Impassioned, pissed even, I paused for the briefest moment. Just long enough to catch my breath before I continued unleashing my anger. “I wouldn’t have people talking behind my mother’s and sister’s backs because I’d kill them. I’m too fucking smart to be anyone’s goddamn entertainment. For five years I’ve felt like a monkey with ball. Powerless, crippled, a bloody joke, everything you taught me a Callahan should never motherfucking be!”
Taking off my shirt, I threw it on to the ground before picking up a crowbar and moving to take the shattered windshield off.
“There is nothing I can do to change the past now,” I said to him without bothering to look over at him. “And who the hell am I to fight Ethan for Ceann Na Conairte? But I am done being a fucking sideshow. People will learn to respect me, not because I’m your son but because I’m Darcy Callahan. There is just as much Irish blood in me as there is in Ethan and Wyatt. I am not different from them. I want the same things they want, and that’s power. And the one place they can’t break into, I can, so you can be damn sure there’s not a force on this bloody earth that’s going to stop me from taking over those gangs. Not even you.”
Yanking off the windshield, I glanced up. He wasn’t there.
“Wear gloves, you idiot,” he barked, now standing to my left, handing me a pair of work gloves before putting on his own. “Yes, your highness, I’m going to call you an idiot. Because only my idiot son would wait five years to come out as a power-hungry bastard like the rest of us.” The corner of his lips turned up as he fought a smile.
“I am what you made me,” I replied while fighting back a smile.
“True. Honestly, I made you into a halfway decent mechanic, too. I really loved this car.” He frowned, looking over his own destruction. “Look what having children does to a man…it’s so fucking stressful.”
“Is that why you’re graying so much?”
He glared down at me. “Would you like to die today?”
I laughed. “See you in hell then, Pops, cause we both know Mom will cut you to pieces. She loves me much more than you.”
“Bosses don’t rely on their moms—”
“Because their mothers are either dead or dying. My mother is alive and very good with knives—”
“Will you shut the fuck up, goddamn! Have a little respect, and let your old man threaten you a little bit, Jesus Christ.”
I laughed, I couldn’t help it.
And even as we began to focus on the car, I couldn’t help but sigh…in the back of my mind I saw it. I was finally out of the damn cage. I wasn’t going to be a side character in this family any more…I was moving to the main stage.
SEDRIC
“So what Darcy said, but replace Black with Asian,” I said to my father as I cleaned inside the chamber of my sniper riffle.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked, turning off the camera for the garage before sitting across from me, lifting the pistol.
I chuckled at that as I looked up at him. “You want me to come to you and say, ‘Hey, Dad, I want to push drugs and be respected within the mafia for the rest of my life instead of playing baseball’?”
His jaw twisted to the side as he took the cloth from my hand. “I’m sure with that fancy and expensive education I gave you, you could have said it in a much more…elegant way.”
“Most likely.” I shrugged, picking up my scope and clicking it into place. “But this is much more fun, isn’t it?”
“Your mother isn’t going to be happy—”
“I already told Mom.”
“When?!” He looked genuinely shocked.
Rising from my chair, I grabbed my ball cap, placing it on my head. “The day I joined the MLB, I told her then, and you know what she said?”
He didn’t answer, and so I didn’t elaborate either. I tossed him his old riffle.
“Are you going to tell me or not?” he asked, rising up from the table, too.
Moving to the door of my bedroom, I turned back and answered, “She told me, and I quote, ‘Your father and I will look forward to that day.’”
He grinned shaking his head as he followed me out the room. “You’re supposed to talk to me about this stuff, not your mother.”
“Dad,” I said seriously,”that’s sexist.”
He smacked the back of my head. “Let’s go, I’m guessing you’ve been practicing, mama’s boy?”
“I prefer the term mastering.”
“I don’t give a shit what you prefer. Come on, let go shooting.” He marched on as if it was his idea.
“Slow down, old man, before you throw out your hip.”
“Fuck you!” he hollered, already heading to the back door. I grinned as I tossed the riffle over my shoulder.
Darcy and I couldn’t explain it. Why we had this burning desire for power, to be the strongest, to be joining this life. He’d actually done a better job of it than I did. All I could say was it was in my blood. Our blood. We were Callahans, there was something corrupted in us. And instead of fighting it, we needed to embrace it.
“Are you coming or not?” he bellowed at me.
“Relax, old man, the birds are still going to be there,” I hollered back and followed him…for the last time. Soon he’d need to follow me.
Their era was over…it was our time now.
“What?” he asked when he saw my face.
I paused, glancing around quickly before whispering, “I was just thinking about Ivy’s death—”
“The person who shot her was an expert.” He frowned as we got out into the upper deck behind the house, the rain still pouring down. “Clean shot through and through, she used a bullet that was small yet strong enough to not shatter the skull.”
“She?” I questioned, looking to him. “How do you know it was female who shot her?”
He paused, thinking to
