"Jesus Christ. What the hell happened to your face?"

Shaken, Catherine graciously took the glass of whiskey offered to her by Connor. Jimmy poured a shot of the liquor into his coffee, while Dessie glared at the two from the couch.

He couldn't even have twelve hours to sleep off his painkiller induced high without them stirring up trouble.

The whiskey burned the back of her raw throat as she took a sip, touching the tender bruise forming around her right eye. It was stupid what she did, which was the reason why she didn't want to divulge the truth.

"Genius over here tried to make a run for the border," Jimmy answered Connor's question. "Peelers tackled her and she caught an elbow during the scrum."

Patrick and Dessie almost lunged over the coffee table to get to Catherine, who sat on the love-seat with Jimmy. Both men were ready to wring her neck.

"Are you really that foolish? Or are you just plain fuckin' stupid?" spat Patrick.

"I panicked, okay? If I'd of known off the bat they only had a search warrant, I wouldn't have run!"

"That's beside the goddamn point, Catherine!" Dessie yelled, startling everyone. "Do you have any idea how fuckin' idiotic it was to do that? You're lucky they bothered runnin' after you instead of shootin' you in the back of the head!"

Grabbing her whiskey, Patrick polished it off. "I'm amazed you even managed to get out of there without being arrested. Mother'a Christ. I raised ya better than this, so I did!"

With six pairs of eyes on her, Catherine felt the humiliation of being chastised by her husband and father hit like a ton of bricks. She thought the entire population of Belfast finding out about her pregnancy with Eamonn was the most degrading experience of her life, but as it turned out this was far worse by ten-fold. Burying her face in her hands, she would rather die than have likes of these men see her cry over being called out for her careless actions.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Kieran butted in, making her feel worse.

"Don't you fuckin' start in on this!" Dessie roared.

Even though Dessie was instructing him to stay out of what happened, Catherine couldn't help exploding on Kieran. She jumped up, no longer caring about the tears skating down her cheeks.

"I was thinkin' about protecting my boys by not ending up in a pair of handcuffs-"

"Goddamn," Kieran interrupted. "You are just plain fuckin' stupid, aren't you? For real, you thought tryin' to make a run for the border – which is a mile from your house, might I add – would be the best way for you to protect your boys?"

"I don't have to fuckin' take this from you." Catherine swiped the bottle off the table and tried to leave the family room, but Patrick stopped her before she could take another step.

"You sit your arse right here," Patrick said, forcing Catherine back down on the love-seat. "The rest of youse, go keep busy. Before I forget, one of you shites needs to call Ahern's bird so she doesn't find out from the telly that her eejit old man blew himself up last night."

Connor, Jack, Mickey, and Aidan filed out of the room. Kieran stayed behind for a second, leaving begrudgingly only when Dessie nudged his chin in the direction of the doorway. He also looked to Patrick.

"You mind, Paddy?"

Reluctantly, Patrick left too.

Jimmy grabbed the bottle of whiskey from Catherine, tucking a cigarette behind his ear. "I guess I'll leave youse to figure this out. If you need me, I'll be-"

"Sit your sorry arse back down, O'Phelan." Dessie pushed through the aches and throbbing pains, standing up to put on the pair of jeans she brought him from home. He left them unbuttoned and forwent a shirt as he couldn't lift his arms over his head just yet. "Catherine, why don't you make breakfast for the lads?"

Glancing up at him, she noticed his attention wasn't on her. It was on Jimmy. Dessie wasn't asking – this was his way of telling her to get lost so he could talk with Jimmy alone. She didn't have to be told twice. Hoisting up, she collected the mugs and glasses off the table before heading into the kitchen.

Dessie grabbed a cigarette from the pack on the side table, lighting up even though he knew he probably shouldn't. If an accidental detonation of a nail bomb didn't kill him, he figured a cigarette wouldn't either.

Exhaling smoke through his nostrils, Dessie pressed his hand against the bandaged wound on his belly, sitting back down.

"You fuckin' my wife?"

Jimmy was so taken back by the bluntness, he stumbled on his answer, "What? No. No, I'm not shaggin' her."

"You want to though, don't you?"

"Not gonna lie, Dess. I do. And I will until the day I'm six feet in the ground."

Dessie snorted, raising his eyebrows. "At least you're being honest for once. Then why did youse show up here together if you're not shaggin'?"

"Eamonn," he breathed. "I wanted to see Eamonn so she brought him up to Belfast. The three of us were together when she got the call from Mickey."

Inclined to believe him, Dessie wasn't sure if he could. How could he trust the word of a man who was a pathological liar? At this point, if he asked Catherine and got the same answer, it wasn't like her explanation would hold much weight either.

Through tired, sore eyes, Jimmy focused on a peculiar tattoo Dessie bore on his left pectoral. The neat cursive ink taunted him.

Catherine

The next words Dessie wanted to say got caught in his throat. He choked on them for a moment, not wanting to tell Jimmy what was really on his mind. Albeit, he was tired of all the hate and animosity; wanting nothing more than for life to go back to normal. Back to how it was before Jimmy left his face mutilated with an ugly scar. He wanted the blithe relationship he and Catherine had before they got married- before she got pregnant.

For that to happen, he had to be the bigger man. Where he grew up, bitterness wore down too many good men. Dessie refused to be one of them.

"Regardless, I do wanna thank you for what you did for me. I'm surprised you didn't just let me die on the table."

"I thought about it. But if anything happened to your pathetic arse, Catherine would string me up by the bollocks," Jimmy chuckled. "And I need the guns from you."

Dessie smiled boastfully. "Never thought I'd see the day where Jimmy O is crawlin' to me for a favor."

Jimmy never thought he'd see the day either. His pride was bruised worse than Catherine's eye, as was his reputation. He wondered how in the hell he would come back from this.

"You better savor how it tastes because it won't happen again."

"Oh, don't worry. I'm never gonna let you live it down that I saved your arse from the ol' Irish Kings."

If looks could kill, Dessie would have dropped dead right there from the daggers Jimmy threw in his direction. Lighting a cigarette, Jimmy mumbled,

"…fuckin' prick."

"And you're a cunt."

The men fell silent for their own good, attempting to cool off before any more insults were hurled and it turned into a brawl.

Neither was looking to throw physical jabs as Dessie was in no position for a fight, and Jimmy knew not to start trouble when he was outnumbered.

"You're tellin' me the truth," Dessie said, crushing out his cigarette, "you and Catherine aren't shaggin'?"

"It's the truth, so it is. We haven't been together since before youse started dating."

Dessie leaned back into the couch, running a hand through his dirty hair. He forced himself to believe what Jimmy said was the truth and this wasn't karma coming back to bite him for the sins he committed in his first marriage.

"The Russian stock – how much hardware do you need?"

Jimmy was surprised by Dessie's willingness to be so forthright in talking business weeks before they agreed to meet in Limerick. He fully expected to be put through the wringer before Dessie even asked how many guns he would need to keep SAMCRO flush. When the eager spark of hope kindled in his gut, Jimmy quickly extinguished it not wanting to get too far ahead of himself.

"Four dozen bi-monthly. I'm hoping to have a new distributor by the end of the year."

Dessie kept stoic, unwilling to show Jimmy he was asking for more than what ONH could provide. Wanting to keep their hands relatively clean of the illicit gun trade, they kept their supply reasonably limited. The small surplus they buried in County Monaghan with the stolen money from the bank heist was procured only when Misha hadn't secured a second buyer.

He couldn't agree to anything yet. Fulfilling Jimmy's order would require them to purchase more hardware from Russia. He'd have no choice but to bring it to the table for a collective vote before shaking on it.

"I'll see what I can do," Dessie said.

That was all Jimmy needed to hear. "I appreciate it, mate. I do."

Dessie snorted, "I'm not your fuckin' mate."

Realizing this conversation wouldn't be going anywhere productive, Jimmy left his cigarette burning in the ashtray and picked up his coffee mug.

"The hell are you goin'?"

"To get more coffee. Is that alright with you, mother?"

Dessie warned, "Keep your fuckin' hands off her."

"Fat fuckin' chance," Jimmy mumbled under his breath, pleased to see the guys congregated outside for a smoke and not in the kitchen with Catherine.


"Are you outta your goddamn mind?"

Swatting his hand away, Catherine grew flustered over the brazen smack to the ass Jimmy gave her.

Smirking, Jimmy grabbed the coffee pot and poured himself more. "When you're around, a chuisle, you can guarantee that I am."

Setting down the fork she used to flip the rashers frying in a pan, Catherine glared at him in a way he found to be unnecessarily sexy. Jimmy gestured for her to pass him the sugar, and as he stirred in a couple of spoonfuls she tried to figure out what in the hell has gotten into him.

"You've better watch yourself around here," she cautioned. "These fellas are more loyal to Dessie than your blokes are to you. You cross him, they won't think twice about tearin' your head off."

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind," Jimmy said wryly, taking a sip of the sweetened stale coffee. "Your husband seems to think we're screwin' around again."

"So that's what youse were talkin' about. What did you tell him? The truth, I'm hoping. But seeing as to how you're so hellbent to ruin my marriage, I have no idea what to expect from you anymore."

Rolling her eyes, Catherine went back to tending the frying meats and soda bread. Jimmy set his mug down, coming up behind her. He placed his hands on the counters so she was caged in.

"The truth?" he teased. His voice was low, soaked with lasciviousness. "So I should have told him about the wonderful kiss we shared and the romantic evening not even a week ago?"

She was quick to defend, "That was not a romantic evening. We met for a business dinner, nothin' more."

"Bottle and bottle of wine, the candlelit dinner…sure, maybe that could be a business dinner. If you consider the hand-holding, shameless flirting, and the way you were runnin' your foot up and down my leg the entire time to be professional behavior, I'd think about recalibrating the moral compass if I were you."

Feeling the warmth of his lips press against an exposed patch of skin on her neck, Catherine shoved Jimmy off of her. He stepped back without putting up much of a fight, though she wanted to punch the arrogant smile right off his face.

"You're the one who gave me my moral compass, asshole. So, who's really the one who should be reevaluating their behavior? And for the record, I didn't initiate a goddamn thing. It was all you," she tried to justify. "This - this is why I can't see or be around you anymore, Jimmy. Every time something starts going well in my life, you barge in and find a way to fuck it all up! My husband nearly died last night and it happened because I was in Belfast with you."

"What happened wasn't your fault. It was no one else's but Ahern's, you know tha-"

"No," she stopped him, sniffling back tears of guilt. "Dessie gettin' hurt falls on me. If I'd have been home being a wife and mother, he never would've gone with Kieran to check on the lads in Cullyhanna."

"You don't know that, Catherine."

Licking the tears off her lips, Catherine shut off the burners on the stove before taking a seat at the kitchen table. She lit a cigarette despite feeling sick to her stomach.

"I do know, because like every Saturday night, he would've come straight home from the pub to help me get the boys to bed."

Jimmy fell silent. He didn't know what made him more uncomfortable: watching Catherine cry over another man, or hearing she and Dessie had fallen into a mundane routine. He missed the carefree girl she used to be. The girl whose world revolved around him and nothing else.

It was safe for Jimmy to say those days were long gone.

"I'm not hellbent on ruining your marriage," he lied. "Nor has it ever been my intention to fuck your life up when things start going well. Since I got out of the military and when my wee brother died, I feel like I have to control what's going on around me or else it seems like my world is in shambles. You've been the center of my life for nearly thirty years, a chuisle. If you're no longer a part of it…I don't know what I'd do. When you started dating Dessie and I saw how happy and in love with him you are…I fuckin' hate it. You're not supposed to be happy with him or love him - you're supposed to be happy and in love with me. We were supposed to spend the rest of our lives together."

Dropping her cigarette into a Coke can, Catherine buried her face in her hands. This was the very thing she needed to hear right now. It was everything she wanted to hear him say, but it all came far too late to salvage any broken pieces of their battered relationship.

"I love you, Jimmy, I do. I'm just not in love with you anymore like I was when I was seventeen. Dessie, Danny, Sean, and Eamonn are my life now. I will never diminish what we had because it was so raw and passionate. Unfortunately, it was also bloody toxic. It was destroyin' who we are as individuals. We're better friends and business partners than we are as lovers, and not being in a romantic relationship allows us to be better parents to Eamonn."

"I don't wanna be just your friend or business partner. I want you by my side, not Fiona."

"If that's what you wanted, you would have made it happen a long time ago. I never nagged you to leave Fiona because I wanted you to make that decision on your own. You're too late. I'm with Dessie and by god, I will be until one of us dies."

She's upset, Jimmy told himself. That's the only reason she was talking such nonsense. If Dessie hadn't been hurt, she wouldn't feel the need to rub it in his face about how much she loves Dessie. The guilt of not having been home was eating her alive and the only way she thought to make it go away was removing the reason why she hadn't been in Crossmaglen, to begin with.

Jimmy knew he wasn't crazy. The more time he and Catherine spent together in Belfast made him realize decades of deep-seated love and affection don't disappear overnight.

And if there's anything Jimmy learned in those decades, it was that pushing Catherine too hard in the direction he wanted her would only end up backfiring. Eventually, she'd come around. Just like how he got her sworn into the IRA, and how he got her to show up at his house the night she was released from the hospital.

All Jimmy needed to do was twist certain aspects of her life - upset the established order - and she'd be none the wiser as he got exactly what he wanted.

He got rid of Filip. He got rid of Lorcan, Darragh, and Ian. He'd get rid of Dessie, too.