The tension between us was electric. Ryan was four years younger than me. The baby of the family. Cal, Declan, and I had Mum’s dark hair and light-colored eyes, but Ryan looked like James MacCarrick, good ol’ Da, with light brown hair, blue eyes, and a close-cropped goatee. Ryan had scars running up his left arm and a pin in his knee from an ugly car crash. He’d been street racing and some asshole lost control of his ride and clipped him. He was lucky to live, the dumbass, and I’d never completely forgiven him for putting our mother through that Hell. I remembered the care lines etched twice as deep into her face as we’d waited at the hospital while Ryan was in surgery for six hours.
But what the hell were you going to do with the youngest brother? They were the baby of the family. That meant they were a self-important pain in everyone’s ass.
“Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?” Ryan finally demanded. “Or are we going to stand out here freezing our balls off and comparing dick sizes?”
I snorted. “You don’t want to go there, ‘little’ bro.”
“Christ, man. You’re as fucking unfunny as ever.” Then he laughed. I laughed too. Most of the tension drained out of the air.
I held out my beer bottle to him. “Thanks for saving my ass with the car.”
“Yeah. It’s nothing. Forget about it.”
I wouldn’t. He knew it. I knew it. But Ididowe him an explanation. Just as long as he backed off on Sofia. She hadn’t done anything wrong, even if I wanted to put two bullets in her father’s head for Cal.
Ryan gave me a matching side-eye. “That was a nice bullet hole in the rear quarter panel. Did Mom see it?”
“No.”
“You’re lucky she doesn’t pay attention to what you’re driving from one day to the next. Bet she was more interested in the girl you brought home.”
“Mum knows more than she lets on.”
It was something unspoken between us. We did our best to keep our mother out of what we did, the quote-unquote MacCarrick Mafia shit, and we all chipped in to take care of her. She had social security, sure, but it wasn’t a lot, and Dad died around the time Cal graduated high school. Meanwhile, a couple of .22 caliber bullets had taken my oldest brother. The three of us were determined to make it so our mother never had to work again or worry about money or health care or any of that shit.
And we’dmadeit happen. Hell, our mom deserved that break more than anyone I knew. She’d had it hard enough, especially dealing with us.
“Does Mom know who Sofia is?”
“No. And I want to keep it that way.”
“Eventually it’s gonna come out, whether you want it to or not.” He leaned his elbows on the railing, his heavy ski jacket rustling as he moved. “You never explained why the hell you brought her here.”
I filled him in on the ambush at the motel. I told him about the tracking device in her luggage and about needing a safe place to regroup so Sofia could at least eat something.
Ryan listened in grim silence, never once interrupting. After I was finished, all he said was, “Shit.”
“Yeah.”
He took a long drink from his beer, staring at the backyard that still had patches of snow beneath the trees where the shadows were. Mum loved gardening. In the spring and summer, this place exploded with color and life. Flowers grew everywhere. If you had allegories, you were doomed. In the winter, when everything was gray and dead or covered in dirty, half-melted snow, with all the flower boxes barren and the trellises empty, it was downright depressing.
“You were lucky those guys were shitty hitmen,” Ryan finally said.
I didn’t bother to answer because he was right. If they’d been professionals of my caliber, I probably wouldn’t be here right now. That chance was one I’d come to live with, but Sofia didn’t deserve to be gunned down. I’d shoot her father myself if I got the chance, but she wanted to be a doctor. Sure, doctors could be assholes or as corrupt as anyone else—moving painkillers was one example of that—but maybe Sofia would turn out to be better than anyone else in her family.
Hell, maybe one day she’d end up digging a bullet out of me. I didn’t know what kind of medicine she wanted to practice, but that possibility amused me. She’d never take me as a patient, of course. Her “burn-in-Hell” eyes told me that much. But still, it was funny to think about.
“So what are you going to do with her?” Ryan pressed, throwing me a worried look.
“I don’t know.”
“You’d better figure it out fast. I don’t want to lose another brother. Those fucking Accardos have taken enough already.” He stopped, spit over the rail, and shot me an ugly look. “I really hope we all don’t regret you not finishing that job.”
“What the fuck kind of thing is that to say?” Now I was right back to wanting to kick my little brother’s ass again. Things always came full circle with him.
“Her father had Cal killed. Or did you forget?”
“I didn’t fuckingforget. She didn’t kill our brother.”
