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“It’s part of the job.”

“Exactly!” he crows fiercely, his eyes blazing with an intensity that I haven’t seen from him in years. “Exactly. It’s all part of the job. Death, violence, pain—they will always be part of the job.”

He fixes me with a mournful gaze.

“I don’t want to do it anymore,” he whispers. “I don’t want to be a part of it.”

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I’m at a loss for words.

“Da’s not just gonna let you walk away,” I say finally.

Sean shakes his head. “You think he’s gonna force me to stay?” he asks. “You think he’s going to make me be don?”

I think about that for a second.

Sean’s right. The responsibility of don is too great to force on someone who refuses to accept it. There’s too much at stake for someone who’s no good.

But that’s just it—Sean is good at it.

“You’re a natural at all this shit,” I tell him. “This is what you were meant to do.”

“I’m not a natural,” he says, rearing back as though I’ve just insulted him. “I’ve just endured over the years. I’ve tried to be the kind of son that Da and Ma could be proud of. But it’s taken too much out of me. I don’t have much left to give.”

I search his face.

“How have I not seen this before?” I ask, mostly to myself.

But Sean answers anyway.

“Because you’re eighteen, Cillian,” he says, with a small knowing smile. “You were busy being a kid, a teenager. You were busy living.”

“Is this about Orla?” I ask suddenly. “She left you because she couldn’t deal with this lifestyle.”

Sean hesitates for a moment.

“It’s not specifically about Orla,” he says. “It’s more about what she represented. A normal life. An uncomplicated lifestyle. A sense of the ordinary. That’s what she wanted, but she couldn’t have that with me.”

“And that’s what you want now.”

“Maybe it is,” Sean muses. “I haven’t figured out what I want yet. But the point is, I know what I don’t want.”

I shake my head in disbelief. “What the fuck is so great about being ordinary?” I demand. “It’s fucking boring.”

Sean puts his hand on my shoulder. I have to resist the urge not to shake him off.

“Maybe that’s what I want to be,” Sean says. “I’m not like you.”

“Since when?”

“Since she died,” he says in a low voice.

My chest tightens. Sean never talks about her.

Maybe that’s why I’ve allowed myself to forget the toll her death has taken on the entire family.

“You were a child,” Sean says. “But I remember. I remember everything.”

“Sean…”


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