“Step out for a sec, Pat,” I order.

“You got it, boss,” he says in that low, gravelly voice of his.

Boss.

I shiver. I’m not used to that word. I’m not sure I’ll ever be. It’s only been a couple of days since dad died, and I can’t get over how different everyone’s treating me – even Kieran.

Especially Kieran. We’re twins, only separated by ten minutes and a lifetime of experience, but even he’s looking at me different.

The car door clicks shut, and there is a moment of silence. Casey’s looking nervous, her eyes darting from window to window as she looks out at the graveyard, and I can tell she doesn’t want to be here.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“You’re asking me?” Casey replies, her voice up an octave. “Are you? You’re the one who…” She trails off, as if realizing what she was about to say.

I give her a sympathetic nod. I’m not used to it yet, and I’m not sure I ever will be – so how can I expect others to be any different? Dad was the foundation and the glue that held my whole life together and, judging by the sound of the crowd outside, it was the same way for a lot of people as well. Half of Boston is out there and maybe more besides.

“I shouldn’t be here,” Casey whispers. Her fingers clench open and closed on one hand, and she scratches the skin between her thumb and forefinger with the opposite hand.

“If you’re with me, no one –”

Casey cuts ahead of me. “It’s not that,” she says, looking down. “Luke is …,” she breaks off.

“This is where Luke is buried.”

She says it with so much finality that it breaks my heart. The first time she told me about her brother, I felt something. even though I knew whatever I felt was because I had feelings for Casey, not because I knew what she was going through. This time, it’s different. This time I know what loss feels like. It hurts. It’s a jagged wound that won’t close; an ache that I don’t think will ever go away.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, reaching over and grabbing her hand. It’s warm, almost burning hot, and I don’t expect it. It feels – different somehow: out of place on this gray day, in a field of the dead, where even the living wear black.

My mind flicks back, like it’s done a hundred times already, to that moment a couple of days ago. That moment when I saw the photo of dad, something came over me: something black, something that I couldn’t control. Yet Casey held me then, even when I treated her like dirt. She held me as hot, silent tears came out – the only time in my life I’ve ever cried.

No, I have that wrong: the second.

I squeeze her fingers in mine. I know in my heart of hearts that I can’t do this without her.

“I need you here,” I whisper.

It’s only four words, but it’s four words that mean so much more than I anything else I can say. It’s true. I’m coming to rely on Casey like a crutch to rest on. It’s crazy, I know. I mean, I barely know her, but it’s in times of hardship that true connections are forged. Whatever I’ve got with Casey, it’s real. It’s raw, but it’s tight. There’s no denying it.

Those greens of hers fix on my eyes, and they don’t let go. I can’t read her. It used to be so easy when I met her, but now, it’s harder to know what she’s thinking, with her eyes all swamped with emotion and layers of meaning too thick to grasp.

I press on. “You’re my woman,” I say.

I don’t expect those words to come out of my mouth, but when they do, I’m not surprised. It’s how I’m beginning to think of her.

“I know that this, this thing we have – it’s all messed up and crazy. But that’s how it is. You’re my woman, and I need you by my side.”

Casey flinches, and I don’t know if it’s the raw honesty in my words that causes it. She holds my gaze a second longer and nods. “Okay,” she says. Then a second later, she says a second time, stronger, louder, “Okay.”

She squeezes my hand, and says, “I’m by your side.”

We step out of the town car, and Patrick closes the door behind us. The second we do, every eye in the place turns on us, and I wonder whether this is what it’s like for the President and the First Lady. The hum of the crowd goes silent for a couple of seconds, and then renews. But I know that every damn person here is following my every move.

“Declan,” an old man wheezes. “You won’t remember me –”

I cut him off. “Of course I do, Tim. I was young, but I remember.”

He laughs. “It’s true what they say. Old mobsters don’t die, they just fade away.” He bends over, coughing, and bats away my hand when I try to help. “Never grow old,” he says in a hoarse whisper as he regains his voice and pulls himself back upright. “It’s not worth it.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Your father was a good man,” he says, gripping my shoulder. “A bloody good man, ye hear? If you’re half what he was, you’ll do fine.”

I thank him, and we move on.

Casey holds my arm tight as mobster after mobster comes up to me to pay their respects. It’s crazy. I don’t know half of them, but everyone knows who I am.

We get a second’s peace, and I pull her aside behind – I dunno – a crypt? Something big and stone and full of dead people, anyway. It’s not the first place I’d have picked for a meeting, but it’s not like I’ve got a hell of a lot of choices.

“What the hell is this?” I ask her, my voice low and urgent. “Can’t they just give me some time to – I don’t know – grieve or something? Why’s everyone coming up to me?” I glance out into the crowd, and see Kieran and Ridley and my Ma all in a family group, and no one surrounding them.

“Why is it just me? Why are they not giving “condolences” to Kieran and the rest?” I ask, pointing at them.

Casey grips my arm. I can’t tear my eyes away from hers; and I don’t want to anyway. She’s like my anchor, my point of reference. She’s all that is stopping me from just running away.

Running: that’s what I would have done as a kid. I would have just got the hell out of here and found someone to fight, or something to break.

“Isn’t it obvious?” She asks. Her eyes are soft, and the look she’s giving me feels like a warm, sympathetic hug.

“They see you as the bus now. Look at their eyes; you’ll see it. Why not Kieran, or the others? I can’t tell you. Its fate, I guess. You were born first, and maybe that’s just the way it is.”

I press my lips against hers and give her a fierce kiss. It’s not fucking romantic – it’s necessary. Casey’s the only one here who isn’t here for anything else – not the grief, not to ask something from me – she’s here just for me. I need to show her how grateful I am.

“Come on,” she whispers, stroking my cheek. “They’re waiting.”

I give myself a second, and compose my face. She straightens up the lapel on my dark gray suit, and we walk out to the podium. This is the last thing I want to be doing; today of all days, when any good Irishman should be drinking away his sorrows, not giving a goddamn speech.

Casey breaks away, and if looks could drag her back, she would be within my encircled arms and I’d never let go: but they can’t, and they don’t. She takes a seat in the crowd. I know she’s right to do so. She can’t be up here, by my side. This is my place and mine alone. How I wish it wasn’t so.

“Thank you father,” I murmur, once the priest’s speech is done. There’s a smattering of “Amens” around the crowd, then it’s my turn.

I take my place in front of the crowd, resting my hands on either side of the wooden lectern. A hundred pairs of eyes stare back at me, maybe more. If it wasn’t for the sound of the faint breeze rustling the leaves of the trees on the hill, and the shuffling of the paper programs, there would be absolute silence.

It’s enough as it is.

My ma’s head is bowed, and she’s resting on Kieran’s shoulder, all dressed in black. My brothers are all wearing a face like thunder, but I know it’s not anger, it’s a deep depression. I feel it too. There’s no one to fight, not this time. Byrne men have never dealt with sadness well. There’s a long line of us who chose the drink instead. I won’t be one of them.

But the expectant look of this crowd is almost enough to drive me to the bottle.

I clear my throat, and the sound echoes around the PA system, but the words won’t come out. The eyes are bearing down on me, drilling into me, burning me, and I don’t know how to deal with them. I’ve never felt this before. I’ve run my life to the tune of the phrase pressure makes diamonds. It sure doesn’t crush me, and it never has.

It’s always been water off a fuckin’ duck’s back for me, and you can believe it when I tell you that my back’s a whole lot broader than that fucking duck. Except, right now, it isn’t. Right now, those fucking eyes won’t stop waiting, expecting – and what the hell am I supposed to give them?

I dip my head to the microphone. “Anyone who knows me,” I whisper in a voice that isn’t mine, “knows that …”

I break off.

I need help.

And Casey gives it to me. My eyes find hers, deep in the crowd. It’s like my eyes were drawn to find her in that sea of men and women dressed all the same. Even dressed in black she outshines the sun. I stare out, and those greens of hers are all I see. None of those other eyes matter. Not Kieran’s, not my other brother’s, not even ma’s – just Casey’s.

I pull myself upright, remembering who I am – a Byrne. It’s fine to feel pain. Who wouldn’t after losing a man like da? But pain passes. Pain needs to pass for the next generation to take the reins. And I’m the next generation. Kieran is the next generation.

Casey is the next generation. It’s fine to feel it, but I can’t allow myself to show it. Pain is weakness, pain is blood, and there are enough goddamn sharks in that crowd in front of me that they’ll smell it. The second they do, I’ll be in the fight of my life. So I bottle it up. I concentrate on Casey’s gaze, and I let that wash over me, and wash away the pain.

I pull myself upright and proud on the podium. Whatever words I was going to say, they’re gone. They were fake, and weak, and they didn’t have the measure of the man.

“Seamus Byrne was a goddamn lion of a man,” I say – and this time, my voice rings out loud and true. “He was the best father any son could ask for –”

“Hear, hear,” Kieran’s voice rings out. He wraps his knuckles against the chair.

“He was the best husband any wife could want.”

Ridley’s voice joins Kieran’s in my brother’s choir.

“And he was the best man Dorchester could have asked for. He will be remembered. He will be missed. But he will not be forgotten.”

The crowd rumbles their support, and every one of my brothers joins in. I slap my hand against the podium, and the sound rattles through the PA system. “So, enough mourning,” I growl. “It’s not our way. It’s not the Irish way. Tonight we remember Seamus the way he would have asked to be remembered; at my ma’s house. You’re all welcome.”

I step down from the podium, and people start to mill about. The depressing atmosphere’s cleared, like the aftermath of a summer storm.

My mood’s just starting to improve, when it slams into a fucking brick wall. I’m trying to get to Casey, but instead I clap eyes on the person I least want to see.

“Mickey,” I say. “You made it.”

Mickey Morello has got those eyes that don’t focus on you when he speaks. I don’t know whether it’s because he’s just awkward, or because he’s got places he’d rather be; but it pisses me off. This isn’t just a chance meeting in a nightclub; he’s at my dad’s goddamn funeral; and I expect him to look me in the goddamn eye.

My jaw clenches.

“Of course, Dez –”

“Declan.”

“Declan, that’s right. I do apologize. No place would I rather be.”

I can’t tell if Mickey’s being deliberately insolent, or just goddamn stupid. I wonder about the former, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the latter. He’s never been the sharpest knife in the drawer: a playboy, not a future leader.

“Are you coming?”

“Can’t, I’m afraid,” he replies airily. “Places to be – you understand.”

I understand, all right. I bet he’s going goddamn drinking. It’s not how things would’ve happened; not in my dad’s day; nor in his. Back then, men understood respect.

“Shame,” I reply in a tone that says it’s anything but. “But while I’ve got you here, perhaps we can come to an understanding?”

Mickey picks up on the bite to my voice. His eyes narrow and I could swear that his ears prick up like a dog’s.

“You don’t touch my territory, and I don’t touch yours. No one wants a war. They’re bad for business.”

“No one,” Mickey agrees with a Hollywood smile, sticking out his hand. “It’s a deal.”

He shakes like a wet fish.