Catherine wasn't sure how she got suckered into this. Nevertheless here she was, driving herself and Kerrianne to the teenager's appointment at a family planning clinic in Dundalk. She wholly understood Kerrianne's reservations about not wanting Fiona to be in the know and being the youngest in a family dominated by males, there weren't too many trustworthy women Kerrianne could count on.

She told Catherine she would have gone to Trinity, but Maureen Ashby had better investigative skills than MI-5 and MI-6 combined. There was no way in hell Maureen wouldn't discover what the seemingly impromptu trip to the Republic was for, and wouldn't think twice about telling Fiona about her daughter dabbling in contraception.

Though, Catherine had qualms of her own. If word got out she was the one who offered to play the role of chauffeur, Fiona and Jimmy wouldn't be the only ones chasing her with pitchforks. Olivia, Patrick, Brien, and Padraic surely would too. At first, Catherine considered turning down the request, not wanting to get spun up in the drama. The more she thought about it, she realized if Filip were still been in Belfast, Kerrianne never would've been put into the position of sneaking around.

Without her level-headed father to rely upon, this was the least Catherine could do.

Briefly glancing at Kerrianne in the passenger seat, Catherine noticed how jittery she seemed while fiddling with the radio.

"If you're not ready, that's okay. We can head back to Cross and just have a girl's day. Dessie's in Forkhill with the boys so-"

"I'm not exactly ready," Kerrianne interrupted. "I just - I just wanna be prepared." She picked at a thread on the hem of her zip-up sweatshirt. "I didn't even tell the lad I've been seein' I made an appointment."

Catherine loosened her grip on the steering wheel. How could she not respect Kerrianne for that logic? It took a weight off her chest to know Kerrianne had a decent head on her shoulders. Catherine was the same age as Kerrianne when her affair with Jimmy began, and birth control was the furthest thing from her immature mind. In retrospect, she was honestly shocked it took her as long as it did to get pregnant with Eamonn.

Dumb luck, she supposed.

Once in Dundalk, Catherine parked down the street from the clinic. Killing the engine, she reached into the backseat for her purse. Straightening in the seat, she found Kerrianne stoic, just straight ahead.

"You're absolutely sure ya wanna do this?" Catherine asked for the umpteenth time.

She remained apathetic. Catherine tried to figure out what was going on inside her poor head.

After a long minute, Kerrianne finally spoke. "Does it hurt? The exam - does it hurt?"

Running her fingers through Kerrianne's long ringlets, Catherine tried the best she could to put her worried thoughts to rest.

"You may feel a wee uncomfortable, but I promise it doesn't hurt. The alternative is childbirth and I'll be the first to tell ya that was the worst pain of me life."

A flash of fear washed over Kerrianne's face. "Is it really that bad?"

"Aye," breathed Catherine, trying to instill a healthy fear into her cousin. "Things I'll never speak of happened in the delivery room. Darragh once said it was like watchin' his favorite pub burn down."

Catherine pursed her lips to conceal the smile threatening to make an appearance.

Shuttering at the extremely vague picture painted for her, Kerrianne quickly unbuckled her seatbelt and darted out of the car.

While Kerrianne was in with the doctor, Catherine sat in the waiting room flipping through parenthood magazines. Seeing all the photos of newborn babies swaddled in their mother's arms intensified the nagging ache in her chest. Not having Danny home yet was wearing on both she and Dessie. It was creating an emotional wall between them, and Catherine was too tired to scale it.

Tossing the magazine on the table, Catherine rested her elbows on her knees as she looked around. Drumming her fingers along her chin, she stared long and hard at the young blonde woman sitting behind the reception desk. For a split second, Catherine contemplated making an appointment for herself.

After two seizures and blood pressure high enough to almost make her stroke out with Danny, Catherine feared the next inevitable pregnancy would end up killing her. However, being married to a man who was overzealous about his faith, Catherine detested the idea of having to be just as sneaky as Kerrianne if she was going to put herself on birth control, too. The pill Dessie was against, but he didn't seem to heed the Church's teachings on premarital sex or extra-marital affairs.

She decided it wasn't worth the fight. He'd eventually figure it out when she wasn't pregnant come Christmas.

After Kerrianne finished with the doctor, they hit the road to head back to Belfast.

Just as it had been on the drive to Dundalk, the ride north was just as quiet.

Catherine broke the silence. "So who's the lad?"

Kerrianne rolled her hands in her lap, unwilling to even look at Catherine. She couldn't decide how deep into her personal life she wanted Catherine to delve. Having her be the only one knowing about the contraception was one thing, but coming clean on the identity of her new beau could start a shit-storm of epic proportions.

"Seriously, Kerri. You can tell me," Catherine pried, a fat smile on her face. "Who's the hopeful fella?"

A small part of Kerrianne seriously considered telling Catherine he was a Protestant lad who lived on the Shankill. Confessing that lie left less shameful and cliché than the truth. But after how open, honest, and judgment-free Catherine's been all day, being mendacious seemed like the wrong path to choose.

"You have to promise me you won't tell my Ma. Or Jimmy, especially."

Catherine's heart fluttered and she went lightheaded for a split second. She didn't like where this conversation was going. At all. Now that she was a mother, hearing a teenager say 'please don't tell my Ma,' sounded the alarms in Catherine's conscience. Kerrianne wanted to keep this relationship on the sly and that hit too close to home for Catherine.

She was seeing someone she wasn't supposed to.

And that revelation squeezed Catherine between a rock and a hard place. Either way, Kerrianne knew she had Catherine's silence. A co-conspirator in the purchase of birth control pills, there was no way Catherine could tell Fiona or Jimmy about Kerrianne's relationship without implicating herself.

Keeping her eyes on the road, Catherine grabbed Kerrianne's hand. She gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"I promise I won't tell your ma or Jimmy. If it makes you feel any better to know, Jimmy and I…we aren't exactly in the stage of pillow talk anymore."

Kerrianne took a breath. "Brennan O'Farrell."

Catherine swore she blacked out. Brennan O'Farrell was not only Jimmy's most recent recruit, but he was also the True army's newest golden boy. No wonder Kerrianne didn't want Fiona or Jimmy to find out.

But Catherine couldn't give two shits about Brennan O'Farrell vanishing into thin air if Jimmy discovered the young lad was screwing around with his step-daughter. What made Catherine's hands tremble and tingle with numbness was the sheer panic she felt over Kerrianne falling down the same rabbit hole she never managed to escape.

"Brennan O'Farrell…that's a bad idea, Kerri. If you've half a goddamn brain in that wee head of your's, you'll end it."

"I asked you for a ride," Kerrianne snapped. "Not a lecture. If I wanted one of those, I would've gone to my Ma. Besides, Darragh was IRA, too, so I don't think you're the one who should be handing out advice."

Her spiteful words slapped Catherine across the face. She reminded herself Kerrianne was a hormonal, confused teenager. She had a tongue just as sharp when she was that age.

Reaching for her pack of cigarettes resting in the cup holder, Catherine lit one as she rolled down the window.

"Aye," said Catherine, smoke wafting from her mouth. "Darragh was IRA and look how that turned out for me. He was a bitter man, angry with the world because of the shite he did. And in ten or so years, I'll have to explain to my Sean how his da not only had his throat slashed so deep it nearly decapitated him, his eyes were dug out of their sockets. Trust me, Kerri. Fellas like Brennan O'Farrell…stay as far away as ya can."

Not taking kindly to Catherine's hypocrisy, Kerrianne couldn't drop it.

"If you don't like IRA men so much, why'd ya marry Dessie?"

"Dessie isn't in the Ra. Hasn't been for a long time."

A thick silence filled the car. Catherine flicked the cigarette out of the window and rolled it up.

Feeling brazen, Kerrianne asked the question she's been dying to know the answer to since she was a little girl. "Please be honest with me. Are you in the True army?"

Catherine's breath lodged in her throat. When she remembered how to breathe again, she answered. "I was."

Technically she wasn't lying. Kerrianne only asked about the True army, not ONH.

"Is my Ma?" Heartache strangled her words. "What about Filip? Was my Da, too?"

Glancing over to Kerrianne and seeing the fat tears of uncertainty bubbling in her eyes was nearly the undoing of Catherine. Her demeanor reminded Catherine all too much of the day she realized Patrick was an IRA man.

Hearing the truth would instantly turn Kerrianne's world upside down.

Only hardened, cold-blooded men like Jimmy were supposed to be in the IRA. It would destroy Kerrianne to know the father she only knew as kind-hearted had once been one of them. She'd never be able to look at Fiona the same way, too, if she knew her mother had been involved during the Troubles.

"No." This particular lie tasted extra bitter on Catherine's tongue. "Filip and Fi were never in the Ra."

Catherine gripped the steering wheel to tightly, her knuckles turned white. Kerrianne wiped the tears off her cheeks as she rested her head against the headrest.

Surely, there was no way any of this could come back to bite Catherine in the ass.

Once Catherine dropped Kerrianne off at home, she wandered into west Belfast with an objective. But first, she had to make a stop and acquire back up.

Knowing teenage girls all too well, Catherine had a hunch little of what she said about staying away from Brennan resonated with Kerrianne. If she wanted to protect her cousin from a life like her own, Catherine had no other choice than to take matters into her own hand.

Barging through the front door of her parent's house, Catherine found Patrick sitting on the couch. He was hunched over a plate of fried cabbage and bacon, a beer in one hand and fork in the other. He didn't even have a chance to offer Catherine a proper hello before she started talking.

"I need your help."

Patrick set down the can of beer and eyed his daughter carefully, realizing what kind of help she needed.

"Bat or Glock?"

A wicked smile spread across her lips. "Bat. There's a lad we need to knock some sense into."


From the driver's seat, Patrick anxiously smoked a cigarette, his eyes refusing to leave the front door of the Belfast pub. The sun had long since gone down, forcing him to rely solely on the dim street lamps for light.

Beside him sat Catherine. A balaclava covered only her hair. She rolled the clear beads of her rosary between her thumb and index finger, mouthing the Hail Mary in Irish. She prayed with conviction as if every word she uttered had the power to wipe her past clean of the blood she's spilled.

"You believe in God?" Patrick asked.

Catherine opened her eyes, gazing over to her father. He reached out and pulled the rosary from her hands, examining it like it were something he was holding for the very first time.

"I have to," Catherine said meekly. "Blessed be the Lord my rock," she began, "who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle."

Patrick closed his fist around the crucifix. It felt impossibly heavy in his palm. "When I was a wee lad, Sister Mary Gallagher once told us those who have the greatest capacity for good, are also the ones who have the greatest capacity to do evil."

"Smart nun," Catherine chuckled.

"Aye. She was." Patrick handed her back the rosary, afraid if he held onto any longer it would burn his skin. "You, my baby girl, do have the greatest capacity for good."

Stuffing the rosary into the back pocket of her jeans, Catherine then lit a cigarette. She didn't know how to interpret what Patrick was saying.

"Is that meant to be a compliment? Because after what you just told me, it sure as shite doesn't feel like one."

"Eh." Patrick shrugged. "You've always been a lot softer, yet just as tough—if not more—than your brothers. You'd give a lad on the street the shirt off your back, but Lord have mercy on their soul if they cross you."

"Yeah, well…it doesn't feel like I've been doin' a whole lot of good as of late."

"I would disagree. Dessie told me you've been buyin' groceries for the lass down the street from youse since she lost her job. You've been volunteerin' at Daisy Hill with the sick kids-"

"I just wanna give back considerin' they've done so much for Danny."

"You're doin' all that because you know it's the right thing to do." Patrick grabbed Catherine's chin, gently twisting her neck so she would look at him. "Above it all, you showed mercy to Liam. What he did to you, Jimmy and I …he deserves more than a fuckin' bullet between the eyes."

It shattered Catherine's heart to hear Patrick talk that way about his eldest son. The betrayal she felt on her end was great, though she could only imagine Patrick felt it ten-fold. Still, she felt it was unfair Liam had been pushed into an organization he was too soft to handle emotionally. Catherine made Dessie promise he would do whatever it took to keep Eamonn, Sean, and Danny out of the life they chose for themselves. It was a no-brainer for the man who dedicated twenty-six years of his life to the cause—their boys would never know death, prison, and bloodshed as they did.

"I like to think Liam'll do the same for me when my day comes," she said. "Lord knows I've made my fair share of enemies in the six counties."

Movement in the corner of their eyes drew their attention to the door of the pub. Catherine grinned like the Cheshire cat when she saw Brennan stepping out onto the sidewalk.

"And speakin' of enemies, let's go make us another." Patrick put on a balaclava as Catherine pulled hers down.

From the floor of the backseat, she grabbed one of the aluminum baseball bats. She handed the other to Patrick.

Once Brennan started walking away from them, the pair jumped out of the car and jogged to catch up with him. They had to move fast. If Brennan heard the footsteps behind him, he'd look back. Seeing two people in balaclavas and wielding bats, he'd be stupid not to make a run for it.

And look back was exactly what he did at the sound of heavy rubber soles hitting the pavement.

"Shit!" he shrieked.

Catherine managed to hit him in the knee with the bat. Hard enough to take him down, but not hard enough to shatter the delicate bone.

Falling like a ton of bricks, Brennan shouted every curse word known to man. Patrick handed Catherine his bat before grabbing Brennan by the collar of his t-shirt and hoisting him to his feet. They dragged him around the corner onto a quiet residential street.

"What the fuck? I didn't fuckin' do anythin'!" Brennan yelled, doing his best to fight back. "You've got the wrong person!"

Catherine popped him in the stomach, and Patrick shoved him up against a brick wall face first.

Patrick snarled, "Kerrianne Telford-"

Brennan cut him off, groaning, "What the fuck did that bitch say?"

Not taking kindly to the way he referred to his niece, Patrick turned Brennan around and cocked his fist back, hitting the mouthy nineteen-year-old square in the nose. As blood spurted from his nostrils, Patrick and Catherine managed to switch place, with her now holding him against the wall, the bat pressed hard to his throat.

"You may wanna show a little more respect towards the fairer sex," she spat. "Stay the fuck away from Kerri. I find out you're still sniffin' around her—"

Brennan's hazel eyes stared deep into hers. Why did her voice sound so familiar?

"Catherine?" The giddiness of his tone made her heart skip a beat. "It's you, isn't it? You just wait 'till I tell Jimmy what you're doin' here in Belfast."

Well, fuck me, Catherine thought.