Another one occurs to me. One I haven’t thought about in a long time. Curious, I slide off my stool, grab my duffel bag, and walk outside again.
A light drizzle has started up. To my surprise, it’s warm. Each drop like a soft kiss on my skin.
I take a few steps away from the building and turn around to face it again. Cillian’s voice is playing in my head like he’s guiding me.
“There was a little alleyway on the side, hardly big enough to fit through. Always left my fat friends behind here, the poor bastards.”
My gaze tracks down. Sure enough, wedged between the porn shop and The Free Canary is a little sliver of an alley. If I turn sideways, I’ll be able to shuffle down.
“So we’d go on down that way. Suck in your gut. You’ll pop out soon enough. A rusty-ass ladder hung off the building. Riddled with tetanus, no doubt, but I never gave a damn.”
I hold my duffel bag overhead and start the creep-walk between the buildings. The stone walls are slick with the rainwater, with moss, with years of grime and sweat.
I keep moving.
At the end, there’s a ladder.It’s rusted to shit and I’m wary that it can support my weight.
But I just sigh, loop the duffel bag over my shoulder, and start the climb up.
And then I emerge onto the rooftop of The Free Canary.
It’s mostly empty. Scant gravel across the top. A few crushed beer cans here and there, cigarette butts, the shit left behind by the drunken kids who made the journey I just made.
“The fuck’s so special about this, Cillian?” I mutter under my breath.
Then I turn and face the south, and I get it.
The city opens out in the distance. Sprawling. Lights sparkle against the oncoming darkness of night.
The last rays of the sun sneak out from under the bank of gray clouds.
Dublin looks like a place worth remembering.
I sink to a seat with my back against the low wall, duffel bag at my side. Part of me is racking through my conversation with the O’Sullivans. Wondering what they’ll decide.
I ought to set that aside. Take this moment to remember my best friend.
I decided on the flight to Ireland that he must be dead by now for certain. Maybe I’ll never know for sure. I don’t have a body to bury, after all.
But all the blood on the ground in the forest left little room for doubt.
He’s gone. I feel it in my bones.
All that’s left of Cillian O’Sullivan are my memories.
I’ll keep those until the day I join him.
I think for a while about the man. Growing up with him at my side. The trouble we caused and the trouble we found alike. The past is full of things that make me laugh.
But it’s the future I can’t stop running through again and again.
If Ronan turns me down, what will I do?
I had contacted the men still loyal to me just before I’d left the States. They swore they’re behind me and I was assured of their loyalty, but we’re still too few to take back the Bratva.
We need a show of force and power in order to gain the upper hand from Budimir. I know that with money, I could buy the men I needed.
But I’ve never been a fan of that method. It was the one of the few matters on which Stanislav and I had agreed.