Chapter Sixteen
Ronan
“I’ve got a lead on Andrei,” Crow says.
I nod and toss back the whiskey before standing and shrugging on my coat.
“Rory already checked it out.” Crow interrupts me. “So there’s no need to rush off anywhere.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Ye haven’t been yourself lately, Ronan. I don’t know what’s going on with ye, but we need to tread carefully here. You need to tread carefully here. I need this handled in the proper fashion. Do ye follow me?”
“So I fecked up once, and now ye have no faith in me, is that it?”
“Ah, Fitzy, quit being so bleeding contrary,” Crow grunts. “The job is still yours. I just want to be sure everything is in line this time.”
I move to leave, and Crow grabs me by the arm. I shake him off.
“Fitz, I need ye to be careful. He’s got men scouring the city for you.”
“I’m not fussed about it,” I tell him. “Let them come. I’d gladly welcome them to try.”
“Goddammit, Ronan.” Crow slams his fist down on the bar. “Ye’re being a gobshite.”
“Ah well,” I answer him. “That’s what I’m good at. Isn’t it?”
I try to leave again when he stops me. He’s staring at me the way he always does. Like he’s trying to work me out. Get inside my head. I don’t like that. I don’t like people looking at me like that. He knows it too.
“I’ve got one in the basement for ye,” he says. “One of his lads. I doubt you’ll get anything else from him, but ye’re welcome to try.”
***
The music from upstairs vibrates down through the floor as I assemble my tools. There isn’t much left of the lad at this stage.
My methods of torture are effective. I know, because I learned from personal experience. So I also know by now this man has nothing else to tell me. He would have given it up if he had.
Most men would like to believe they could withstand anything through sheer will alone. But it isn’t true. They all give something up in the end. I don’t like what I have to do to them any more than they like getting it.
But it’s part of life. The job. The endless stream of days that blur together. Usually, it doesn’t bother me so much. I don’t like the loud noises. The screams. So I always gag them for this part.
I can’t stand the screams. That’s the thing I’ve no stomach for, out of all of it. Loud noises. They grate on me. Make me uptight. Even so, it doesn’t usually last too long.
But tonight it’s different. Long after I’ve cleaned up the body and my work area, they are still ringing through my head. It isn’t just his screams. The nameless, faceless man that graced my table tonight. I don’t remember their faces. Or their names. Only the way their blood looks when it paints the floor.
It always creates a different pattern. Each one is unique.
But tonight, I saw something familiar in this one. It looked like Farrell’s blood. And now I can’t stop hearing the screams. All the screams. They swirl around me, suffocating me in their intensity.
I stagger back and collapse against the wall, covering my ears. But even when I close my eyes, I still see their faces. Alex. Farrell. The other lads who didn’t make it through training. But worst of all is the noise. They were only young, but when they screamed like that, I wanted to kill them.
“Ronan?”
I blink and see Crow standing in the doorway. Only he’s distorted, and I don’t know why. There’s water on my face. He comes to kneel beside me and reaches out to touch me before he changes his mind and withdraws his hand.
“You’ve been down here for hours, mate,” he says.
“I don’t like kids,” I try to explain. “Because they’ll scream. And then… I can’t handle the noise. And I’m not good with kids. I’m not good with people.”
Crow stares at me, trying to work me out again. “I’m not sure I follow ye,” he says.
“I can’t ever be around kids,” I say. “Because they scream.”
Silence falls around us, and Crow just sits beside me for a while. He’s good at that. He doesn’t judge me. Or laugh at the broken bits of thoughts that I manage to get out. He’s usually pretty good at working them out too. Just like he does tonight.
“Ye know, Fitz.” He scratches at his stubble. “I don’t really think that’s true.”
“I can’t ever find out.”
“Ye know that dog ye have at your house,” he says. “That dog makes noises, doesn’t she?”
I think about his words for a moment before I nod. “Aye, I suppose she does.”
“And those noises don’t bother ye.”
“That’s not the same.”
Crow is silent for a while again.
“Well, what about Michael’s kid? Katie. Remember when he had to leave her at the club with ye that time?”
I do remember. But I’d never thought of it before.
“She was a baby.”
“Aye,” Crow replies. “And babies cry. And scream sometimes. But ye held her anyway. I think ye even calmed her if I remember correctly.”
I stare at the wall ahead of me. I know he’s trying to make me feel better. That’s what Crow does. But I just keep thinking how I fucked up with Sasha. How she might fall pregnant, and I can’t be the man that she needs.
I can kill for her. Fight for her. Do anything for her. Anything for her but that. I can’t be a father. I don’t know how. Just as I don’t know how to be a boyfriend, or a husband, or even carry on a proper conversation.
“Ye know what, Fitz,” Crow says. “I haven’t told ye before. But I’ve got this picture in my head, of how I want it to be.”
“How’s that?” I ask him.
“I’m going to marry Mack,” he tells me proudly. “She’s going to be my wife.”
I stare at him, and he grins.
“I know ye like her, deep down inside. I know ye do. You can quit pretending you don’t. Anyway, back to the picture I have in my head. I want to have a family with her. Kids. And part of that picture involves you, Fitz.”
“I don’t think I follow,” I tell him.
He looks at me, and he’s got that serious expression on his face. He doesn’t get it very often, but I know when he does that what he’s about to say is important.
“Ye’re a brother to me,” he says. “And I want my kids to know and love ye like I do. The way Mack does too. I want my kids to know their uncle Ronan. And I have no doubts in my mind that you will protect them the way ye do me. The way ye do all of your family here in the syndicate. Am I right?”
“Aye.” I nod. “I will.”
“Ye didn’t even have to think about it, Fitz,” he says. “And that’s how I know you’ll be just fine around kids. So whatever’s got you tied up in knots, ye need to let it go.”
He gets up and I follow him to the door. But before he goes, he stops to look back at me again.
“Ye know, Fitz. Sometimes people think they can’t change. But I remember that day I met you so many years ago. And if anyone ever tried to tell me you haven’t changed, I think you’d know exactly what I’d have to say on the matter.”