One: Past Sins

"They all tell tales o' the heroes," Chibs began, his mind drifting back to a time before the nickname. Before the scars that lined his cheeks. "When they're lookin' to recruit ya for the cause."

Taking another slug of whiskey, he could feel those scattered around the clubhouse bunkering down. Wrapped in the warmth of companionship and mellowed by the booze and weed, they were the perfect audience – content to listen and easy to be transported by the lilt of his voice to wherever, and whenever, he chose to take them.

He'd done it many times before. Had them laughing as he regaled them with raucous tales of late nights his eighteen and nineteen-year-old self had spent in seedy Glasgow pubs, or swept them away with images of the rugged wilds of Donegal he'd explored in his early twenties. Not tonight though.

Tonight, he was taking them to the backstreets of Belfast and the republican enclaves of a city deeply divided.

And they didn't even see it coming.

Tara had her denim-clad legs draped over Jax's as they kicked back on the couch, his hand resting on her knee and easy smiles on both their faces. Opie had Lyla settled on his lap, her arm curled around his broad shoulders, and even Gemma had quit fussing around them all to just perch on the arm of Clay's comfy chair. All real cosy.

"Plenty might wonder what the attraction is, 'specially for an outsider. Fightin' for Irish freedom. But us Scots have had our fair share o' suppression and I guess the recruiters ain't daft, tellin' ya what ya need to hear," he said, sounding more like he was talking to himself than to anyone else. He hadn't known where to start, still didn't really. But he needed them to understand the myths that were built up – if only so he could tear them right back down. "A noble revolution. What lad don't wanna be a part o' somethin' like that? Hard-fought independence and the chance to be bloody immortal, that's what they're sellin'. Rebel songs sung in bars about blood spilled in battle and teary-eyed lasses waitin' by windows for their love to come home, that's how they say they'll remember ya. All glory and honour and tales o' brave sacrifice."

He poured another top-up and kept the bottle close, picking absently at the label as a self-mocking smile tugged his reluctant lips upwards.

"Gotta wonder how anyone ever falls for all that romantic shite," he said. "But nothin' rips away the rose-tint like seein' the darker side o' the fairytale for yersel'. All the twisted, downright ugly things they ain't never gonna sing about. And, Jesus Christ, I musta seen 'em all ..."

February, 1992: Short Strand, Belfast.

The chill wind blowing through his khaki green jacket was just another thing Belfast had in common with Glasgow. Both were almost always fucking baltic. Heavy grey clouds were rolling overhead, so low they looked like he could reach up and touch them, and he knew the rain wasn't far off. Turning up the collar of the jacket and looking around for any sign of the guy he was meant to be meeting, he took a second to turn in towards the wall and cupped the flame of his lighter until he'd managed to spark up.

"Ya takin' a piss or what, Scotty?" came the jaunty call. "Get yer arse over 'ere!"

"Yer the bastard runnin' late, O'Rourke. Been freezin' me balls off this last hour and I still ain't even been told what we're supposed to be doin'."

But it appeared his comrade was too laidback to be phased by the distinctly disgruntled tone, simply jerking his head in the direction he wanted them to go. "C'mon then, princess. Wouldn't want ya catchin' cold, would we?"

Cigarette in the corner of his mouth and his hands jammed in his pockets, Filip Telford shrugged and followed the older man, looking confused when they soon came to a halt right outside a church. "Think we missed Mass ..."

"True. But, luckily for us, we're just in time for confession."

Glancing around the clubhouse, Chibs raked a hand through the salt-and-pepper of his hair and wasn't exactly surprised to find it was shaking. It had been a long time since he'd voluntarily thought about that day, but when he did ... It was every bit as real and as vivid as it had been back then.

"See, if ya weren't wi' us, ya were against us," he said, by way of explanation. "That was just the way it was."

He could see the hint of confusion on a few faces as they tried to second-guess him and work out where this was going. Bars and strip clubs were often central to his reminiscing, churches not so much.

"Turned out this lad they'd been tryin' to recruit had got himsel' a new job," he sighed. "Good Catholic lad he was, but he'd only gone and joined the goddamn RUC – that was what they called the cops in them days, the Royal Ulster Constabulary. And that most definitely put him in the enemy camp. Crown forces, ya see? Noble-minded bugger he was though, apparently. All about makin' changes from the inside. Might as well have been his own bloody death warrant he was signing. His da was ... sympathetic to the cause, shall we say? And no one was gonna take any chances on what secrets could come tumblin' out."

Chibs tightened his grip on the glass, but he didn't take a drink. Not this time. "I'd shot a cop before. In Omagh. Young lad too, my age. Two in the back o' the head - never saw it comin'. Probably didn't even feel it, not that it makes much difference. Fucked me up, it did, and they all knew it. Things coulda gone either way, but they made a point o' pullin' me closer - gettin' me in deeper in case those cold feet sent me runnin'. And it worked. I never forgot what I'd done, but I buried it deeper than the fuckin' body. 'Til that day."

His bowed head allowed his gaze to drift to the silver cross resting against his shirt. Sometimes it felt heavier around his neck than others.

"There'd been other kills, but not executions. Just the way it worked out, I guess. If they'd told me to do somethin', I'd have had to or it woulda been me payin' the price," he said. "That was all part o' how it worked too. Ya never seemed to build up any credit wi' the boys callin' the shots – ya were only as well thought o' as yer last show o' loyalty. One wrong move and it was yer own hands or knees they were shootin'."

"Padre Pio," a gruff voice interrupted. "That's the hands, ain't it?"

Chibs wasn't surprised that it was Happy who spoke up. The killer always had been more than a little interested in the finer points of how they'd conducted business back in the day.

"Aye, that's what they called it," he nodded. "Bullet through both palms - no motivator like it. But when they told me what they wanted ... Omagh just came flooding back."

"They wanted you to kill a cop in a goddamn church?"

Even Sons had a moral code of sorts and Chibs loved Jax for that strong sense of right and wrong. If it was something he could hold on to, then there was hope for the future of the club – a chance that it could be steered through the dark times and God knows he was ready for that.

He nodded again. "Turns out St Matthew's was somethin' o' a stronghold. The priest was a long-time supporter wi' family ties to the 'Ra. Folk higher up the food chain than me had it all planned – get the kid in the confessional and, right when he's in the middle o' savin' his soul, I send him off to the pearly gates. Simple as that."

"Did you ... Did you do it?"

The wide-eyed look on Lyla's face, coupled with the way Tara seemed to be avoiding his gaze, twisted something in his gut. His brothers, they understood the fucked-up shit a man could get dragged into. The choices you had to make. But old ladies, club women he respected and cared about, they tended to see things a little differently. Where his brothers might see a justifiable target and an assassination, their old ladies would first see a son or a husband and a cold-blooded murder. And he knew they'd be right. At least he didn't have to lie to save face.

"Nah, love, I didn't," he said, managing a faint smile. "But, though I ain't proud o' it, I'd be lyin' if I didn't say I'd go back if I could – and ya better believe I'd pull that trigger in a fuckin' heartbeat. Because that, my friends, was the beginning o' the end."

to be continued ...