When Malachy Doyle found his youngest son at the empty bar below their office, drowning his sorrows with half a bottle of whiskey, it was no surprise. In fact, Malachy felt somewhat compelled to indulge himself—like father, like son—so it was the first place he checked. Jake didn't even turn around when Malachy entered the room; he already knew who had come looking for him.
"Hello Skipper, so they finally sprung ya, eh?" Jake slurred, raising the half-empty bottle.
"You're drunk," Malachy said. It was not a question.
"Not nearly s'much as I'd like to be." Jake poured himself another glass. "But I'm working on it."
Malachy frowned and crossed the room in three strides, snatching the bottle out of Jake's hands. Obstinately, Jake reached behind the bar for another one, fumbling until his hands found purchase but Malachy blocked that one too. "You should be ashamed of yourself," Malachy said as Jake spun the stool around to avoid his father's scrutinizing gaze. "Getting sloshed alone up here while that boy is fighting for his life."
"It seemed like the thing to do at the time."
Malachy just frowned, the anger rising. "Do y'think I don't know what you're doing, boy? Y'think I can't possibly grasp what you're feeling? I know what's going through your head. You're blaming yourself for all this, tryin' to think 'What did I do wrong?' or 'Could I have prevented this?' And it all comes back to guilt."
"Please," Jake rolled his eyes. "Do tell me more, Dr. Phil."
Malachy sidestepped the snide remark. "And has it not perhaps occurred to you that I feel the exact same way? That I keep trying to think how I could have prevented this?" Jake paused, the glass midway to his lips. "Sonja was my protege, my friend. I've replayed this whole godforsaken mess over and over in my head since it began, trying to determine what I could've done differently." Malachy paused to let the statement sink in. "But you know what? It doesn't matter, son. You can't just sit here and wallow in 'what ifs' and 'why fors' because it's over, it's done, and it doesn't do anyone a bit of good to sit around pitying yourself."
The P.I. set the shot glass down on the bar and turned to face his father. "You weren't there, dad. I reached for the gun, we struggled, it went off... I knew—in the back of my mind, I knew—that something had gone wrong there but in that moment, all I cared about was how pissed off I was at her for... for blowing up my car. Can you believe that? I was pissed off about a car while Des is—while he's—" Jake exhaled, dropping his head to his hands.
"It was an accident, son. Nothing more than wrong place, wrong time," Malachy assured him. "You can't go on blaming yerself like this."
"That's funny, comin' from you. You're always blaming me for some thing or another."
It was true that of all his brood, Malachy was hardest on Jake, but that was only because Jake had the most potential. Malachy would never tell him that, of course, but it was true nonetheless. Lots of potential in that boy, but not enough focus. Malachy's weapon of choice was degridation and derision, but maybe he'd been too hard on him all along. Maybe Jake needed a soft hand every now and then... "You're not a screwup, Jake. Yer a good boy. You did everything you could here; sometimes you just get dealt a losing hand."
Jake picked his head up and his gaze met briefly with his father's. This level of sincerity was unfamiliar to him, and starting to make him uncomfortable. As in past moments of sincerity, Jake's first instinct was to change the subject. "Speaking of losing hands," he looked away, the slightest quiver in his voice betraying the aloof persona he traditionally projected. "How is Des?"
"He made it through. Tinny and Rose are with him now, but I'm sure he'd like to see you there when he wakes up..."
"Dad, I—" Jake shook his head. "I don't know if I can face that yet..."
"So you figure on getting drunk off your arse instead? Great idea."
"Am I interrupting something?" Both Doyles swiveled their heads towards the third person in the room, standing by the front door where she'd slipped in unnoticed at some point during their conversation. Sonja stared down the father and son icily, hands at her sides. "Sorry, it looked like you two were having a moment. Shall I come back?"
It was a testament to Jake's anger that he instantly sobered long enough to leap from the stool and whip out the gun he'd been holding onto without stumbling. "Sonja," he spat, keeping the gun trained on the blonde as he made his way towards her slowly.
"What are y'doing here, Sonja?" Malachy asked, his voice darker than Jake had ever heard it. He joined his son, searching Sonja for weapons while Jake kept an eye on her, but found none. "What in God's name made you think it'd be a good idea to come back here now?"
"Such hostility," Sonja admonished. "Coming from you, Mal, that's a bit uncharacteristic." She eyed Jake, whose eyes and gun never left her line of sight. "As is that, I'm assuming." she said, nodding to the gun. "You ever shoot someone before, Jake? I mean, besides your little friend."
Jake felt a flash of anger but emitted only a bitter laugh. "You know, my dad taught me never to hit a lady." He looked at his father, then lowered the gun and decked the unexpecting Sonja as hard as he could with his free hand, effectively knocking the self-satisfied smirk from her face. She stumbled back into a table, grabbing her stinging jaw. "Luckily, you're no lady."
The blonde wiped the blood from her split lip, righting herself. She cast a glance at Malachy, who simply shrugged. "Alright, I guess I had that one coming," Sonja said, wiping her hand on her pantleg.
"You have a lot worse coming to you, I guarantee it," Jake countered darkly.
"Save it, Jake," Sonja rolled her eyes. "It's bad enough I have to come here. Don't make me listen to your whining on top of it."
"He'll stop whining, if you stop being so damn melodramatic," Malachy snapped. "What are y'doing here anyway, Sonja? You never answered me." Malachy's former protege just looked at him, a bored sigh escaping her lips as her arms crossed before her. At the brief averting of her gaze, it all became suddenly clear to Malachy. "You need our help." After all that had happened, she still couldn't bring herself to say it outright. "That's why you're here, isn't it? You want us to help you." By the lack of response, both Doyles knew it to be true.
"Oh, you—you've got to be kidding," Jake laughed bitterly. "After everything you've done to my family? You actually have the guts to come back here with your hands open?"
"Nothing's changed, Doyle. I still need the money. I was going to leave for the mainland, find another way, but you've got every officer out looking for me now. I can't get off this damn island."
"The gold is gone, Sonja. We gave it all back," Malachy told her. "I don't know what to tell ya. It's time to turn yerself in... Time to take responsibility for your actions." He looked at her carefully as his words sank in. The cracks beneath the surface were starting to show in her expression. "What happened to you, Sonja? How did you get this way? I remember that eager young girl I trained... You were good. Now what's happened to ya? Drugs, gambling, now murder? You've come a long way."
"It's not that simple, Malachy!" Sonja said earnestly then sighed. "I lied to you before... I did need the money... but it wasn't for me. I have a ... a younger brother, Mikey. He's a good person, but he has a problem. He got in deep with his bookie, and called me for help but before I could get to him, they took him. They were going to kill him but I told them I would get the money. I was supposed to have it to them by tomorrow, but you all effectively prevented that." Though she was crumbling before them at the admission, Sonja couldn't help the tint of bitterness to the last part.
Malachy remembered Mikey Sterling. Even twenty years ago Mikey had some insurmountable problems. Sonja was always stressing about her younger brother, though it was obvious to everyone else that Mikey was becoming a lost cause. Sonja always tried to be optimistic, but apparently the younger Sterling sibling never did pull his life together, and now Sonja had been dragged into his mess. "Who does he owe the money to?"
Sonja paused a moment, calculating whether it was necessary to reveal that info before evidently deciding it was. "Ian Massey."
Jake blinked. "Ian Massey? The Ian Massey, the mafia guy from Quebec?" Massey and his associates were connected to a string of carjackings, drug deals and thefts spanning 15 years and had yet to do any serious time, due to suspected police corruption. The violent nature of his crimes had increased in recent years, leaving a few bodies in his wake—none of which had been properly connected back to the mobster as of yet. Massey was a dangerous guy, that much was for sure. Mikey Sterling couldn't have picked a worse person to owe money to.
"I told you they were bad people, Doyle."
"So that's what this is all about, huh?" the P.I. asked, his voice rising an octave. "You created this whole mess to save some deadbeat from his own stupidity?"
"It's my brother, Jake!" Sonja shouted. "I do whatever I have to to protect my family, and he's the only family I have left!"
"What about MY family?!" Jake yelled. "Well?! Do they not matter, so long as your family is safe? My family never did anything to deserve this. My dad and Rose could still go to jail. And my... Des—" Jake didn't know how to finish that sentence.
Sonja eyed him steadily. "I told you, that was an accident."
"An entirely avoidable one! You know, Sonja, I know something about bailing out your screw-up brother... but I managed not to kill anyone doing it."
"He's got a point, Sonja," Malachy said. "Why should we help you? What possible incentive would we have for not turning you in to the police right now?" Sonja may have been on an emotionally-fueled mission, but she was still a clever woman, and Malachy could sense there was something else she was not telling them, an ace up her sleeve. He only hoped it wasn't another hidden bomb...
"There's one more thing..." Sonja began, confirming Malachy's suspicions. "Massey's guy on the inside is the one who tipped me onto the gold bullion job. Massey set everything up from the get go. I think he had been waiting to do this job all along, he just couldn't find the right fall guy..." Malachy could already tell how it went: along came Sonja, desperate to save her brother from a debt. Massey offers to let it slide if she gets him a larger score. With no obvious connection between himself and Sonja, he could avoid all suspicion. "Well, as you know already, that didn't work out. Massey found out I contacted you, Malachy, now the word is that he thinks the three of us are collaborating to keep the money and flip on him to the police."
Well, Malachy thought, he hadn't thought it possible but things actually managed to get worse. As if being wanted for two murders, spending several days on the lam, and almost losing a family member weren't enough, now Malachy and Jake had the mafia to contend with? When was it going to end? The mess Sonja Sterling had dragged his family into was suffocating them.
"He thinks we're working together to steal from him?" Jake said incomprehensively.
"He may or may not be coming here to kill all three of us before we can turn him in. For the record, I never implied that we were working together. He made the assumption himself and I did damage control all morning to stop him from coming here but I can't do that without going to Quebec myself and you've effectively prevented me from doing that—"
"You can't seriously still be blaming us for this!" Jake wanted to pull his hair out at the insanity of it all. "You've literally sicced the mafia on us to clean up your mess. What are we gonna do when he comes here to collect? You do remember we don't have the gold anymore, right?"
The blonde woman shrugged. "Then I guess we'd better come up with some more quickly."
"Woman, who do you take us for?" Malachy shouted, obviously having expunged the last of his patience as well.
Before anything else could happen, a knock at the door interrupted them. They all exchanged a nervous look before Jake moved to answer it. After all, if it really was Massey's men coming to mow them all down, they wouldn't knock politely before entering, so it was probably safe. Malachy ushered Sonja into the next room to stay hidden. As she passed by him through the doorway he could only shake his head at her. "You should have come to us in the first place, Sonja. We might've been able to help then. It may be too late now..." He shut the door on her look of defeat.
Despite his self-assurance, Jake still peeked past the door before opening it and was not completely surprised to see Leslie waiting patiently. "Leslie," he said by way of greeting, the door only somewhat ajar to bar her from entering. "What are you doing here?"
"I stopped by the hospital to check on Des and got an earful from your niece... so I came here to check on you." She looked past Jake to glimpse Malachy standing at the bar in the background and her eyes began to darken with suspicion, rightfully gained in this instance and so many others where Jake was concerned. "Is there something goin' on, Jake?"
"No, nothing, I just needed some sleep, so I came back here. Dad was just coming to get me."
Leslie held back cautiously, still suspicious, which was fair since Jake was a terrible liar. "Are you sure there's not something else? Is someone else here with you?"
"No," Jake answered, maybe a little too quickly, so he added another, more deliberate, "No, I'm just... not handling this whole thing very well. I got a little drunk and dad just spent the last twenty minutes tearing me a new one, so if I seem a little... out of sorts, that's why." It was kind of the truth, but Jake still felt the guilt eating at him for lying to Leslie. Sweet, sensible Leslie, who'd come all the way here just to make sure he was okay... Surely he was going to Hell for lying to her.
"Oh, okay then..." Leslie still looked unsure but seemed to accept this. "Are you sure you don't wanna talk about anything then? You can trust me, Jake... you know that right?"
Oh Leslie, you're killing me! Jake thought, exasperated. How often was he going to turn her away at his doorstep when she was at her most vulnerable? How often was he going to lie?
"Now is really not a good time, Leslie," Jake forced himself to reply, and he slowly swung the door shut on her concerned look, resting his back against it when the latch fell into place. Three inches of wood paneling combined with three years of bad timing were all that separated him from the only thing he wanted, but he just couldn't bring himself to cross those lines. Malachy met his gaze from across the room and both men picked up on the other's nonverbal cues. This was bigger than them, bigger, perhaps, than anything they'd ever dealth with. Sonja never asked for help and it was the cause of her downfall. Were the father and son going to do the same?
"We've got to tell her," Jake replied and Malachy nodded in agreement. Jake spun and ripped the door open, catching Leslie with one foot still on the bottom step. She turned as well, a glimmer of hope in her eyes she failed to hide soon enough. "Leslie, wait, I think there's something we need your help with."
tbc