He’d stoutly refused to do anything Alex requested, yet then he’d showered and, as docile as a lamb, he’d taken the two white pills Alex offered. Mel tossed them back with a tall glass of orange juice. But after he’d finished, just when Alex thought maybe this cohabitation might be doable, he’d swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, sneered, and spat, “You can’t make me do anything, shithead.”
Ordinarily, those would’ve been fighting words. But now, they were just more proof of how quickly Mel was slipping into dementia, and how bad things were going to be for Alex and his family. If Mel’s reaction was just the middle stage of Alzheimer’s... Shit, Alex didn’t want to face the final stage. But he refused to push this familial responsibility, as distasteful as it was going to be, off on Kelsey. Yes, she’d surely take an active part in caring for Mel, but Alex wouldn’t expose her to his father’s twisted concept of civility.
What an awful thing to watch someone lose their mind, even someone as irresponsible and thoughtless as Mel had always been. Seemed like things were only going to get worse, and damn it. Mel would not treat Alex’s family the way he’d been treated growing up. He had to stand between them and the abuse Mel was sure to dish out. Shifting from active operations to the more passive, laid back battle at home…
Son of a bitch. It was like watching The TEAM die, only at a distance. Too far away to be actively engaged. Too far away to run into battle and save anyone. Anyone except his deadbeat father.
Alex still held his cell in his hand, fighting the compulsion to run, to be with his TEAM. Wishing he could. Didn’t that make him the biggest chicken shit? To want to run into a war he knew he could win, but run away from the one he didn’t want to face. What made one battle better or greater than another? He honestly didn’t know. Alex only knew he adored Kelsey, and that she’d stuck by him through an awful lot of shitty times. He couldn’t dump his old man on her. Wouldn’t. It wasn’t her war.
“Did you say Pops Delaney?” Mel murmured quietly behind Alex.
Startled, he glared over his shoulder and quickly closed his bedroom door, denying his father a look at the treasures that lay within. “What are you doing prowling around? What do you want now?”
Mel’s red, bulbous nose twitched as he scratched, then thumbed the end of it with his thumb, like he thought he was a prizefighter entering the ring. Which in a way, he was.
Alex’s entire body stiffened. He’d been on the receiving end of that hand more times than he cared to recall. But if Mel tried any of that shit now, he’d be in a damned nursing home by sunset. Just try me.
“Well, err, the thing is, err…Pops and me go way back. Maybe I can help, son.”
“Like hell you can help, and stop calling me son. You burned that bridge a long time ago.”
Mel blinked like he didn’t understand, and honestly, Alex didn’t expect him to. What could he possibly understand now? It was too damned late in so many ways.
“Well, okay. Guess I, umm, could do that, Alex.” Sounded like that word got stuck in his throat. Mel had actually called him by his first name. Honestly, Alex was shocked he’d remembered it. “But I might could help if what you’re up against has anything to do with Pops Delaney. Just saying…” The old fart ran a wrinkled hand over his now clean-shaven chin. That was new. He’d shaved his beard off. And he hadn’t cut himself.
Alex put Mel to the test. “What the fuck do you know about Delaney?”
“That he’s a sneaky, lying son of a bitch. He runs guns outta Boston Harbor, sells them to the highest bidders, don’t matter if they’re American or not.”
“Everyone knows that.”
“That he holds court every Tuesday at noon at the Black Irish Rose Tavern on Boston Harbor. That’s when and where he dishes out orders and rewards. Hangings if someone’s got it coming. The rare promotion when earned.”
The thought came without deliberation or reason. What if that medicine was working? What if Mel really knew something—helpful? What if he was telling the truth?
“Prove it,” Alex dared him. “Give me one reason to believe you.”
The bastard reached inside his brand-new white t-shirt and tugged out a medal on a ball-chain. “This here’s his token. No one gets in to see Pops without it.” He slipped the chain up over his head and handed it over. “Go on. Take it. You’re my kid. I ain’t got much, but it’s yours now.”
Alex stared at the medallion swinging at the end of Mel’s gnarled finger. An inch square enameled green shamrock on one side, script etched in black on the other. “What’s it say?” he asked instead of accepting the thing that had all the makings of a peace offering.
“Bráithreachas,” Mel whispered. “It’s Gaelic. Means brotherhood.”
That word rang a long-forgotten bell, a memory of Gramps and Mel arguing like two Bighorn rams butting heads. Of Gramps bellowing that strange Irish word, cursing Mel to go to hell with it. Yelling it at the bastard whose liquor and friends had always meant more to him than his sickly wife and wee one. That he needed to crawl back to Hell, leave before he brought more death home with him. Of Mel yelling back at Gramps that he could burn in that Hell for all Mel cared.
