Rocco: "Hey! We gotta talk about this early morning church shit."

I groaned as Mitch, Becky, and I followed the twins into an old Catholic church.

"Stop yer whinin'," Murphy ordered.

"Why do we have to go to church?" I complained. "We told you we don't like going. We haven't gone since we were kids." The last time the three of us had gone we had been thirteen.

"Well yeh haffta go now," Murphy snapped. "Wha' we do, it's not something yeh can get away with if yeh don' go ta church."

"But why?"

"To pray why'd ya think? Our mission comes from God. So we go to church every Sunday an' pay our respects."

"You're so damn Irish," I muttered. Murphy smacked me lightly on the back of the head.

"Watch yer mouth!" He scolded. "We're in a church." I rolled my eyes and followed him and Connor to a pew. The three of us sat down but the twins immediately knelt on the cushioned kneelers. They closed their eyes and began fingering the rosaries they wore around their necks, the same ones they wore whenever they killed someone. The three of us glanced at each other and then knelt with them and closed our eyes. As I child I had never been sure what I was supposed to be praying for when we were told to kneel and pray silently. Whenever I had been told to pray silently I had merely knelt, closed my eyes, and thought about nothing. But I felt like I wouldn't be able to get away with that now. I felt like the twins would know if I was just going through the motions. They wanted me to actually mean it and that was going to be difficult. Because to be perfectly honest, I didn't. I believed in what we were doing. And I would agree with it being God's will but more because to me, it was a way of justifying our mission. I didn't feel like God had spoken to me and told me this was what he wanted me to do. I just felt like it was what I was supposed to be doing. But maybe that was God's way of speaking to me, who knows? I had never put much stock in religion.

Mitch, Becky, and I each had a rosary which we had been given as children and we kept them on us at all times out of habit. We took them out now and began fingering them. We murmured the prayers we had been taught as children and as I did, for the first time in my life, I thought of things to pray for. Things that seemed logical given what was going on my life right now. I prayed for our safety, that doing this would not ruin our chances of having families one day. I prayed that, if this was really God's will, we wouldn't get caught. I prayed that our families would never ever find out about our new calling.

I don't know how long we knelt there but at some point the brothers rose to their feet. I had been vaguely aware of what was going on around me. I knew when the other parishioners had stood or sat or knelt but the five of us had remained on our knees through everything. Now, while everyone else was sitting and listening to the homily the five of us stood and walked out into the aisle. We followed the twins up to the altar where there was a large carving of the crucified Jesus. No one in the church seemed to think it strange that we were doing this. It must have been something the brothers had done many times before. The twins knelt before the carving and kissed the feet of Jesus. They stood and without thinking twice, Becky and I moved forward and copied them. After us, Mitch did the same thing. Once he had stood back up the twins turned and led us back down to the front doors and out of the church.

"Dude what the fuck?" I cried as we walked down the steps that led to the sidewalk. "You make us get up at some ungodly hour, drag our asses to church, and then we don't even stay the whole time?"

"Didn' need ta," Murphy replied as he pulled out a cigarette and clamped it between his lips. I felt the childish urge to rip it from his lips, break it in two, and stomp on it repeatedly.

"Well why the hell not?" I demanded instead.

"We came ta pray. We prayed an' now we're done. Time ta go home."

"Go home and do what? It's Sunday, we don't have to work."

"We've got some reconin' ta do."

"Reconin'…?" I repeated, blinking in confusion. "What'd you…oh! You mean recon like, staking a place out? Since when do you call it that? Have you guys been playing games on Mitch's computer again?" Connor and Murphy shook their heads and muttered something about watching too much History channel.

"Call of Duty?" I asked turning to Mitch. Mitch grinned sheepishly.

"Maaaybe," he replied. I snorted.

"More like yes."

"Who's the target?" Becky asked.

"More underbosses," Conner answered. "There's a meetin' tonight."

"How many?"

"Seven or eight," Murphy answered.

"You sure about that?" I replied, raising an eyebrow at him.

"O' course I'm sure!"

"Ya said that last time," I reminded him. "And you were way off."

"He's sure," Connor said, stopping Murphy from snapping back at me. "I checked meself."

"Okay then. That's all I need to know." I trusted both the twins of course, I had trusted them the moment I had met them, but Murphy was more reckless than Connor. He would rush into a situation whether he knew what he was getting into or not. Connor would think things through; he would double check but not Murphy. I never knew what Murphy was going to do and ever since Becky had almost gotten shot Murphy's recklessness had worried me.

"I told yeh I was sure," Murphy grumbled. I rolled my eyes and ignored him.