17. Keeping a Promise
Chapter seventeen
Keeping a Promise
FITZ
Uncle Brice blocks my kick. "Come on, Fitz boyo. You can do better than that."
I feint right and go for a strike to his kidneys on the left side, this time with a jab of my left fist. It connects for all the good it does to me.
Uncle Brice is solid muscle. Hitting him is like hitting one of the cement walls in the bunker.
"Nice." Uncle Brice smiles like a shark, if sharks were brown, big and scary as heck.
Okay, so the only difference is the color of their skin. Like my da, my pseudo uncle is an apex predator, which is why da and mom trust him with my safety.
I learned that term in advanced biology last month. When my teacher asked for examples, I almost raised my hand and said my da, but we don't advertise who and what we are. Even if most of the kids in my grade know about me, not all of my teachers do.
Adults who think they know so much don't know what really matters.
I keep moving, not answering my uncle. I've ended up tripped and flat on my back too many times to get caught talking instead of planning my next strike.
It hasn't happened in the last three months. Not even with da. I'm not breaking that streak now.
I block a kick with my forearm, spin and duck, shooting forward to jab Uncle Brice in the solar plexus. If I wasn't wearing fingerless leather fight gloves, I'd have broken bones in my hand from that hit.
If I didn't wear pads, my forearm would be bruised.
They make it harder to fight, but da says that's part of the training, learning to fight even in less than ideal circumstances.
There's no better fighter than my da.
Those idjits that attacked Sadie had no chance against me. I've been training with my da and uncles since I was seven years old. They are the best. Sadie's new stepdad, Wraith, might be in the same category, but I've never trained with him. So, I don't know.
A light tap on the side of my head makes anger surge through me. At myself.
"Pay attention." Uncle Brice shifts and I know what's coming.
I pivot and jump avoiding the foot that would have swept mine out from under me.
Hyper focusing on the here and now like da taught me, I empty my head of everything else.
Smack. Oof. Bump. I catalogue and then dismiss the sounds of the other men training around us.
Uncle Brice's breathing, steady and even. Mine a little faster, but not panting. Not yet.
Uncle Brice's weight is on his left foot, positioned slightly back, his muscles in his right bicep are bunched. His eyes are fixed on my face but I don't need that tell to know what he plans.
Instead of spinning away and lunging back in like I've been doing, I attack the same time he does, using my shorter height to my advantage and get a knee to his groin before dropping and rolling just out of the reach of his hands.
Uncle Brice grunts. He even staggers a little.
He doesn't go down, or bend forward, or anything, but he grunted. His body reacted to the pain of the hit.
"Here now, are you trying to make sure I never have any chislers of me own?" he demands, his Irish accent thick.
"I get pizza!" I crow.
Uncle Brice nods. "You do at that, boyo. That's enough for today. Let's shower."
Relaxing my stance, every ache and pain in my body rushes to the surface. We've been training for nearly an hour. My muscles hurt. The places Brice hit hurt more.
He can't be easy on me. If I don't end up with some bruises from training, he's not doing it right.
I have friends who take Tae Kwon Do and stuff like that. They get bruised too. Sometimes, way worse than me. But at the end, they're training for a color belt.
I'm learning how to be strong enough to lead the Shaughnessy Mob someday, how to incapacitate and kill if I have to.
Da doesn't want me made before I'm in my twenties. He says killing someone as a kid does something to you, even if you're like him. I don't know what it did to my da, but it wasn't anything bad enough to make him ugly on the inside.
Not like Kenneth Sr.
"What has you wool gathering?" Uncle Brice asks as he pulls off the padded boxing gloves he wears to diffuse the power of his blows when they land on me.
I shake my head. "Nothing."
I take off my own fingerless gloves and follow Uncle Brice into the locker room.
I have to dry my hands to check my phone before hitting the shower. There's a text from Sadie. She sent it right after I started training with Uncle Brice. It's just a number: 91.
I text her back.
Fitz: 91 what?
The one below Sadie's text is from Eoghan.
Eoghan: Kenny is a feckin' muppet.
Fitz: IKR? Good thing you're coming to live here.
My older cousin found out he's coming to live with us for the rest of high school the same time his da told him about divorcing his mam. Eoghan and Gavin seem okay with it, but that's the way we're supposed to be. Okay. With everything.
Mom and da try to keep the bad stuff from me and the littles, but how do you protect your kid from knowing you're divorcing his mam? That'll never happen with mom and da, but they're different.
Da explained about what I saw Uncle Adam doing when we were in Ireland and it made me grateful for like the thousandth time that my da and mom love each other.
Grandda is super pissed about the divorce, but Uncle Adam says he's taking a page out of his little brother's book (my da) and doing whatever the feck he wants. He told grandda that he could name one of the other brothers as his successor, but Uncle Adam was done being married to a faithless witch.
I bet he used a different word, but that's what Eoghan said. He and Gavin earwigged outside the door when Grandda and Uncle Adam were having a right barnie.
Sometimes Irishism are better than plain English.
Eoghan: Doesn't matter where I live. It's all the same.
Yeah, he's wrong about that. Mom is different from Aunt Margot. She'll make sure Eoghan does his art. She understands that a man's strength is about what he'll do for his family, not how he spends his free time.
Not that da has a lot of that. Someday, me and Eoghan won't either, but Uncle Miceli still paints. I figure once Eoghan gets it straight in his head, he will too.
Fitz: Keep telling yourself that. You've never had to live with the littles.
I love my brother and sisters, but sometimes having them around all the time is a lot.
Sadie hasn't texted back yet. Weird. I'm in the shower when it hits me what she might have meant. Not ninety-one. But 9…1… Was there supposed to be another 1?
Was she trying to send me an SOS text?
Because she was in danger somehow? Not likely with the way Wraith has security so tight around them. Is she stressed about something else?
Sadie's not a drama queen or anything, but she's still a girl and she hasn't been trained to hide her emotions. To be okay, no matter what.
Even though I know it can't be anything bad, I rush the rest of my shower and am still half wet when I grab my phone again. There's a new text from Sadie.
I'm an idjit. Of course she's okay.
I check Eoghan's text first. My cousin sent a devil emoji in answer to my last text to him.
I send him a laughing out loud face back with three devil emojis.
Then I check Sadie's text and my heart starts to race like it never does in training.
Sadie: You don't know me, but I have your friend.
Sadie: Tell anyone about this and I kill her.
Sadie: I don't want to hurt her, but I will. She means nothing to me. She's just a means to an end.
Fitz: Who are you?
Sadie: No one you know. What you need to understand is that I will not just kill your girlfriend, I will hurt her in ways that will give you nightmares for the rest of your life if you don't do what I say.
Sadie's not my girlfriend. I can't have girlfriends. Someday, I'll make a mob marriage. There's no point in dating girls I'll end up breaking up with.
But she's my friend. And she's in trouble.
Or is she?
I scroll through my contacts fast and call Wraith. It rings and rings until it goes to voicemail. I call again. Same thing.
I don't have Sadie's mom's number. Should I call my mom and ask for it?
"Get dressed." Uncle Brice is looking at his own phone. "We need to get you to Sector I."
Sector I is where they do the weapons design research. Only da and his lieutenants can go in. One of them gives access to the people that work there and escorts them out at the end of the day.
Whatever is going on is serious.
I pull my t-shirt on. It sticks on a wet patch on my chest and I yank it down. "Are mom and da okay?"
It only takes a second to pull on my shorts and stuff my feet into my kicks. No socks.
"They're fine," Brice says. "Wraith and áine's car has been hit."
That's why he's not answering his phone.
Mine buzzes. I grab it and angle it to read the message without showing the screen to my uncle.
Sadie: You know by now that a hit team have taken out her parents. If you want your friend to survive today, exit the Bunker through the apartment building on 69th.
Wraith and áine are dead?
No. It's not possible.
Yes, people die in our world, but not people like my da and his best men. A little voice in the back of my head jeers at me for thinking that.
Everybody will die someday. Even my da.
How does the guy who took Sadie know I'm at the Bunker though? How does he even know about the Bunker?
Crap. What do I do? Do I tell Uncle Brice? Do I call my da? What would my da do?
He'd let Sadie die before letting me be put at risk. But if it were mom, he'd burn down the city to keep her safe. He loves her.
I don’t love Sadie but she’s my friend and I promised to protect her. Men in my family keep our word. Even Uncle Adam.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m more like da than anyone thinks. I love my family, but I don’t feel the same way for my grandda or mamo. I care about them, but if it came between them and my parents or the littles, I wouldn't hesitate.
I promised Sadie we'd keep her safe though. I have to keep my promise. Da would keep his, unless it meant allowing me to be hurt. Then all bets are off as Uncle Conor says.
Okay. Okay.
I need to get away from Uncle Brice.