“Some fucking party,” Kieran says moodily, staring at a cocktail sausage skewered by a little wooden toothpick. He flashes me a wry smile. I know inside he feels as miserable as I do, but that’s just the way the Irish deal: black humor.

You don’t survive the goddamn potato famine and a hundred years of working America’s hardest, dirtiest jobs without an uncanny ability to squeeze humor out of the driest stones.

It happens that Kieran can squeeze like the best of them.

I can’t concentrate on any of it. Something is eating me up inside. I’ve been hiding from it for too long, ever since Casey entered my life and turned everything upside down.

“What’s got your goose?” Kieran asks.

I shrug. “Dad’s dead, and now I’m our new glorious leader. Leading us bravely into the great unknown,” I mutter, “while we deal with the Morellos nibbling away at more of our territory every day. What – you expect me to be pleased about this?”

“No,” Kieran says, shaking his head. He’s got my eyes dialed in, and he won’t look away. “That’s not it.”

“You’re a real asshole sometimes, you know that?” I flip back. “Can’t you just leave me be?”

“Brother’s prerogative,” he replies, swallowing the cocktail sausage in one and licking the sauce off his fingers. “I’ve known you long enough. Come now, spill it.”

I glance around hurriedly. I don’t even have to look at myself to know how guilty I look, but I can’t help it. I’ve screwed up, big; I don’t know how the hell I’m going to dig my way out of it. Casey went to wash up, so I’ve got some time;I think.

“You look like you’ve killed the Pope,” Kieran jokes.

“It feels that way,” I groan. I chew my lip. This is one of those things I’d prefer to take to my grave, but I know I can’t. I need perspective. I need someone to tell me that what I’ve done can be fixed. Even though I fear it can’t.

“You know,” I mutter in a barely audible tone. “You know whose piece Kelly is, don’t you?”

“Yer Kelly, you mean?” Kieran says, his eyebrows dancing. I shoot him a look that wouldn’t just kill him, if it could, it’d flay the skin from his bones and then dump them in the ocean.

“That whore was never my Kelly, Kieran. She had my kid and stole her from me, snorted enough coke to dissolve both nostrils and still got custody –,” I break off, and notice that my nails are now embedded in my palm. It takes a force of effort to loosen them. “You know all that, anyway. She’s with Vince, now. Vince Amari.”

Kieran whistles. “That wouldn’t happen to be the same Vince Amari, caporegime to the fucking Morello family, who we beat up the other night over some girl, would it?” He asks in a conversational tone. It’s anything but friendly. The whole time his eyes are boring into my skull.

“Jesus, Declan, you’re a real piece of work sometimes – you know that?”

I nod morosely, hanging my head in shame. He’s right, but knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to hear it. “Way to kick a dog when he’s down, Kieran.”

Kieran shrugs. “Hey, I ain’t pulling my punches to save your sensitive soul. Does ‘she’ know?”

I laugh bitterly. A couple of eyes turn curiously to me, but I stare them down, and they quail and look away. Fuck ‘em.

“Casey? You think she’d be here if she did? I need your help, brother. I don’t know what to do. She was just supposed to be a revenge fuck, you know? Something quick: laying my mark on a piece of meat Vince wanted; because I could. But something’s changing. I’ve never felt like this. Not about a girl. Hell, not about anyone –”

Kieran raises his eyebrow. “Way to put a guy down –”

I elbow him gently. “You know what I mean. What the hell do I do about it? When I was giving that speech just now, Casey was the only thing that kept me going. I can’t throw that away; not like this; not for nothing!”

Kieran gets one of those looks on his face like he’s worried I might hit him. It wouldn’t be the first time, but I motion irritably at him to get on with it. It’s not like I’m going to hit my twin brother at my own father’s goddamn wake. He shrugs and tells me what I already know – even if it is the last thing I want to hear.

“You need to tell her the truth. If you keep hiding it, it’ll come out – sooner or later. Get ahead of it.”

Ridley chooses that exact moment to sidle up to us, and I shoot Kieran a warning look. I trust both my brothers with my life, but Kieran’s the one I know I can trust with my secrets. The way Ridley looks – with eyes half-glazed, a mostly-empty pint of Guinness in his hand, speckled with white dry bubbles all the way down the glass to the black dregs at the bottom – I don’t trust him to know what goddamn state he’s in.

“Jaysus, Rid,” Kieran mutters, “yer a mess.” He shoots me a look that says – we’ll deal with this later – and then says, “Dec, get our brother a glass of water, will ye? He’s near ready to pass out.”

“Fuck him,” Ridley slurs, staring directly at me.

“Yer pardon?” I shoot back, stunned. “If yer talking to me, you better be ready to account for yerself, now. Ye hear?”

The way he looks, I doubt he even hears me. For all I know the words just bounce right off that thick Irish skull of his.

“How dayr’e dishonor our pa like that?” Ridley slurs, leaning against Kieran for support. My twin stares at me awkwardly. “Who’s this piece of ass anyway? Whyd’dya bring ‘er ‘ere? We all know what you’re like, Dec: ye’ll chew her up and spit her out, jus’ like the rest.”

Kieran grabs Ridley by the lapel and tries to knock some sense into him. “Rid, save it, you’re making a scene!”

I feel the telltale signs of rage building inside me: the way my jaw clenches of its own accord, like a bear trap springing closed; the way my knuckles and toes all curl as one. Somehow, I force it back. Fighting is not going to get me anywhere; and it’s the last thing that’ll help here.

I know that the survival of this family through the inevitable coming storm – a dozen mob families ready to pick over our bones – will take every one of us pulling on the same oar in unison. And as much as I want to lay Rid out with a single punch, that’s the quickest way to blow this whole thing up.

Besides, I think with unusual clarity, he’s right.

“Sit him the hell down,” I growl in a low voice at Kieran. We manhandle Rid into a nearby dining chair, and somewhere in the bustle, Kieran relieves him of the last few inches of Guinness he’s still trying to sink down his throat.

“You want to know why I brought her here.” I say, grabbing Ridley’s chin and forcing him to stare me directly in the eyes. “It’s simple: because I needed her here. I wanted her tangled around my arm – not so that people could check her out like the damn Mona Lisa, and tell me how well I’ve done, but because I need her to hold me up. Look at you, Rid…” I say, resting my forehead against the wall.

“Declan,” Kieran says in a low, warning voice.

“You’re a mess. This thing, it’s affecting us all differently. Maybe I’m not the same guy I used to be, you ever think –”

“Declan!”

“Leave him be, brother,” Kieran says, grabbing my shoulder and tearing us apart. “He’s too far gone. Besides,” he nods to the open door, and Casey’s ashen face. “I think you’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

I look round just in time to see Casey turning on her heel and rushing down the hallway.

“Fuck,” I groan, desperately trying to figure out how much she could have heard. “Look after this –”

“Go,” Kieran says, cutting me off and pushing me towards the door. “Go fix this, will ya? Go get your girl.”

I get myself out of the living room, ducking condolences and muttered apologies for my loss on both sides. By the time I’m free of the dark suited mourners, the front door has already clicked shut.

I swear under my breath and chase after her.

It’s getting dark outside, and the cool fall air is already beginning to bite. I see Casey, already thirty yards away, running as fast as her conservative black heels will carry her.

“Casey!” I shout after her, “Stop!”

She doesn’t turn her head. She doesn’t look back.

I take the porch steps two at a time, desperately trying to shove the growing fear within my mind into a box where I don’t have to think about it. I can’t lose her now. She’s the only girl who has ever made me feel this way, the only girl I’ve ever seen as more than the sum of her tits and ass, the only girl I think I might love –

“Casey, goddamn it – stop, will ya?” I shout, sprinting after her.

I close the distance between us in twenty or so long, easy strides. As I reach her, Boston’s skyscrapers twinkle in the evening light. I pull her back by the shoulder, and she spins. She’s been crying. The tiny amount of makeup she applied is streaking down her face.

“Leave me alone, Declan,” she cries. “Leave me be,will you? You’re too good for me; don’t you get that? I’m just an anchor weighing you down, and if your family sees that, then I sure as hell do.”

I stand in front of her, my mouth bobbing up and down. I’m stunned. The words that just came out of her mouth are so far down the list of things I expected her to say they don’t even feature in the first thousand pages. Hell – the first thousand volumes.

Guilt eats at me. Whatever she heard, it sure as hell was not that the reason I screwed her in the first place to prove a point. Somehow I’ve come out of this looking even better in her mind. Fuck, that makes me feel like crap.

Kieran’s advice echoes in my mind. “You need to tell her the truth…”

But I ignore him. I have to. If I tell her now, then all of this is over for sure.

“Casey…” I whisper, holding her shoulder tight so she can’t get away. “I…”

I don’t know what to say. I just know I can’t tell her the truth. I can fix this, I know I can; but I also know that I can’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

Least, that’s what I tell myself.

“I’m sorry for whatever you heard; for everything Ridley said. He’s drunk, and he’s a mess when he drinks.” I grin, diving into those deep green eyes of hers. They are like a pool, washing away my guilt: some of it.

“I wasn’t lying when I said that stuff to him. I do need you. I need you and I think…”

“I think that I –”