Faking It

by Holly Hart

  He looks at me with anxious, needy eyes. I give him what he wants. Hell, he looks like he means it.

  “Is this her?” An elderly woman asks.

  I know without anyone needing to tell me that this is Declan’s mother. It’s not just that she’s dressed all in black, like a woman from the old world. It’s clear just from the way she moves that she’s a woman of distinction.

  “Ma, this is Casey,” Ridley says. Mrs. Byrne walks towards me unbowed, showing no sign that the pain of her loss is weighing her down. She’s a strong woman. I don’t think I could do the same.

  “Shoo, boy,” she says, giving her son a sour look. “Give the girl some space. You too, Rick.” He quails, and disappears into the depths of the old house, the lawyer close behind.

  “I’m sorry for your –,” I begin, but the white-haired woman shushes me with her hands.

  “Stop with that nonsense, girl. I’m sorry you got dragged into this mess. Believe me, I heard what my son did. Believe me, he paid for that.”

  It takes me a second to realize that she’s talking about what Ridley said, not what I’ve now learned about Declan. “Thank you, Mrs. –”

  “Mary,” she says with a wave of her hand, “it’s an initiation, entering this family. Believe me – I remember. But if my husband had to depart from us…” A slight clench of her jaw is the only sign of the emotion I know must be roiling her inside. “Then I’m glad you could join us. I see why my boy’s crazy for you.”

  “Crazy…” I croak. This is all too much. My head’s spinning. It’s all I want – to be able to love Declan and have him smother me in his – but I can’t. Right now, I hate him and I don’t see how that will ever change.

  “He hasn’t stopped talking about you all day. It’s been nice – talking about something other than Seamus.” She stops and cocked her head. “Are you okay, dear?”

  “Long day, is all,” I whisper.

  Mary brushes a piece of fluff from my shoulder and ushers me into the house in an endearing fashion.

  “That Mackey is a real piece of work, isn’t he? I’m sorry about all that unpleasantness. Come – join us for dinner. You look like you could use a good meal. We’re just sitting down.”

  She pushes a door open and a buzz of conversation floods out. It rocks me back. It almost feels like a physical blow. The whole family’s there, and people I don’t recognize, too – a broad-chested man with white hair, a college-age kid with the family patch of silver. I guess he must be Declan’s youngest brother. But none of that’s what affects me.

  No, what’s got my heart in my mouth, is that this moment – it is what I’ve wanted my whole life. I just wanted to feel I was part of a family. And the worst bit is right now, just as I’ve finally reached the peak of the mountain I’ve been climbing all my life, the rock ledge I am standing on is crumbling underneath me; my fingers are scrabbling for purchase, but I’m slipping.

  Everything in my reach is disappearing; the bright future I could almost taste is falling away.

  Declan flashes me a smile from the other side of the cramped, wood-lined dining room. He’s deep in conversation with his twin, and there isn’t space for him to make his way to me, even if he tried. I hear a couple of snatches of their conversation amidst the buzz.

  “It’s weird,” Kieran grunts. “I’ve got eyes on Micky Morello like you ordered, and he’s partying like he has no idea what is going on.”

  “What about Vince? Have you found where he’s –”

  "… just a safe house. We’re losing men, Dec. It’s not looking good out –”

  “Boys!” Mary cuts across, a fierce glower plastered across her face. “Where are your manners? I thought I taught you better. Since when do we talk business at the table?”

  There’s a chorus of: “sorry, ma,” and chagrined faces all around the table.

  “Come, let’s eat.”

  The spread’s amazing – the more so for the fact it was cooked by a woman who is still deep in mourning. Somehow, though, I don’t taste a morsel. The meal speeds by, but I feel like I’m just drifting through it.

  The cutlery is still clinking on a couple of plates, while I’m idly mopping up the last of my stew with a piece of bread, lost in thought, when Mary cuts back in. She’s not said a lot, and I can’t blame her. She’s an incredibly strong woman – I don’t know that I’d be able to do this just a couple of days after losing my lover of four decades. Hell, I’m a mess and I’ve only known Declan a couple of weeks.

  “Casey, my dear,” she says, silencing the table. “Are you well? You look a bit… peaked.”

  “Sorry,” I quickly reply, aware that every eye’s turned on me. “It’s been a very long day. Honestly, I could use some rest.”

  “Declan!” She barks down the table, leaving her son with a caught red-handed expression on his face. “Where are your manners? If you want to keep your hands on a woman like her, you’re going to have to up your game, let me tell you.”

  “Sorry, Ma’…”

  “It’s not me you should be saying sorry to: it’s Casey. Take her home, will you? The poor girl’s wiped out.”

  My cheeks flush with embarrassment. The last thing I want to be is the center of attention: especially with what’s going on in my mind. More than that, the last person I want to be alone with is Declan.

  However, I’m not going to cause a scene. It is the last thing I would do: especially now. The Byrnes’ are still in mourning, no matter how well they try and hide it. It would take a coldhearted woman to make this about me. I make my goodbyes, and follow Declan out onto the porch.

  “You okay?” he asks me, a look of concern on his face. “You’re awful quiet. I just wanted to give you some time. After what that asshole –”

  I can’t contain myself. The anger has been bubbling in my mind all dinner long, and it’s finally curdling over. “Asshole?” I hiss at him, glancing to my left to make sure the front door is firmly closed. “You have got a world of nerve to put this on someone else, Declan Byrne.”

  His eyelids widen, and I think realization begins to dawn on his face. “What –?”

  I fish out from my back pocket the two printouts Detective Mackey laid on the interrogation room table, and shove them against his chest. Declan looks down, slowly. I get the sense that he knows what I’m mad about – even if he doesn’t know the details. His face is white, ashen with dismay.

  “Casey, I –”

  “Save it. We’re done, Declan. Oh, I’m yours for however many weeks we have left – but after that? I’m gone. It doesn’t matter where. More fool me for trusting a man like you. For beginning to love –”

  “Casey, please – I can explain. I was going to tell you about all this, I promise. I just didn’t know when, I didn’t know how …”

  “You know what? I don’t think you can explain. You can’t just wave your hands and make this one go away. It’s too big. We’re over, Declan. There’s no coming back from this.”

  19

  Declan

  “Declan.”

  The sound of my name seems to come from a great distance away. It’s as though I’ve dunked my head under the surface of a still lake, while the water, brushing against my eardrums, dulls the sound.

  “Declan!”

  This time Kieran’s voice breaks through the barrier erected in my mind, and I spark to life. I look down and there’s a gun in my hands. Part of me wonders how it got there; part just doesn’t care. “Huh?”

  “What’s wrong with you? Get your head in the game before you get yourself killed – or more importantly, get me killed.”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I grunt, ejecting the magazine and tapping it against the nearest wall. I slam it back into my weapon with a fury. Kieran looks at me askance.

  “Are you sure? Because it’s my arse on the line, and you know what?”

  I glower at him. I’m not even really paying attention to the words he’s saying. I’m a bit ashamed he saw me treat my weapon like I did
. If dad had seen me do that …

  “Because,” Kieran says with a bite in his voice that reminds me of the old man himself – but with a smile that’s quintessentially my brother’s, “it’s a beautiful arse – and I like it just the way it is. I need your eyes on the prize, brother, because I sure as hell don’t want someone filling me with lead where the sun don’t shine…”

  “All right, all right,” I mutter. I know I’m acting like a sulky teenager, but the way I feel inside is even worse. My brain feels like a misfiring engine, all gunked up with the remnants of a few dozen changes of oil. It needs a good flushing out, but no matter what I do, my mind just swings right back to Casey’s gorgeous face.

  “I get it!” I growl.

  Kieran wipes a look of disappointment off his face that I didn’t play along with his sense of humor, but I’m done with my brother’s needling. Casey’s at home, but there’s a goddamn Berlin Wall between us. I have to see her every morning in nothing but a towel, and knowing I can’t kiss those pinks, or the pink between her legs – it’s driving me insane.

  “Are you sure?”

  I flick the safety off of my weapon, and the click echoes round the dingy alleyway we’re standing in. It’s followed quickly by the splash of two large drops of water falling off a yellowing heating unit bolted haphazardly to the wall. “I’ll show you sure…”

  Kieran ignores me.

  “Remember,” he says, keeping his voice to a low whisper, “We’re here to take prisoners, not sate your bloodlust; got it? We need intel.”

  “Remember, brother,” I growl, “who came up with this plan. I was the one you rang about the Morello attacks. I might be in a shitty mood, but I know why we’re here, and what we’re here to do. And if you think –”

  Kieran raises his hands over his head in mock surrender. “Now there’s the Declan I know. Just –,” he says, picking his boot off the ground and flashing me a wink. “Don’t get me killed – okay?”

  Before I have a chance to snarl back a suitable response, he lifts his foot the whole way and kicks in the flimsy tin door. He charges in, gun raised and I follow, cursing. Kieran’s always been too gung ho. Of course, so have I, but it’s more annoying when you see someone else do it.

  “Fuck!” Someone screams from inside. The voice is high-pitched and sounds jittery, like he has just been startled from sleep or –

  I round a corner to the sound of Kieran’s voice assaulting my ears. “Brother, down!” he shouts, and I dive to the floor just as a trio of bullet holes appear in the brick wall in the precise space my head occupied a few seconds earlier.

  I crawl behind a discarded fridge and ruefully catch my brother’s eyes from where he’s crouching in an open doorway.

  “I owe you one,” I shout over the sound of bells pealing in my ears. I know that later on, he won’t let me forget that he saved my life, but for now he just nods, the consummate professional.

  “Looks like there’s only one of them,” Kieran shouts. “We can take him: covering fire on three. I’ll go, you cover.”

  Suddenly, all thoughts of Casey’s pushed out of my mind. The adrenaline’s gushing into my brain as if it’s jetting from a fire hose. It’s got me in the zone, focused on only one outcome: getting my man alive.

  “Two,” Kieran shouts.

  “One,” we yell in unison, ducking out from behind cover and firing everything in our clips. It’s a game we played hundreds of times as kids, and it shows. We move like we’ve been doing this our entire lives – like we’re goddamn Special Forces. Kieran tries to rush forward, but –

  Hell opens, spitting fire.

  “Jeysus! Jeysus feckin’ Christ,” he shouts, scrabbling backwards for cover with a look of terror on his face. “The crazy cunt found a goddamn machine gun. Oh, Lord in heaven…”

  I grit my teeth. The hallway sounds like the bottom of a valley during a rockslide. Every time the heavy machine gun fires, my insides vibrate like someone’s hitting me with a giant hammer.

  “We’re fucked,” Kieran calls out. “We need to get the hell out of here before my pretty goddamn arse ends up looking like a pincushion.”

  “I’m not leaving,” I growl. “Not without getting what I came for.”

  Kieran shoots me an incredulous look.

  “You’re crazy, brother. If we don’t get out of here now, we won’t. Look,” he points into an adjacent room, pulling his finger back before his fingernails get clipped by a bullet streaking through the air. “There’s got to be a dozen pounds of pure charlie laying about in there. There’s no way Vince leaves this dumb prick to die. If he’s called for backup –”

  “I said,” I snarled, “I’m not fucking leaving. You can go, Kieran, but I’m staying here.”

  The sound of the machine gun seems to get closer. I know this is stupid, but I’m consumed with a rage, a bloodlust – like the kind my ancestors probably felt when going into battle.

  “He’s getting closer, ye idiot,” Kieran calls, ejecting his magazine and replacing it in one smooth, practiced movement.

  It’s the last thing I hear coming from his mouth. The only sound my ears are picking up now is the breath in my lungs and the blood pumping in my eardrums.

  I stand up –

  And the machine gun rains fire.

  I catch a glimpse of my assailant, standing with an AK-47 at his waist and firing wildly. I know it’s not possible – but I swear I can see the whites of his eyes. He’s high, that’s for sure. He’s not bothered to find cover, not bothered to hide from our gunfire.

  I’m not sure how we haven’t punctured him with the waves of bullets we’ve fired already – but we haven’t. My crazy mind tells me that he’s still there for the taking. By now I’ve given up pretending I want him alive – at least to myself.

  No, I want to put a bullet through his brain; then beat his head against the ground. I want to take out every ounce of anger that’s burning through me and put it into his limp corpse. I want to make him feel the pain I’m feeling.

  Dust springs up from the brick work all around me, and I hear bullets whipping through the air just inches from my ears.

  The world seems to slow, and I see Kieran rise from his cover, steady himself and take aim.

  I don’t know how I haven’t died. The ceiling’s raining dust, and my cheek’s been grazed by a hot bullet casing. I’m living a charmed life.

  Kieran’s weapon spits fire, and the world’s filled with a dull, ringing silence.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  The AK falls out of the mobster’s hands, clattering against the concrete floor, and a dark redness appears at his stomach.

  The world stops spinning, and speeds up all at once. “Ye fucking idiot,” Kieran screams, his left hand bunched up into a fist. “Ye could have got yerself killed, and for what? Some dumb junkie who probably doesn’t know anything anyway?”

  I bite my lip until I draw blood. I toss my gun aside, and my fists clench and unclench as I try to master my rage. “The fuck did you just call me, brother?”

  “I called ye a fracking idiot – because that’s what you are. I ask you for one thing, one goddamn thing, Dec –”

  “What?” I call back mockingly. “What did you ask me, brother?”

  “Don’t get me killed. And what did you do? You damn near put both our bodies in black zip-up bags.”

  “You’re either with me or against me, Kieran,” I shout. “You can’t have it both ways.” I know what I’m saying is illogical, but I don’t care. Logic flew right out the window when Casey left me, and I need to hit someone, or something – and it can’t be her.

  No, that could never be her, would never be her.

  “I’m with both of us, you idiot,” he sighs. In hindsight, he was probably trying to calm things down, but I don’t see it that way. Not right now. I charge forward, swinging. He takes a step back, and my blow glances off his chin. He staggers, and then drives forward, grabbing my waist and taking me t
o the ground.

  The impact drives the wind out of my lungs and I struggle for breath. We’re the same height, the same weight – equal in almost every way, but right now I’m losing, and bad. Kieran locks his arms around my throat and begins to squeeze.

  “Tap out, you idiot,” he growls, “before I have to choke you out. I don’t want to, but I will.”

  The anger, the same pain that stopped me from fighting smart, starts to fade, just as the blackness starts to dance behind my eyelids. Then it’s gone, and an overwhelming tiredness overcomes me. I slap my palm against the filthy ground.

  Kieran releases me instantly, and I gasp for breath, my head leaning on his chest. “No hard feelings?” He asks.

  I drag myself backwards, towards the nearest wall, giving him the same look I gave him whenever we were through with whatever had caused us to fight throughout our childhood – obviously not. My chest’s still heaving for breath, and Kieran grabs the opportunity to stick his big nose where it doesn’t belong.

  “You’re lovesick, Dec. We all see it, you jerk. Now you’ve gone and bruised me pretty face,” Kieran complains, pawing at his face. “What’s wrong with ye?”

  I slump against the wall and rest my head in my hands. When I finally summon the energy to speak, my voice is barely audible. “She knows.”

  “She knows,” Kieran says, copying me mockingly.

  “Knows what, Declan? Do you always have to be so goddamn vague –?” He pauses. “Oh. She Knows…”

  The understanding dawns on his face like a thunderstorm billowing into existence.

  I nod, and my hair brushes against my fingers. “It’s eating me up inside. I told you; I’ve never felt this way before about anyone. And now it’s over: I can’t eat; I can’t sleep; I feel like a shell of the man I was, brother. What the hell do I do?”

  Kieran pauses for an unusually long time, long enough that I raise my head from my hands to stare at him. He likes the sound of his own voice, normally, so this is out of character.