

“Oh my gawd,” she turns in the kitchen doorway, her eyes wide as she brings a manicured hand to her mouth. “Jesus shit, does that make me your aunt now? Gawd that makes me feel so old!”

I knit my brow as I suppress the smile. “Steph, I’m a year older than you. And no, I don’t think that means you’re my aunt.”

Her shoulders slump with relief. “Well thank fucking Christ. Oh! You should stay for dinner!” She turns and sweeps into the utter shit-show of the kitchen - raw spaghetti and splatters of tomato sauce like some sort of crime scene all over the place.

“I’m making pasta.”

Making it, or assassinating it?

“Declan’s on his way home, actually, so we could have a proper family dinner!”

I smirk at the idea of a that. Right, this family? Proper? My uncle the crook, my aunt the stripper, and me the career thief.

Yeah, a regular nuclear family we are.

“Didn’t know you cooked, Steph.”

I’m not staying for dinner, but I don’t have to tell her that. I’m here to set some shit straight with my uncle about some boundaries and about staying the fuck out of my life, and then I’m leaving.

I look up and frown as I suddenly see Stephanie with a metal bread-tin of some kind in her hand, heaped with pasta and sauce as she opens the microwave.

“Whoa, Steph!”

She looks up quickly. “Yeah?”

“Can’t put that in the microwave, you know.”

She furrows her brow as she looks at the metal dish in her hand piled with cracked, dry pasta and lumps of canned tomato sauce. “What do you mean?”

I shake my head, staring at her. “Steph, it’s metal. You can’t put metal in the microwave.”

She pauses for a second before she starts to laugh, waving a hand at me as if I’m pulling one over on her. “Oh, Silas! You almost had me there!” She laughs as she slides the dinner abomination into the microwave.

“Stephanie!” I stare at her. “It’s metal.”

“Well how else is it going to cook, silly?” She laughs as she turns away.

The backdoor bangs open, startling us both as Declan himself comes striding through the door.

He stutters to a stop as he sees me sitting at his kitchen table, his eyes narrowing as a grin spreads across his face.

“Well, well, the prodigal fucking nephew!” He pulls his cigarettes out of his pocket as he moves towards me, swatting Steph on the ass and eliciting a giggling squeal from her before he settles across from me at the table.

“You know Stephanie, right?”

He knows I know his new wife.

“I do, actually.” I look up at his new wife and my former classmate, who’s thankfully transferring the pasta from the metal dish to what looks to be a microwave safe glass one.

“So, Steph, how did you and my uncle meet?”

Cheer practice back when we went to highschool together? Hopefully something much later than that?

“Well, of course I knew this lovely creature from before,” Declan chuckles his wheezing laugh as he stands and grabs a bottle of whiskey and two glasses from the kitchen counter. He sits again and pours into both of them.

“You know, from when the two of you were back in school.”

I smile thinly. “Yeah, no, I remember.”

He chuckles again. “Well, I lost track of her until about three years ago when I saw her dancin’, and I knew it was love at first sight.”

I raise my brow, suddenly wondering if I’ve somehow gone through my whole life underestimating my uncle’s emotional capacity. Dancing? Love at first sight?

Who knows, people can change.

“Shit kid, I’ll tell you, the tits on this one when she was up on that pole-”

Yep, theeeeere it is.

Declan whistles. “Love at first sight when I saw those perfect fucking tits, I’ll tell you!” He chuckles, red-faced as he reaches over to goose his young wife.

“Declan!” Stephanie giggles, feebly pretending to push my uncle’s hands away from her ass. “Dirty!”

I take back what I said before. Apparently Declan still possesses the ability to make me cringe.

“So,” he pushes a glass of whiskey my way, “about time you stopped by to say a proper hello.”

I ignore the glass and shake my head. “I’m not here to catch up, Declan.”

He grins. “Then to what do I owe the pleasure of your sour company, kid?”

I stand, pointing at him across the table. “You need to keep away from me and that family”

He snorts. “Sit, drink.”

“No thanks.”

“It wasn’t an offer.”

He nods at the glass he’s pushed my way before he raises his own glass.

I narrow my eyes at him before I sit, taking up the glass.

“Slainte,” he says, using the Irish-Gaelic term.

“Cheers,” I murmur before we both slug back the whiskey It’s sweet, and it burns.

And I shouldn’t be here, sitting at Declan McCreedy’s fucking table drinking whiskey with him.

“So are you joining us for dinner, Silas?” Stephanie asks from across the kitchen.

“He’s fine,” Declan says quietly.

“No, thank you, Steph.”

My uncle turns to her. “Give us a few, wouldn’t you dear?”

She smiles again at me. “Good to see you, Silas! I’d love to hear about Africa sometime!” She leaves.

“So, gonna congratulate me?”

I frown at Declan. “On?”

He grins. “On my new bride, stupid. You missed the wedding.”

“Mazel tov.”

Declan snorts. “Yeah, she’s a real good one. Real church girl, you know? The kind you bring home to mama.”

I smile thinly and nod.

He chuckles as he pours whiskey into both of our empty glasses. “I’m just fuckin with you. I wouldn’t bring that girl within a mile of my Ma if she were still around, God rest her soul.”

He raises his glass up. “Still, an ass like a fuckin’ drum, I’ll tell you. Slainte.”

I raise my glass again before knocking it back.

“Look,” he coughs and clears his throat. “I want to clear things up with you and me, you know? We’re family and all, and I’d hate to have this shit between us, kid.”

I level my gaze at him. “I think I’ve been perfectly clear.”

“Can’t run from your family, Silas.”

“My family’s dead, Declan.”

He scowls. “Not all of them.”

I meet his eye as I take a drink. “All of them.”

Declan rolls his eyes. “I gave you what you needed.”

I laugh harshly.

“Oooh okay, I didn’t get you fuckin ponies or the new video games or whatever. But you had a roof over your head after my sister and your pop died.”

He crosses himself, glancing up.

“You had food.”

I lean back in my chair. “Sometimes.”

“Never claimed to be a chef, you prick.”

I shake my head. “It’s fine, I had-”

“Oh I know what you had.” His eyes narrow at me as he reaches for the pack of smokes on the table and pulls one out.

“You had your fake family.”

I glare at him, feeling the heat rise in my face.

He grins. “Ooo, there’s that temper again.”

“They took me in.”

Declan lights his cigarette. “You were a pet.”

“Fuck you,” I spit out.

He shakes his head. “You were a side project, a fuckin charity case for the good Reverend. Remind me, how’d that whole thing go after you started porking his daughter?”

I stand abruptly, my chair screeching back across the tile floor.

“Oh sit your ass down.” Declan waves a hand at me. “Calm down, hot head. Where’s that family now? Still all lovely-dovey? Irene Hammond still cooking you dinners? Still washing your clothes?”

I sit slowly, hands gripping the edge of the table. “You know what happened there.”

“Yeah, sure I do.” He blows smoke out of the side of his mouth as he leans back in his chair. “You fucked up.”

I say nothing.

“You made one little teeny mistake as a young kid, and they threw you out.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” I growl.

“No it ain’t.”

My uncle toys with the wrapper on his cigarette pack.

“You showed your true colors for one second, showed them the puppy they’d taken in had bark and a little bite, and they kicked you out into the rain. Don’t-” he shakes his head as he grabs the bottle and pours another glass for us both.

“Don’t make excuses, you know it’s true. A real family?” He shrugs. “A real family forgives.”

Declan’s words are poison, and I know it. They always have been.

And yet here I sit, getting sicker by the minute.

I shake my head. “Look I came here to tell you to stay away from them. Be sure to hear me say that.”

Declan rolls his eye. “I don’t give a shit about the Hammonds, kid.”

“Good.”

“But I do give a shit about your talents. I wasn’t kidding when I said I had a job.”

I stand. I’m done here. I’m done listening to Declan’s bullshit and his poisonous opinions.

I push my chair in and turn towards the kitchen door. “And I wasn’t kidding when I told you I’m not interested.”

“Seven figures.”

I stop.

He hoots out a laugh behind me. ““Yeah, that got your attention.”

I turn. “No, it didn’t.” I shake my head at him. “I’m just remembering why I had to find a family somewhere else.”

He snorts. “I know you the need the money.”

“You don’t know shit about me.”

“Believe me, kid. I do. I know about your little project, for instance.”

I freeze, and he chuckles.

“Yeah, that little nest egg idea of yours? Oh yeah, I know all about that shit. ‘Cept you’ve got a cash problem, and we both know it.”

“We’re done here.”

I try and make my voice level, like he didn’t just strike the nerve we both know he did.

Declan chuckles and waves his hand. “Alright, run off to your fake family.”

“Stay away from my boat, Declan.” I stride out of the kitchen towards the front door.

“You were just a pet to them, kid,” he calls after me, still chuckling.

“Remember that.”