Epilogue

"Leakin' like a fuckin' tap here ..." Chibs mumbled into the dark quiet of the evening, wiping at his eyes and yet forcing a warm smile on his scarred face at the sight of his approaching brother. With his hands shoved awkwardly in the pockets of his baggy jeans, Jax seemed lost for words. "Ah, Jacky-boy, don't look like that," he said, though he appreciated the unspoken sentiment as he pulled him into a tight hug and planted a kiss on his cheek. "It ... it ain't okay, but it were a long time ago."

"You coulda said something, man. Carrying that with you all this time ... We're your family, bro," the young vice president tried. "All the times we dealt with Jimmy O and you never said a word."

"And what good would that have done any o' us, huh?"

Fists clenched, Jax looked away, fighting to see a way to make this right. "I wish I could hand him over to you, but I can't, Chibs," he admitted heavily. "At least not yet. But I can make it so you don't have to have anything to do with him. Dealing direct with the Irish, Happy can handle it and ..."

"No," the Scotsman said firmly, clapping him on the back. "I know ya mean well, Jackson, but I ain't backin' away now. Because every time I have to look that bastard in the eye, he has to look right back. And I hope these fuckin' scars, as a reminder o' what he did, cut him every bit as deep as they did me. He'll get his, one day."

Reluctantly, Jax nodded in understanding and the pair sank down onto the picnic table in front of the clubhouse, just watching the night deepen in silence.

"Chibs, do you ever wonder ..."

Although the question trailed off, as if he'd thought the better of it, Chibs smiled sadly and slung an arm around his shoulders. "Only all the bloody time."

"Is there any chance? I know Juice didn't realise what it all meant, but could he be ... right?"

"I'd be lyin' if I said I hadn't hoped. And it kills me not knowin'," he admitted, with a sigh. "But I can't decide what's worse – false hope, or none at all. Ach, that's enough listenin' to me ramble on fer one night, don't ya think? Get away on inside wi' ya. Go on, go grab that lass o' yers and keep her close, Jacky. Keep her close, 'cause ya never know what's round the corner."

Seeming to sense that his brother just wanted a moment to himself, Jax climbed to his feet and headed inside – leaving Chibs to tilt his face up to the stars with a heavy heart. Normally, he'd fight to push the memories away. But now, raw as they were, he let them wash over him and she was all he could see behind his eyes.

His Aoife. Beautiful as she was curled up in his arms, terrified torn out of them.

"Cronaím thú, mo chroí,*" he whispered hoarsely. "Ah, Jesus, lass ... I'm so fuckin' sorry."

Sometimes even false hope was hard to find.

December 1992: Darkley, south Armagh.

Swallowed up in the back of the cab, she had no real way of knowing what lay beyond the darkness of the windows or that they'd long since left the city behind, passing instead through tiny villages and hamlets in deepest south Armagh. So-called bandit country, though it wasn't quite the IRA stronghold it had been at the height of the Troubles.

Still, it was close to the border that could offer an escape if needed, out of the reach and jurisdiction of the police.

She'd wept quietly to herself, wiping her tears with the edge of a shirt that smelled vaguely like Filip – leather, his smokes, his aftershave and something that was just him. She knew prayers were little use to either of them, but she'd prayed all the same that her brother would at least spare the man she had fallen in love with. Jimmy could be merciless, but in the circumstances, she knew her poor soft-hearted Filip would probably welcome a bullet.

That alone might perversely keep him alive.

And she needed to know that he was. He was a daddy now, after all. The thought both warmed and broke her heart. She'd considered herself too young to be thinking of a family of her own, but had started to imagine that one day ... It would never happen now though. His child, their baby, would never be laid in her arms ...

Fresh tears spilled over, even as she realised they had finally stopped and her heart started to race again in fear. There was no point in pleading while they dragged her from the cab, impassive faces watching as they pushed her in front of them at gunpoint. They hadn't covered up. There was no need for balaclavas for this, no point.

Still in her bare feet and freezing, the chill wind whipping her long hair across her face, Aoife stumbled over the rough ground. There was nothing for miles but bogland. Nowhere to run.

"This'll do," O'Rourke barked out. "On yer knees."

Part of her kept trying to convince herself that maybe this was all just designed to scare her and the Lord knew it had worked. Any hope, however unlikely, of a last-minute pardon from her own brother was all that was keeping her from breaking down completely and hysterically. All she could hear was mumbled conferring between the two men behind her, the wind in the bushes, and her own heart threatening to burst right out of her chest.

A call from Jimmy, just a word, was all it would take to make this stop and they all knew it.

Rough stones bit into her skin, even through her jeans, as she knelt trembling in the dirt. Her fingertips were numb with the cold and she could hardly see for tears. The first light of dawn was starting to streak the inky sky.

And only the birds heard the bullet.

End.

*Cronaím thú, mo chroí - Irish which translates literally as 'I miss you, my heart', but would usually be meant as 'I miss you, my love/darling'.