TWELVE YEARS AGO—A DARK STREET ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF DUBLIN, IRELAND
“Tá ocras fooking orm.”
Translation: I’m fucking starving.
Sean gives me a sidelong glare. His thick blond eyebrows knit together in a grimace.
Another person might have been intimidated. But I’ve spent eighteen years seeing my brother scowl like that.
I’m pretty sure it’s his love language.
I shoot him a wink. “What? I am. It’s been almost three hours since dinner.”
“This is serious,” Sean reminds me.
I roll my eyes. “If it were serious, we’d have backup.” I make a big show of looking around the empty, shadow-strewn street. “Where’s Rory? Where’s Rhys? Where’s Collin?”
“We don’t need anyone else,” Sean replies brusquely. “You and I can handle this.”
“Yeah, we can handle this,” I agree, “because it’s a fucking rookie errand. Da probably wanted us out of the way for something or the other.”
“Da doesn’t want us out of the way,” Sean retorts.
He doesn’t offer up evidence to the contrary.
He just says so. Like I’m supposed to believe him.
There was a time I would have, too. Back when I worshipped the ground Sean walked on.
I’m not a little tyke anymore. I don’t worship fucking anybody.
But I do still love the grumpy ol’ bastard.
That is, when he’s not holed up in his room or out of the house, trying to avoid the inevitability of his birthright as the oldest son of the O’Sullivan mafia don.
“So then why send the crown prince to handle menial O’Sullivan business?” I counter. “Your Highness always manages to get out of the hands-on activities.”
Sean spares barely a glance in my direction. “It’s not menial.”
I send a knowing smirk his way. “You’re being sent in to collect gambling debts from an old drunk, comrádaí,” I point out. “If that isn’t menial, I don’t know what is.”
Sean gives me a long-suffering sigh. “Are you gonna talk the whole way there?”
“I was planning on it, yeah.”
“Jesus.”
“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” I say in a high-pitched warble, imitating our aging Aunt Clodagh.
Usually, Sean would laugh.
Tonight, his glower just intensifies.
“He wants me to start taking the reins more,” he murmurs, almost to himself more than to me. “He wants me to take my responsibilities seriously. And that means I have to start from the bottom.”
“Ooh, he’s grooming you.”
I’m cracking myself up. Sean is just glaring at me, though.