Belfast – Northern Ireland
Tensions were high.
The animosity was so thick, Dessie nearly choked on it when he walked into Patrick and Olivia's house with the boys. He knew Patrick made Olivia privy to what he'd encountered at the party in Dundalk when Olivia eased Danny from Dessie's arms without making eye contact. Nor did she say two words to him. As for Patrick, he didn't even acknowledge Dessie's presence. When Eamonn and Sean went running straight for their grandfather, Patrick simply whisked the boys off into the kitchen to pump them full of sugar.
"I shouldn't be too late," said Dessie, attempting to make small-talk with Olivia. "Just a quick job…shouldn't take more than a couple of hours."
Olivia took the diaper bag from Dessie, quickly turning her attention back to the very active baby in her arms. "Whatever you say, Dessie."
His heart dropped into his stomach while the hot sting of tears burned his eyes. Right then Dessie realized he'd been cast out of the O'Toole inner-circle. Once someone was out, it was nearly impossible to get back in. Now he wondered how long it would be until Brien showed up at his doorstep, bat in hand, ready to deliver a swift dose of the street justice he well deserved.
The crippling guilt crashing into him like a tidal wave destroyed him. Dessie well enough knew there was no excuse for what he did and all he could do was try to make up for it with Catherine's parents before she banished him to the doghouse.
"Look, Liv, I'll tell you exactly what I told Paddy. I'm really sorry for what I did, honest. And I'm done with the other lasses; for real this time."
It was a dagger to the chest seeing how unchanged and apathetic Olivia's expression remained. She pursed her lips, lightly shaking her head. "I've no idea what you're talkin' about."
Yep – he was an outsider. For some reason that felt worse than if Patrick and Brien used their fists to talk instead.
Before Dessie lost his composure, he kissed Danny's forehead and headed back out to his car. Folding his arms over the top of the steering wheel, Dessie dropped his head. He tightly squeezed his eyes shut, hoping that would stop the tears.
It didn't.
As they slid down his burning cheeks, it felt like hot scalpels slicing him open. Years of pent up frustration and self-hatred frantically clawed at the surface. Dessie couldn't keep it in any longer.
He screamed at the top of his lungs. He balled his hands into tight fists and beat the steering wheel and dashboard as hard as he could. The throbbing pain of his bloody knuckles hardly registered; he was lucky he didn't break either of his hands or the dash.
There was no way he could pin-point were in his marriage to Catherine he'd gotten the itch to stray. In retrospect, she was the perfect wife. Unlike Eilish, Catherine had done absolutely nothing to deserve that kind of betrayal.
Dessie knew he was a terrible person. He drank and smoked heavily, and used street-purchased narcotics to numb the emotional and mental pain of two decades in the Irish Republican Army. He drove too fast for his own good. He broke the law.
But when it came to Catherine and the boys, he wanted to be the best man possible. He couldn't stomach the thought of them being hurt by him and his juvenile mentality. It was difficult for Dessie to comprehend how someone as perfect as she could love someone as worthless as him.
In the long run, he wondered if Catherine, Eamonn, Sean, Danny especially, would be better off if he were back in Maghaberry or in the ground like Darragh.
After pulling himself together, Dessie started the car. He drove to Holywood Golf Club in east Belfast, which everyone in Northern Ireland knew was the home club of Rory McIlroy.
The course was almost in arm's reach of Palace Barracks, which was the headquarters for the British army and MI5. Dessie somewhat knew the spectacular view of Belfast Lough and the Antrim coastline that it offered. Over a handful of years, he played a few rounds of golf with a friend of his who was a farmer in Drumintee and a member of the club. Sometimes they'd meet up for a drink there. It was a place where zero republican talk happened considering it teemed with likes of police and army.
However, his visit today was not a social one. It had nothing to do with golf.
He quickly found a parking spot and grabbed the bag of clubs he'd borrowed from the back of the car. Dessie tugged on the collar of his sole polo-shirt, hoping it and his tan trousers would help him blend in. As long as he acted as he belonged there, no one would bat an eye.
In the pro shop, he paid the fee from the wad of petty cash he picked up from Donny in Newry earlier in the day.
When he tee-ed up at the first hole, Dessie looked around the course. Thankfully it was fairly quiet with only a couple of teenagers who were several holes ahead of him.
On purpose, he hit the ball to the left of the green, so it landed out near a collection of trees. Slinging the bag with the clubs over his shoulder, he set off to find it. The ball landed a distance away from the clubhouse and the trees offered some sort of coverage. He could see down the course, on to Demense Road, where mainly semidetached houses sat.
From the front pocket of the bag, he pulled out a rangefinder. His old one had been confiscated by the RUC and entered into evidence in the case which forever branded him as one of the south Armagh snipers. Just owning a new one would be enough to revoke his license.
Dessie focused his right eye through the rangefinder, working fast. The house that caught his attention was 400 yards from where he stood. It didn't come as a surprise to see most of the trees and bushes had been cleared from around the house. Given who lived there, improved viability was a given. Dessie didn't give a shit about what was set up to deal with burglars. All he cared about was making sure he had a decent line, and in his professional opinion, he did.
Packing up the rangefinder, Dessie snatched his rogue golf ball off the ground. Walking to the second hole, he took his phone out of his pocket and opened WhatsApp. The message he sent was short, concise.
Rally the Queen of Spades. 2 o'clock.
Sacramento, California – United States
This was punishment.
And for what exactly, Catherine didn't have the slightest idea.
So much shit had gone down, she could only guess it was cumulative. Though, it didn't take a genius to figure out it had been her stealing the joint from Jimmy's suitcase which popped his bullshit bubble.
At three a.m., after only an hour or so of sleep, Jimmy dragged Catherine out of bed by the ankle and started screaming at her to change into tracksuit pants and a t-shirt. With fatigue clouding her judgment coupled with the added stress of him yelling in her face, it had taken Catherine four tries just to get her left sneaker tied.
In the dead of night, he made her run. Despite there being no mountains or hills, that didn't deter him from the usual mantra of "three miles up, three miles down." She ran the full six miles in just over two hours, a far cry from the forty-five minutes she mastered before.
Then again, when she was eighteen and first started her rigorous physical training for the Republican Army, she hadn't been a nearly pack-a-day smoker and she was a hell-of-a-lot thinner.
They made it back to the house just as the sun starting peeking over the horizon. Jimmy called her every derogatory name in the book, making her feel utterly ashamed of herself when she fell to her knees in the front lawn and puked from overexertion.
He hadn't even given her the chance to catch her breath before the real torture began.
She had done this before – far too many times to count – but instead of being out in the freezing wind and pouring rain of County Kerry, she was in the garage of the safe house in Sacramento.
Her arms were shaking, her back and neck screaming for it to be over. But Catherine reminded herself to keep strong. It was a game of mind over matter. It wasn't pain she felt, it was burning discomfort and it would be over soon.
"Straighten those fucking arms!" Jimmy yelled, attempting to knock the rifle out of her hands.
Not realizing she slacked, Catherine adjusted the unloaded AR-15 in her grip and held the rifle higher above her head. There was no way of knowing just how long she'd been standing stationary for.
Two seconds, two minutes, two hours?
At this rate, it felt like two goddamn days.
From her weapons training with Dessie twelve years ago, Catherine knew the rifle in her hands weighed precisely six-and-a-half pounds. If Jimmy had popped the magazine in, that would add another grueling pound. She couldn't remember the last time six-and-a-half pounds felt so ungodly heavy. She was sure her arms would give out at any moment.
"I have no self-discipline!" she yelled back at Jimmy.
He lit a cigarette, walking circles around her to make sure her form met his unreasonable standards. When he noticed her knees were bent more than they should be, he kicked the back of her right leg, forcing it to give out. She fell straight onto her knees, not daring to drop the rifle.
"You're a fucking disgrace to the cause," he snarled.
Jumping straight back to her feet, Catherine replied, "I have no self-discipline! I am a disgrace to the Irish Republican Army!"
Ripping the Armalite from her hands, Jimmy added the magazine then handed it back. In doing that, he had a lot of faith in her, Catherine realized. Nothing was stopping her from chambering a round and shooting him dead right then and there.
"We have no armored cars or Tenders for to show…" he started.
For Catherine, she was reliving her days on that farm in the Irish Republic. "We're ready to defend ourselves no matter where we go! We're out for our Republic and to hell with your Free State – we're the fightin' third battalion of the Belfast Brigade!"
Jimmy flicked his cigarette at the back of Catherine's neck. When the smoldering cherry hit her sweaty flesh and bounced to the floor, Catherine didn't flinch. He was purposefully trying to break her concentration. He wanted her to fall out of stance, itching for a reason to either run her again or make her do push-ups.
Seeing how shaky her fatigued legs were, he muttered two words,
"Arse out."
The rifle still tightly gripped in her hands, Catherine held it out in front of her and moved into a squatting position. With her perfect ass in the perfect spot, Jimmy used the opportunity to grope.
As his hand caressed her through the polyester of her jogging pants, Catherine's skin crawled. She desperately wanted to slap him away, but she worried about what he had in store for her if her posture broke. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to find her happy place. Imagining herself back home in Crossmaglen, swimming in Lough Ross with Dessie, Eamonn, and Sean didn't do anything. Thinking of cradling her swaddled wee Danny only made Catherine far angrier than she already was.
Having her ass kicked and groped by a senior commander who had zero authority over her anymore was far from the reason why she made the trip Stateside. Jimmy was doing everything in his power to keep her from seeing Chibs, Catherine was about ready to take the risk of being detained at the airport so she could head back home. She loved her uncle dearly and leaving before he was released from the hospital would fill her with crippling guilt, but there was only so much more she could take.
"I fuckin' hate you," she said through gritted teeth.
Jimmy didn't respond to the jab. She'd said that to him many times before so he decided not to take it personally. Nevertheless, it still struck a nerve. He didn't care who hated him, but hearing Catherine say it in a voice that sounded on the verge of tears softened him up a little.
Rounding the front of her, Jimmy eased the Armalite from her hands. Like the good soldier she was, Catherine didn't take that as the green-light to move from her current position. She stayed put as best she could, watching him as he carefully rested the loaded rifle against the wall. When he peeled off his shirt, relieving his still toned chest, Catherine averted her eyes back to the spot she'd been concentrating on.
Instead of focusing on Jimmy being half-naked, Catherine brought her mind to Dessie, recalling every inch of rigid muscle he's rebuilt in the year since they first got together.
Jimmy dropped to his knees in front of Catherine.
"Get down," he said, falling onto his hands. "Do the best you can to keep up."
Catherine internally groaned as she maneuvered herself into the push-up position. Even when she was in the best shape of her life, she hadn't been able to keep up with Jimmy. She thought it was wholly unfair to expect her to be able to when he never let the strength he mastered during his time in the military to evade him. Making her run, and hold rifles and full liter bottles of water above her head all those years ago was more or less designated for discipline purposes, not to make her physically strong.
The moment Jimmy went down, Catherine followed suit. She managed to keep pace with him for three push-ups until she started feeling the aftermath holding the rifle for so long.
As she rose for the fifth one, the inevitable happened. Her muscles finally met failure and she fell on her stomach. Resting her cheek to the dirty concrete floor, it was an instinctual move to lace her fingers on the back of her neck.
Catherine lazily closed her eyes, she inhaled through her nose and exhaled from her mouth. Her heart was pounding so fast and hard, she was shocked it didn't stop beating altogether. It wasn't until she had a moment to rest did she finally see how out-of-shape she was. As a leader of ONH, there was no excuse as to why she couldn't keep up with the same standards she expected from the recruits.
Rolling over on her back, Catherine wiped her forehead with her sweat-soaked t-shirt. When Jimmy finished his set of push-ups, he stood over Catherine, making her feel even worse to see he hardly broke a sweat.
"Ya did good, a chuisle. I'm proud of you." Jimmy extended his hand. She hesitantly took it but appreciated the gesture to help her back to her feet.
Tired and severely dehydrated, she went light headed from standing too quickly.
Brushing the dirt and grime off the front of her shirt, Catherine just wanted to forget it even happened.
"I'm gonna take a shower then head out to see Filip."
Catherine didn't even give Jimmy a chance to reply. She headed straight for the door and pushed her way into the kitchen.
Fiona was puttering about, pouring water into the coffeemaker. Hearing the door close, she turned around to see a beet-red, sweaty Catherine resting against it. Her heart dropped into her stomach, genuinely feeling for Catherine.
When Jimmy pulled Catherine from bed, Fiona had been awake. Listening to Jimmy berate the former True army volunteer had been sobering, reminding Fiona of her lousy days fighting the cause. There was absolutely nothing she could say to Catherine to help make her feel better, so instead, she offered a sympathetic head nod.
To avoid any questions she certainly didn't want to answer, Catherine bolted straight for the bathroom when she made eye contact with Fiona.
Not even a minute after the shower started running, Jimmy came waltzing back inside with his t-shirt slung over his shoulder.
Scooping coffee grounds into the filter, Fiona couldn't bite her tongue. "You're too hard on the poor lass."
"Bollocks," he grabbed a cup from the cabinet and filled it with cold water, "I'd've done the same thing to any of the other lads. If anything, I'm too soft on her."
Fiona set the plastic container and the spoon on the counter, turning around. "You think you're too soft on her. Do you honestly believe that?"
"Aye. You've seen better than anyone else what I've allowed her to get away with. If it would've been anyone else who stole those guns from me or put a blade in my goddamn leg, she would've been strung up a long time ago."
Fiona wanted to slap him for being so blind. While it was true what he said, in her mind, Jimmy failed to see the bigger picture.
"And ya wanna know why she did all that shite? Because you pushed her too far in the other direction. For some reason, that stupid lass thinks you walk on water. You had her eatin' from the palm of your hand and she did everything you told her to do, and she did it well. But she was never good enough for you and you never let her forget it, either. Ya beat her black-and-blue, then threatened to have her kneecapped while she was pregnant with your son and-"
"I didn't know she was pregnant when that happened."
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph." Fiona wondered if this conversation was even worth having. There was no reasoning with a man like Jimmy, so all she was doing was wasting her breath. She kept going only because she knew Catherine needed someone besides Dessie in her corner. Fiona loved Patrick to death, but she knew the man was useless when it came to separating Catherine and Jimmy. "I guess since you didn't know, it makes it all okay. What's your excuse for the kneecap order then, huh? Ya damn well knew she was knocked up when that happened. How can you justify wanting to do such a horrific thing to the mother of your wee Eamonn?"
Jimmy's expression tightened as he dumped the rest of his water down the sink. There was no excuse for either of the things he did and there was no way he could justify it either. It didn't matter how angry he'd gotten with Catherine, none of it should have ever happened, he well enough understood that. He couldn't admit that aloud, because that would mean he'd done something wrong and Jimmy never did anything wrong.
"I didn't beat her nearly as bad as I could've and I withdrew the kneecap order an hour after I issued it. So, I think you just proved your original point wrong there, Fi. I'm too soft on her — she needs to be reminded who runs things in the six counties. It sure as shite isn't Desmond fucking Dennehy."
"You're so sick in the head, it's disgusting." Fiona went back to preparing the coffee.
"I'm not sick," he snickered. "I'm twisted. There's a difference."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night."
Balling up his t-shirt, Jimmy was headed down the hall to the master bedroom so he could grab a quick shower before heading out to start his day. When he passed by the door to the bathroom Catherine occupied, he stopped short. He could hear the shower running, and knowing she was in there washing away the sweat from the gratuitous hell he put her through started weighing a little heavily on his mind.
Maybe Fiona was right, he wondered.
Maybe in this instance — and only this instance — he'd been a little too hard on her. It was difficult for him to accept the fact she wasn't under his command anymore, which was part of the reason he snapped and put her through grueling discipline exercises. Losing her and Dessie left a void in the True army ranks that were deeply felt. Jimmy wanted not only her back but Dessie too, though that would never happen so long as the Irish Kings still had their stronghold on the North.
He was wracking his brain trying to figure out why Catherine hadn't just told him to fuck off before going back to bed. She was an officer, there was no reason why she should have had to put with that shit to begin with. But the more Jimmy pushed her body into complete agony and her refusal to give up left him more confused than ever. He refused to get his hopes up in thinking she wanted to come back.
Not giving himself a second to overthink his impulsive decision, Jimmy nixed the idea of a shower alone and quietly slipped into the bathroom. She was hidden behind the shower curtain, which acted as the perfect shield as he stripped from the rest of his clothes. Once he was naked, Jimmy inched the curtain back, finding Catherine to be standing under the cascade of hot water as she rested her forehead against the wall.
He knew her mind was nowhere near reality. When he stepped into the shower behind her, she didn't even move. He closed the small gap between them, resting his hands on her bare hips.
"What the fuck!" she yelped. Spinning around as quickly as she could, Catherine slapped Jimmy's arm. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Scared me half to death, so ya did! Get out!"
Scaring Catherine hadn't intentionally been part of the plan. He was so desperate to feel her naked skin under his fingers again, Jimmy was afraid she would have stopped him a lot sooner if he made his presence known.
She tried pushing him away to no avail. Catherine was too physically tired to muster the strength needed to make that happen. Jimmy reached out to grab her wrist and when he had a hold on her, she tried twisting it to loosen his grip. He refused to relent.
"Seriously, get the fuck outta here!" she wined.
Jimmy let go, but only so he could pull Catherine into him. He wrapped her in his arms, resting his cheek to the side of her head. When he took a breath, he caught sweet notes of her fragrant shampoo.
"I'm sorry for pullin' that shite this morn'," he muttered. "I was outta line. You're an officer and not even in the True army anymore."
Catherine was caught so off guard by the apology, she was at a loss for words. Nor did she want to ruin the moment by spouting her mouth off. Jimmy offering up an apology was something that happened so few and far between that she needed to take it and run.
"It's whatever. No hard feelings." Catherine gave in and curled her arms around his sides.
Standing with him under the hot spray of the shower, it was a shock to her system. There were so many voices screaming at Catherine to untangle herself and leave, but her feet were glued to the tub. She was missing Dessie so badly, that she closed her eyes and imagined it was him, not Jimmy, holding her tight. The two men smelt so distinctly different that it was nearly impossible for Catherine to even do that.
What she said about there being no resent on her part for what happened, Catherine meant it. As much as it had upset her at first, once she stepped in that shower and became alone with her thoughts, she realized Jimmy had done her a favor. She had been so focused only on how much her body ached, there hadn't been much opportunity to dwell on what she was missing at home.
"Let me buy you breakfast. And afterward, I'll take you to see Filip."
Lifting her head off Jimmy's chest, she could tell he was serious. This was his attempt at making it up to her. She wasn't about to turn down a free meal and a ride.
Catherine nodded. "I'd like that."
Uncurling his arms from around Catherine, Jimmy kissed her forehead. "Now get out so I can have some privacy."
Not in the mood to fight, Catherine got out of the shower. She quickly dried off and left the towel for him, dashing naked across the hall to her bedroom.
When Jimmy finished, he wrapped the towel around his waist headed for his respective room. Before getting dressed, the first thing he went for was his phone on the dresser. Scrolling through his unread messages, there was one in particular that caught his attention.
Rally the Queen of Spades. 2 o'clock, it read.
Picking up his watch, Jimmy checked the time. He had six hours to assemble the troops.
