Page 70 of Cillian

“You made a huge mistake today, boy. When I'm done killing you and your dumbfuck brothers, I'm gonna have fun torturing and fucking that pretty girl of yours until the bitch forgets her own name,” he threatened, as I charged toward him, with fury as my only fuel. I tackled him to the ground, wrestling and struggling to get the gun out of his hand.

We tussled, fists meeting faces, elbows meeting jaws, until finally I gained the advantage when I reached for a brick and swung it across his repulsive face. He crawled away from me clutching the mangled ruins of his face with an attempt to put distance between us. I caught my breath, taking the same brick as I yanked him by the foot back to me. Smash! His face disappeared with the first slam of my wrath. The second sputtered brains and blood everywhere.

By the sixth, I was on auto-pilot, tapping into suppressed fury at the thought of anyone bringing harm to my Queenie.

“Don't you ever, ever threaten my wife!” I roared, staggering to stand as I went to open the door. Racing down the steps, her crying and praying filled the space, as she let out a scream when I went to cut the ropes that kept her bound.

“Baby, it's me, Cillian. It's me, sweetheart,” I said, as she went silent and I proceeded freeing her of her restraints. To my surprise, she embraced me, gripping me tighter than I ever thought was possible.

“I was so scared,” she whimpered.

“I know, Queenie, I know. But remember what I told you. That I'm not ever going to let anything happen to you. I meant that.” In a grip that seemed to hold me tighter, she latched onto me, her sobs muffled against my chest.

“Cill,” a voice from above called out to me. It sounded like Bell. “You better get up here.”

Twenty-Six

Cillian

The aftermath of this mess was going to be grander than anything we’d ever had to clean up. It certainly left my role in the family uncertain. My brothers—they were never going to trust me after this. Apart of me couldn’t blame them. This wasn’t some crime of passion, it’d been a blood bath. With me at the center of it.

“Not gonna lie,” Paddy huffed, aiding Bellamy lift the fifth corpse from the boat into the box truck we typically used for product. “You surprised me, kid. Didn’t think you had this in you,” Paddy joked, before making some snide comment about how I put the kill in Cillian.

“I’m really sorry Tadhg,” I apologized, noting he’d been silent in the time we wrapped the bodies in tarp. To my surprise, he’d been shot, but it’d been minor at best. Paddy had done his best removing the bullet and the whiskey just had to do the rest, but I knew after this, I would have a lot of low-level work ahead of me.

Tadhg was more analytical than emotional in moments like this, but I was sure he planning on spreading my role back to my brothers—or worse—someone he trusted over me that wasn’t family.

“Cill, don’t apologize, because I know you’re not sorry.”

“I’m not sorry for what I did, I’m sorry I put you in this position. You’ve been trusting me to do the right thing, but the truth is, when it comes to Queenie, I don’t know what the right or wrong thing is anymore. That’s my wife. My woman. My role put her in danger, and I just—I just couldn’t fucking help myself?—”

“Cilly, you’re driving me mad with all that. This is a mess. We all got eyes, we can see it. But from the time we’ve orchestrated your sentence ending early, we put you with that girl. We didn’t intend on you loving her like a wife. Or protecting her like a husband. It’s bad, but this is the first time you’ve blown up like this where it wasn’t a reflection of your damn ego.”

“Which is inflated enough as it is,” Paddy snided.

“All I’m saying is, at least you’re fucking loyal to something. We need to consider setting up safe houses for potential wives and children. If they can get to people who ain’t so good with a gun, least we can do is keep Órfhlaith, her son and Queenie, out of harm’s way when things of this proportion need time to blow over.”

“So how we splitting this?” Bellamy asked, dragging the final corpse in the back of the truck.

“I can bury three…maybe four. Only caveat is German shepherds sniff out the corpses better than a coke addict,” Paddy said.

“This is a lot of dead Callahans,” Bellamy argued. “Can’t sink them all.”

“This is where the job keeps you sharp. Ain’t none of you mention that we’ve literally got a mayor in our back pocket. We’re going to have to get some of those creative solutions we were promised giving out hands full of loans. But we also have to get our stories straight,” Tadhg directed.

The Callahans made a move. We put them down. That’s the most we were sharing.

“When we get back to the Rebel City, I’ve got calls to make. But in the meantime, Paddy, drive those stiffs to the warehouse, Bellamy, you make sure our foot soldiers get a hold of whatever evidence needs wiping.”

I’d really fucked up, Tadhg didn’t even trust me enough to clean my own mess. “What about me?” I nervously followed up.

“You’ve got the hardest job of all. You’ve got to convince your wife the events of tonight. She didn’t see shit. She didn’t hear shit. She didn’t witness, shit. She was a civilian before, but she’s a mob wife now. Now take her home and clean yourself up.”

***

A deep sense of dread hit, anticipating the ride back home. I proved everything Queenie used to say about me right. That I was cruel, wicked, reckless and careless. She was going to hate me and I just couldn’t bear it. A part of me wished she’d laid out in the backseat.

The ride was quiet, so you could hear every little change in movement. Queenie hugging herself. Her stolen glances whenever she thought I wasn’t looking. Catching my reflection in the rearview mirror, dried over blood stained my face and clothes, that when she turned my way again, I broke the ambience.

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