Did I look like I was born yesterday?
What the hell had Aidan done?
Thirty-Seven
Aidan
Ma’s screams would haunt me until the day I died. Her rage at being dragged out of the cathedral, like she wanted to burn alongside it, would never leave me.
And Da’s resolve that he should burn too was something else that was going to stick around for a long time to come.
You thought you knew someone, and then when you learned you knew fuck all about them, it turned everything on its head.
My entire world was forged on the fact that I was an O’Donnelly.
This city would be mine once Da died.
I was more heir than son. More a leader in the making than his kid. But here, now, I came face to face with the harsh truth.
Da was an unconscious sack of shit as I dragged him down the aisle, the shiny marble tiles helping me slide him along its impressive length. I figured it was fitting considering he’d tried to haul my ass up it enough times with goddamn arranged weddings, but as the temperatures surged in here, my panic increased because not only was it getting harder to breathe, I knew we had to get out of here soon before the cops and fire department showed up.
My leg ached like a fucker as I hauled him along the tiles, and when Finn came back, relief hit me as he grabbed Da’s other leg and took over, letting me hobble along faster now I wasn’t encumbered with Da’s deadweight. He didn’t ask questions, didn’t waste time, just took over.
As always, we were in tune. The Oxy had broken that. Maybe Aoife had too. Finn’s priorities had changed. Only having Savannah made me see that a change of priorities wasn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes, it was what kept you getting up in the morning when you had no other reason to do anything but stay in bed. Both Conor and Finn had told me that—I’d just never listened.
I was choking by the time we clambered out of the cathedral, and Finn doubled over with a coughing fit as we were blasted with the cold night air. I felt it on my lungs as well, but I felt more panic than anything else. In the distance, I could hear them—sirens. Our fucking death knell.
Da’s crew grabbed him and I saw Anthony was carrying Ma. I figured Finn had slapped her or something because she was dangling in his arms.
Any other time, I’d have beaten the living fuck out of him, but from her screams, I knew she was hysterical. A mirror image of Da.
"Come on," I rasped, beginning to choke on the cold air too as oxygen flooded smoke-filled lungs. "We have to get out of here."
I grabbed his arm and, together, we started staggering down the alley, much the way we came.
At our back, one of Da’s crew was messing with the jammer, jamming the frequencies or whatever miracle Conor had wrought within that control panel, and I hobbled with Finn toward the town car so we could get the fuck out of here.
Consequences weren’t something we often dealt with, but this was a New York goddamn landmark. It’d be treated as an act of terrorism. Plus, everyone knew Da took his Catholicism to the extreme. They’d expect him to be up in arms over its destruction.
By the time we fell into the town car, Ma and Da were slumped over in the back seat. Finn shoved them aside so he could fit too, while I jumped into the passenger side, coughing all the while.
Anthony, who was behind the wheel, drove off with squealing tires, and even though he’d been complicit in the cathedral’s destruction, muttered, "What the fuck was he thinking?"
I didn’t imagine Da’s crew often questioned him, but in this instance, I didn’t have it in me to argue.
Anthony wasn’t wrong.
This was a fucking disaster in the making.
Finn coughed, and the hacking sound had me twisting around to make sure he was okay. The veins protruded on his forehead as he choked, seemingly unable to catch his breath. I opened the windows, letting fresh air in so he could flush out his lungs and mine too.
As the chill hit me, though, and I began coughing, a sense of clarity came with it.
An arson attack against the cathedral would look like a slight against the city.
An attack against the cathedral and St. Patrick’s, our local church, would look like it was against Catholicism, and because of the churches in question, more that it was against the O’Donnellys and the Irish Mob.
Allaying suspicion wasn’t something we usually had to do, but fuck, we had people in our pocket, enough to make the Sparrows look innocent of corruption, however this was too big to shield.
We needed a fall guy, and before I could figure out who exactly, we needed a solution in the meantime.
As we drove through Hell’s Kitchen, I directed Anthony, "You got anymore gasoline left?"
His head twisted to the side as he shot me a bewildered look. "Two canisters."
I rubbed my chin. "Take us to St. Patrick’s. Our parish, not back to the cathedral," I clarified because he was a moron.
"You can’t be serious," Anthony rasped.
"Are you fucking questioning me?" I barked, satisfied when his shoulders hunched.
"No, Boss."
"Good," I snapped, coughing a little before I rumbled, "Now take us to the fucking church." I reached for my cell, called Donall, and told him to make a shell out of the white van.
Driving through our territory, our neighborhoods, I felt safer than I did being in Midtown, but that wasn’t saying much. Even here, we could be picked up. If Conor’s gadget had let us down for just a few seconds, we might be fucked if we were caught on camera.
In the distance, I could see the church spires, and started pressing the jammer as I recognized just how much of a mainstay it was in my life.
Everything was celebrated here, the end of the week, births, deaths, marriages.
Seven days didn’t pass without me having to come to the godforsaken place twice, and I had to sit in that goddamn booth where Conor had been raped.
I had to sit there and atone for shit when I was already fucked. When I was already going to hell because I’d never confessed to McKenna’s murder. Not because I was scared of the consequences if Da ever bribed Doyle into sharing secrets he learned in the confessional—and I wouldn’t put it past him—but because I felt no regret.
I’d willingly burn for an eternity because McKenna had gotten everything he deserved.
Now, maybe, it was our chance. Maybe Finn and I could have some of that. Some peace. Some goddamn freedom from our pasts.
As we pulled up outside the church, Finn rasped, his voice hoarse from coughing, "What’s the game plan, Aidan?"
I didn’t answer, just said to Anthony, "Keep the jammer working. I’m not concerned about the church, but about any residential cameras."
He blinked but reached for the gadget and pressed that red button while I was there.
I nodded in thanks, then struggled out of the car, the agony in my knee fading as I stared up at a place that was a personal source of misery. Which was when, at the worst possible time, I realized the Oxy hadn’t just helped me blot out the physical pain, but the psychological too.
Throat thick, from emotions as well as the smoke, I whispered, "Can I ask you a question, Finn?"
"Of course," was his immediate reply.
"You never told me why you ran away from home. Did you?"