Aedan
Pressing the gun into Carlos’ head, I lead him into the main bar, walking over the corpses of several Mexicans. I glance at Livia, who walks beside me, and offer her a sideways smile. She gives me a sort of half-smile in response, as though she can’t quite decide whether she wants to hate me or forgive me. I sigh, head reeling at the speed with which my entire world has been transformed. Dad dead... I hardly believe it, but then I’m standing in the main bar, the Irish hitmen standing all around me brandishing their guns and not a single (alive) Mexican in sight. And there’s Dad, Patty, the man I spent so long trying to gain the approval of. Now he’s cold and blood-soaked and hardly looks like a man at all. Instead, he looks like a deformed creature, mouth twisted in a caricature of a grin, top half of his head missing.
I look at him for a long time, almost forgetting my surroundings until Carlos starts to laugh. “So you really are the bastard son I have heard so little about, eh?”
Livia steps over the corpses and sits in one of the booths, her neck still splotched with red, looking exhausted and worn out. Faraway, sirens fill the air, growing closer every second. Soon, they’ll be on us... The Clover is a dead spot now. It’ll have to be abandoned. My mind spins. So Mona, the woman Dad betrayed when he seduced my mother, is now the leader of the Irish mafia. Or, will it be her son, if it turns out to be a son? There’s so much to consider.
“I thought you’d be a scary-looking man, a man to be feared. I’ve heard stories about you, Aedan, but now I look at you, I see nothing but a bastard, a filthy, rotten bastard...”
I chose Livia. I said to myself, I will save Livia, and I saved her. But when I look at Dad, the life stolen from him, I can’t help but feel guilty. People don’t change in a matter of minutes, no matter how much I’d like it to be otherwise, and I can’t help but feel a pang of knife-like guilt right in my gut as I look at Dad’s corpse. Mom screams at me in my mind: This is your fault. You let him die. You betrayed your family. You are a failure. You have lost us everything. Just take that gun and place it against your own head—
“Aedan,” Livia says, cutting right through the thoughts. Her voice is soft and there’s an undertone of affection to it, despite the tinge of anger and resentment in her eyes. Looking at her is like looking at a swirling mass of colors, impossible for one dominant color to emerge: emotions surging around and around her face. “Those sirens aren’t getting any quieter. Whatever you’re going to do, do it now. We need to leave.”
We, she said we. Does that mean anything?
Her eyes are wide, her face glossy with sweat, and even now amidst this carnage she looks so damn hot some dirty thoughts start whirring around my head, like how goddamn beautiful she looked when she was under me, orgasm making her legs shake, her breasts jiggle.
“You are the big bad bastard—”
Carlos’ brains—brains that have orchestrated countless harassments over these past months—fly out of the front of his face. He collapses, proving that big men do fall just as easy as little ones.
I drop the gun and turn to Livia, offering her my hand.
She looks at it for a few moments, as though debating whether or not she can really take it, and then lets out a long breath through clenched teeth.
“Just get me home,” she says. “This doesn’t mean anything. Just get me home.”
She takes my hand, and I nod.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I turn to the other hitters, the sirens ringing loudly in the air now.
“It’s time to go dark for a while, fellas. I’ll be in contact when I know what’s going on.”
All of us flee from the bar, leaving the stench of death behind us.
Despite everything, Patty dead and The Clover abandoned, I’m glad to have Livia’s hand in mine.