“Well,” I said, moving to pick up Herbert then heading over to the tools hanging on the wall as I got back to my original reason for coming here, my brain officially full. “I just came here to grab a few new friends.” I grabbed a couple of saws and a hammer by the name of James plus a pair of pliers called Tilly.
I did need to get on with some other shit today, but I was all ears for whatever my nephew had to say on this matter when he had the chance to talk through it with me further.
“I have places to be, skulls to batter, eyeballs to pluck out. I’ll be wanting that chat though, Kyan. And I’ll keep my mouth shut too – Pa won’t like you letting yer friends touch your girl, no matter what way you wanna paint it to him. See ya around.” I headed out the door, leaving them there to chat or have a gang bang or whatever, whistling a tune which wouldn’t quite come to me and trying to keep that pep in my step while I headed back to the house and the boring arse afternoon ahead of me.
***
A day in the company of my father and brothers was not the most relaxing of days. In fact, by the time I’d been forced to attend countless meetings and offer up opinions on so many things I gave no fucks about that my head was spinning with it, I was damn inclined to go on a killing spree.
There was rumour I’d heard about a cult up in the mountains who lured young men and women into it to serve under the rule of the old bastards who had tricked them into believing in some greater power or mystical fountain of knowledge or transitional veil of fire or some shit. I wasn’t entirely sure which, but I’d heard a bit about sacrifices of the flesh and bodies being burned in the dead of night, so I was pretty certain there was a whole organisation up there just ripe for the killin’。
I’d bet my little psycho would enjoy that particular road trip with me. We could take one of those great big RVs which were practically a house on wheels. There would be a bed in the back and plenty of room to pick up hitchhikers who we could assess for psychotic tendencies before dropping them off or taking them out. It would be grand. An adventure of death and carnage fit for a queen of chaos and the broken fool who travelled at her back.
I pursed my lips as I considered that though. If I was at her back, then who was covering her front? Or the sides? I wanted her to run free in all of her beautifully lethal glory, but I needed her protected too. She was innocent at least as much as she was guilty, and I wanted to shield that part of her from this brutal world with all I had.
“Cat got your tongue, Niall?” Ronan asked loudly, stacking his hands over his stomach as he gave me a taunting smirk across the table in our pa’s office where we’d been summoned for this final meeting.
Or at least I hoped it was the last one. I honestly couldn’t remember if I’d been told that or had just decided it for myself.
The entire family had been showing up as the day progressed into the evening, and Pa had been calling different members of his family in to discuss the various arms of all his businesses throughout the day. Between discussions, we moved to different rooms and each time he summoned or dismissed my brothers, sister, nieces and nephews, cousins, uncle and the like, gathering different groups for each subject. Everyone had been cut out of at least one of those meetings if not more. Everyone aside from me that was.
I knew what he was doing. The game he was playing by sitting me at his right hand throughout the day no matter the subject. I was in on talks I had no business or interest in while he cut out people who mighta had something more to add to them. He wanted them all to think he was leaning towards me as his successor. He wanted them riled up and aiming their jealousy at me. But I was yet to fully figure out why.
The simplest explanation could of course have been that he really was considering me the front runner at this point. When I compared myself to my siblings, I could hardly blame him on that front. But Liam O’Brien just wasn’t a simple man. So I had to think he was up to something far more conniving than that.
I probably shoulda been trying to figure it out with a bit more determination, but the thing was, I just didn’t give a fuck. So far as I was concerned, this moment in time was just a place holder pre-empting my escape from this life. I had my donkey ready and waiting at home, his head full of all the information I needed to make a clean escape and just as soon as I’d cracked his skull open and peeled all the secrets outa it, I’d be off. Gone with the wind and travelling on a breeze. They’d never catch up to me. And if by some miracle any of them did, I’d just kill them and keep on floating once their blood was wetting my flesh. It was simple. Easy. And yet entirely too difficult all at once.
“Hamster got your cock, Ronan?” I shot back at him.
“What?”
“Well, I assumed you musta done a trade with the little fella for yours. That would explain that tiny pecker you‘ve got resting on your balls like a worm sunbathing on a beanbag.”
Pa chuckled and Dermot joined in like some kind of echo, always ready to team up against one of his siblings no matter which of us that meant he had to side with. Connor just glared at me from the foot of the table, his hand all tucked up in a cast and his hair now fully shaved off after he’d spent the majority of the afternoon getting bandaged up following on from our play date this morning. I preferred his hard-boiled egg look to his ponytail days anyway. Mostly because it felt like I had a bongo ready to go at all times while he was near, just in case I wanted to drop a beat and break into song.
“You think you’re so funny, don’t ya Niall?” Ronan growled and I just smiled because, yeah, I was pretty funny when I wanted to be. Like right now, as I looked between Ronan and Dermot and I thought about the way I’d paid to get a hooker into their beds with our daddy’s money and the way the two of them constantly professed their love to her, spilling all of their sordid little secrets and affairs into her listening ears while rutting their cocks between her thighs, and never once realising who paid for her moans or who was laughing at them behind their backs.
I considered telling them right now. Just so that I could see the looks on their faces when they realised they’d been played by me and their mistress for years now. Dermot had bought her a fucking house. It was hilarious. And Ronan had gifted her so many diamonds and rubies and the like that she was legitimately able to employ a guard for them and set herself up like the queen with her crown jewels. I mean, I was pretty certain she just pawned them all, but it was totally an option she could have gone for.
“It’s been a long day,” Pa interrupted, maybe sensing how thin of a line I was treading right now and thinking to save two more of his sons from a trip to the hospital or maybe just not in the mood for violence before dinner. Blood and gore tended to get my appetite up, but it had the opposite effect for some.
“That it has,” I agreed, pushing to my feet and almost knocking my chair over in my haste to be gone from this place. I’d been asked some kind of question towards the end of this latest meeting, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember it now. Nor did I care to. All I wanted was to get the fuck out of here and head home to my Spider and my house and my bed. I’d hardly even touched the liquor throughout this most tedious of days because I didn’t want to be unable to drive home late and get stuck here over night.