Chapter 8 Declan
DECLAN
My head, when I wake up, feels like a wrecking ball that was set to work on an entire fucking city. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth, and I can smell my own breath.
But this is nothing compared to the tsunami that crashes through me when I remember the reason why I drank myself into a stupor.
I sit up, shivering. My phone. I check the nightstand. Empty.
Need to get up. Stuff to do. Calls to make.
“Declan?” The voice penetrates the thick fug that is currently swamping my brain. “How are you feeling?”
Amelia.
She’s here in my room, hovering over me like a beautiful fucking angel.
An angel that I don’t deserve.
“Like fucking shit. What did I do with my phone?” I’m blunt, but my head is hurting too much for me to take it back or dwell on hurting her feelings.
I’m hurting too much. Need to keep my grief at bay. Need to find out what happened to my son and end the fucker who killed him.
“It must still be in your study.”
She doesn’t come any closer. I can’t fucking blame her, I must look as bad as I feel.
“Clothes.” Because I’m in full-on caveman mode now, talking in grunts and demands. “Things to do.”
“Declan?” Amelia sits beside me on the bed. I can smell her shampoo, feel her warmth, hear her heartbeat through the pounding inside my skull. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”
My eyes meet hers. It’s a mistake. I know it the instant I see the kindness in them, the concern, the tiny vertical frown lines between her eyebrows. The hole in my heart through which my son drifted away last night expands, sucking the air from my lungs, and blurring my vision.
It must be written all over my face because Amelia wraps her arms around me and pulls my head onto her chest. And I cling to her, holding her arms in place like they’re all that’s keeping me alive.
Tears spill from my eyes. Silent sobs racking my body, draining the life from me and leaving me empty.
A husk.
But even a husk can feel. It can bleed. It can focus on the one thing that will get me through this.
Revenge.
We’re mafia. When someone hurts one of our own, we set our grief aside, and we take our revenge. Our payback. A life for a life. Whoever stole my son from me will get what’s coming to them, and they’ll wish they’d never been born.
I extricate myself from Amelia’s arms and sit up. “I’m sorry. I never wanted you to see me like this.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Declan.”
Her voice is so gentle that I could curl up in it and lose myself until this all goes away. But that would be the coward’s way out, and the Byrnes are not cowards. We’re better than that. My son was better than that.
Was. No parent should ever have to speak about their offspring in past tense, even when they’re born into the mafia.
I stroke her cheek with my knuckle. She’s the most beautiful thing that has happened to me since I met my wife, but this—losing my son—is proof that what we’re doing is wrong. God saw, and he struck me down for it in the worst way imaginable.
I don’t kiss her. Even though I want to, more than she will ever know.
“I need some time alone.”
She swallows, disappointment written across her beautiful face. “Are you sure? What can I do to help?”
Bring my son back.
Allow me to switch places with him so that I’m the one lying on a mortuary slab.
Show me a world where the Murrays and the Byrnes could live together in harmony.
“Nothing. There’s nothing you can do to help. I must handle this myself.”
She watches me closely, no doubt assessing my state of mind. Then, “You don’t have to do this alone, you know. I’m here for you. Whatever you need, whatever you want from me… All you have to do is ask.”
I can’t swallow the lump of grief in my throat. “I don’t want anything from you, my sweet Amelia.” My voice is hoarse. “You’ve done more than enough.”
She stands up and goes to the door where she hesitates. “I’m not going anywhere, Declan.” She keeps her voice low. “You were right about one thing. I know my worth. But I also know yours.”
The door closes behind her, and I’m alone inside my head with the grief that I must keep on standby. For now. Until I’ve avenged my eldest son’s death.
I want to follow her. I want to pour what’s left of my heart out for her, to make a fool of myself when I tell her that I can’t bear the thought of letting her walk out of my life. But I do none of these things. My son is dead, and I have work to do.
On the inside, I’m still the hungover wreck that I was when I woke up in my room earlier. On the outside, at least I look presentable.
I shut myself in my study and make some calls.
Ruairi was killed on his way to meet with Caleb Murray. When I tried calling him in the wee hours, he was already dead. He trusted the process with the Murrays. He attended the meeting without backup as requested. And he paid for this decision with his life.
A single shot between his eyes. Assassination precision. A life cut short because a rival family didn’t want to share their slice of the Big Apple with us.
Sure, I’ve ended lives. But never for greed. Never for a fucking power struggle. I’ve pulled the trigger when the target deserved it, when I knew the world would be a better place without them.
Ruairi did not deserve to die. He had ambition. Courage. Strength. He was the heir to my family’s business. With his foresight and determination, we’d have been untouchable. The thought of him lying in a mortuary three thousand miles away makes me want to smash everything in my path.
But instead, I channel that energy into something positive.
Ending Caleb Murray’s life.
I half-fill a glass with brandy from the spare bottle that I always keep on the cart, and down it in one. It burns all the way down but at least it gives me clarity. Hair of the dog. Works every damned time.
I sit in my seat, face the window, and call Eoghan. Why would the fuckers call it a day with my eldest son when they could take them both? I breathe again when he picks up.
He’s safe. For now.
“Eoghan. Where are you, son?”
“I’m in Scotland, on my way home.”
“Stay where you are and don’t do anything without running it by me first. Do you understand?”
“Why? What’s happened?”
This is the part that fucking tears me in two. “Your brother has been shot.”
“Is he… How bad is it?” Eoghan’s voice has dropped, the phone held close to contain the call like this might somehow make it less real.
“It’s bad.” I force the words out; the first time I’ve acknowledged it out loud. “He’s dead.”
For the next few days, Amelia brings food into the study three times a day, removing the untouched plates and replacing them with a thermos filled with black coffee.
“Declan please eat something,” she says when she returns to the study late on the day I found out that my eldest son had been murdered.
It feels like a cut-off point. Before and after.
My fist closes around the brandy glass. I’ve avoided looking at her until then, but when I peer into her eyes, I know that she deserves better. She’s the last person I should be taking my anger out on.
“I’m not hungry.” I can’t say with any degree of certainty what I feel right now, but I do know that food won’t help. “Amelia…”
She smiles, and my heart yearns to touch her.
To pull her into my arms, crush her against my chest, and promise to protect her with my miserable fucking life, for what it’s worth.
But I don’t want her involved. If the Murrays find out what she means to me…
I can’t have her life on my conscience too…
“Thank you…” I say instead.
For caring.
For not running at the first sign of trouble.
For being the glimmer of light at the end of a long, murderously black tunnel.
“Are you coming up…” She leaves the question hanging.
“I think I’ll stay here for a while.”
She nods and leaves with one final glance over her shoulder that means she’ll be waiting for me in her room whenever I decide that I’m ready.
I spend the night in my leather seat in the study.
I don’t deserve to sleep. My son will never again wake up to a new day in this beautiful country. He’ll never see another sunset. He’ll never get married and hold his baby in his arms. Why do I deserve happiness and comfort?
Eoghan disobeys my orders to stay where he is.
I lose track of the hours spent in my study reliving all the things I could’ve done differently to save Ruairi when Eoghan knocks on the door and enters the room without waiting to be invited.
My youngest son resembles his mother. Same eyes, same smile. I found it hard to look at him after Niamh died. Maybe I pushed him away more than I realized, but that’s another cross for me to bear.
“Sit down, son.”
He remains standing, looking lost, as if he stumbled here by chance. This affects him too. He’s my heir now. The only person I can wholeheartedly trust.
“I need you to step up, Eoghan. The Murrays fired the first bullet, but we will fire the last.”
We.
Eoghan will inherit my empire now, but I’m the one who will watch Caleb Murray take his final breath. Until then, my life will be in limbo.
“We’ll hit them where it hurts,” he says, voice low and steady. “But not war.”
“A life for a life, son.” I swallow my brandy. I can no longer even taste it. “After the funeral.”