It's possible I over exaggerated the "HUGE-ness" of this chapter – however, some pretty significant things happen and I think most of you will be pleased with the developments.

Ste had been made to sit in the back of the van, but he'd chosen the seat directly behind Brendan and the older man hadn't complained. They'd both obviously showered, hair damp and smelt faintly of Mitzeee's disgusting tropical fruit shampoo. Ste knew that if anyone was alert enough to use their nose, they'd smell the women's pomegranate soap of truth and just might just guess what Ste and Brendan had been up to. It all felt so obvious to Ste, like anyone who saw them together must just know, like it would be somehow visible, but when they pulled over to pick up Spike and Mickey, the two boys just got in and emptied their loot into the plastic box Brendan had placed on the seat next to Ste.

'Did good, didn't we?' Spike beamed, sliding into the seat behind Ste and ruffling his hair annoyingly. Ste was sure Spike must had felt the water droplets resting there, but he didn't say anything.

'Where's your stash, Stevie-boy?' Mickey added, tapping the box suspiciously. Ste thought he saw Brendan wince at the nickname he was given, but maybe something had happened on the road that Ste hadn't noticed. 'Don't tell me you didn't manage to get anything.'

'I….' He hadn't thought of a reply. He'd been so convinced they were going to get on the bus and say something like "screwing the boss again, eh?" that the normality of this question to him completely by surprise.

'That ain't a good night's work, mate,' Spike agreed.

'Steven did a fine night's work,' Brendan said steadily. It was the first time he'd joined in their conversation and it silenced the east end twins immediately. Ste was just glad it was dark, because he was sure he'd blushed pretty hard.

They picked up Joel and Rhys next.

'How d'you get on?' Joel asked, filling the box with his own stash.

'Yeah, good,' Spike nodded, but he still seemed to be finding his voice from when Brendan spoke to them. 'That watch,' he pointed to the fancy gold-plated wristwatch in the box. 'That was all me.'

'I distracted him,' Mickey protested.

'Yeah, but I got it off his wrist.'

'Yeah, and who taught you how to do that?'

'Dunno, some bellend.'

Mickey and Spike were off again. They bickered and fought like brothers but they'd definitely been the more effective pickpocket-pair. Rhys didn't seem to have nicked much at all.

'I stuffed up,' he admitted quietly, sliding into the seat behind Joel.

'Stuffed up?' Brendan questioned, picking up the one wallet Rhys had dropped embarrassedly into the box. 'I thought you were a thief. We don't have people on The Estate, who don't pull their weight.'

'It's not his fault,' Joel muttered slowly. 'He got mugged.'

'He got what?' Brendan was seething. Ste could see the vein in his forehead throbbing, ready to pop.

'Mugged,' Rhys mumbled.

'I'm sorry, newbie, you'll have to speak up, 'cause for a second there I thought you said you got mugged.'

'I did.' Rhys just squirmed in his seat, staring at his own lap. There was no way he was going to look up at Brendan and Ste didn't blame him. The Irishman didn't look anything short of murderous and then he bellowed:

'What kind of feckless scumbag are you?'

'I'm sorry,' Rhys whispered. He was shaking, scared and nervous.

'Sorry?' Brendan scoffed turning his attention back to the road beginning to drive away, like Rhys wasn't worth his time. 'I can't do anything with "sorry".' He looked over his shoulder for a second and glared at Rhys: 'You owe me, kid.'

And Ste felt a pang of jealousy in his gut, because when Ste had "owed" Brendan he'd been taken on a dirty weekend to Barcelona.

::

It wasn't long until they were pulling up to O'Shaughnessy's club.

'Here we go,' Spike muttered. 'The only one of us who's been warm and cosy for the last few hours.'

'So why's he sitting on the steps then?' Rhys asked, pointing out of the window at a huddled figure on the steps. He looked homeless.

'Doug,' Joel called, walking over to him. Ste was right on his tail and he could feel Brendan's presence not far behind them. 'Doug,' he gave the yank a bit of a kick. 'What's going on? What're you doing out here?'

Doug didn't move, he just buried his face further between his knees and covered the top of his head with his arms.

'Doug,' Ste crouched down next to his friend. 'What're you doing?' He put a hand on the boy's bicep and tried to rub up and down comfortingly. He was pretty sure this was what they'd done on the crappy TV shows he used to watch in juvie. He could feel Doug shaking beneath his hand.

Something was wrong. He was sure of that. 'Doug,' he tried to give his friend a bit of a hug, but it was made awkward by the fact Doug was refusing to move and it didn't last long, because Brendan dragged Ste away so he could stand in the space Ste had been using.

'Douglass,' he said and he almost sounded caring. 'What's happened to your face?'

'To his face?' Ste began to question, because there was no suggestion that anything had happened to Doug's face. Why would Brendan even assume that….

Douglass looked up. Ste's thoughts stopped midsentence. He looked awful. His left eye was fat and bruised, and thick red blood was flowing from the large gash in his eyebrow. His lip was cut too, colouring his usually perfectly white teeth as gooey kind of red.

Joel swore sharply under his breath and Ste gasped loudly and looked to Brendan. The older man just clenched his fists tight, and gritted his teeth as he seethed:

'Did O'Shaughnessy do this to you, Douglass?'

Doug shook his head, but even Ste, Ste who couldn't read people to save his life, could see that it was lie. Brendan, of course, could read everyone like a billboard.

'Don't lie to me, Douglass,' he warned. 'Why did he do it?'

Doug shook his head again and Ste wondered if he even could speak. He kept hissing and gasping, as though breathing was challenge enough.

'Douglass,' Brendan crouched down so he was at Doug's eyelevel and he whispered: 'I know you're lying to me Douglass, but the question is are you lying to protect me, protect you or to protect O'Shaughnessy.'

Doug opened his mouth a little as though to speak, some blood fell from between his lips and Brendan pulled a disgusted face and stood up.

'Put him on the bus,' he ordered Joel and Ste. They nodded and crouched down to pick up Doug, just as Brendan said: 'O'Shaughnessy and I need a quick chat.'

'Where are you going?' Ste demanded. He couldn't stop himself. The situation made him forget how he was supposed to act around Brendan Brady.

'I don't like it when people break my things,' Brendan muttered in reply marching into the club. The queue grumbled loudly, the bouncers were silent; it was only really Doug's reaction that made no sense.

'No!' Doug spluttered out desperately and only just loud enough for Joel and Ste to hear. 'Ste, stop him.'

'What? Why?'

'O'Shaughnessy, the reason he did this,' he coughed again. 'It's to keep me quiet.'

'Quiet about what? Doug,' Ste demanded, 'quiet about what?'

The yank coughed a little and then managed gasp out:

'He's with Macca.'

xXx

'On to the bus, on to the bus,' Joel ordered, and he and Ste worked quickly to put Doug into one of the seats. 'Rhys,' Joel said, 'look after Doug. Spickey, I think we might need you.'

'What's going on?' Spike asked, following Joel and Ste out of the minibus.

'No time to explain,' Joel said. 'Just follow us.'

The bouncers let them all in. They had a bit of a double take at bald, trackie-wearing Spike, but Ste acted on impulse and slid up beside Spike and put his head on his shoulder, in a way he hoped said: "if he doesn't come in, I don't come in." It seemed to work, because the bouncer just waved them through, much to the ever-increasing disgust of the long queue.

'Where?' Ste demanded once they were inside. The dance floor was packed full of sweating, dancing men sliding together around the dance floor in a lust-locked haze of alcohol.

'There,' Joel answered, spotting a door behind the bar, which read private. 'That's gotta be where O'Shaughnessy lives.'

'What the hell is going on, innit?' Mickey demanded, but they both ignored him and made their way forcefully towards the door. It was locked, not that that would stop them. It only took Spike about five seconds to get around that. It turned out he was a master of all locks, not just safes. The four boys slid inside easily. Ste didn't think they'd been noticed, but even if they had, it was likely that the staff would just assume O'Shaughnessy was having some fun with a whole orgy of boys this evening.

They raced up the stairs behind the door and along the narrow corridor. It was easy to find, they just followed the noise to the far end.

Joel was there first, he pushed the door open just as Brendan launched at O'Shaughnessy and punched him hard in the face. O'Shaughnessy was only wearing boxers, hairy belly wobbling around as he tried, and failed, to stop the attack. Macca was kneeling on the bed behind them. He had the duvet wrapped around his shoulders, but he wasn't quite managing to cover anything and he just kept wincing and shouting:

'Stop Brendan! Brendan, stop!'

Brendan wasn't listening. He just easily ducked O'Shaughnessy's ham-fisted attempt at a retaliation and hit back with a left hook straight to the mouth. He must have hit a tooth or something, because O'Shaughnessy's lip split open and blood popped from it like a squeezed spot. O'Shaughnessy just staggered backwards and dropped to his knees. He looked terrible. He wasn't even pretending to fight back any more, he was just accepting every hit. Macca's endless pleading was doing nothing and Joel, Spike and Mickey were just watching like they were made of ice. And Ste knew, if he didn't do something, he was going to witness a murder. O'Shaughnessy's eyes rolled back in his head, just for a second.

'Stop,' he whispered. And then louder: 'Stop. Brendan. Stop.'

He moved forward, put his hands on Brendan's bicep, tried to pull his fist away its relentless battering.

'Bren.' He was begging. It was pathetic but Brendan seemed to be calming down so Ste didn't really care how he sounded. 'He's had enough, yeah?'

Brendan growled and tried to shake him off, but Ste wouldn't be discarded so easily. Brendan turned to glare at him, glare into his eyes like he was trying to hypnotise him into thinking the same way he did, but Ste shook his head, ever so slightly and whispered:

'Please.'

Ste could feel the tension and resistance fade from Brendan's arm, all thoughts of reducing O'Shaughnessy to any more of a quivering pulp fading with them. For a moment, Ste forgot that anyone else was in the room. He was lost in Brendan's eyes, desperately trying to understand the look he saw there, but it felt more foreign than the language in Barcelona. Ste just forced a weak smile and hoped Brendan would read it as "thank you".

'How come you do what he says?' Macca demanded, and Ste remembered Joel and the others, remembered that they weren't alone and this wasn't Barcelona and he was still holding Brendan Brady's arm and gazing into his eyes. Brendan seemed to have a similar thought, because he shoved Ste away angrily. Joel caught him, and Ste looked around, all three of his friends were frowning with confusion but Ste didn't really have time to second guess what they were thinking because Brendan had taken back the control in the room.

'Let's go,' he snarled. Mickey and Spike almost got stuck in the doorway as they both raced to be first out of the room, it would have been comical in almost any other situation.

Joel rolled his eyes at the boys' endless ineptitude and shoved Mickey out first so they could actually leave the room. Ste understood. It was horrible in there, dark, dingy, full of the smell of sex, blood and violence. O'Shaughnessy was still making inhuman, groaning noises and it was just a miserable soundtrack to the blood-stained view. His face was unrecognisable and it had sent a lump to Ste's throat, reminded him of being a kid, looking at his own face in the mirror after yet another run-in with his step-dad. Just like back then, he couldn't quite look away.

He felt a firm hand on his shoulder, moving him towards the door. He followed it numbly and just as he reached the corridor, he heard Macca whisper:

'What are you going to do with me?'

Ste turned back. Brendan had turned back too, his hand on Ste's shoulder tensing just a little. Ste watched Brendan carefully, he was just glaring at Macca, disgust written all over his face.

'Nothing,' he answered calmly. 'You're not my problem anymore, Macca. You're on your own, kid.'

He gave Ste a bit of a push, encouraging him to leave, but it was O'Shaughnessy's turn to get in a few final words, some over-due comeback about how needy and unfulfilled Macca had seemed. Ste could stop his brain from wondering how Macca could possibly have been "unfulfilled" with Brendan. Ste certainly hadn't had any complaints, just the opposite.

'Shut up, O'Shaughnessy,' Brendan spat back.

'Police searched my place yesterday, Brady,' the man coughed. He sounded rasping and weak, but Brendan had just attempted to play Picasso on his face with his fists. 'Do you know what they found? Nothing!'

'Lucky you,' Brendan replied. He was trying to seem innocent and charming, but even with bloody pouring from his eyebrow into his left eye, O'Shaughnessy could see straight through him.

'You stole from me Brady. So I stole from you.'

'Then I guess we're even,' he muttered, giving Ste another little push towards the door. They left with the noises of O'Shaughnessy making idle threats and Macca whining about abandonment ringing down the corridor. Brendan didn't even seem to notice and Ste couldn't help wonder just how many times the Irishman had walked away from a scene like that.

::

The minivan ride was tense. They were driving into the centre of Dublin for some reason Brendan hadn't explained, no one was crazy enough to ask. Rhys looked pale, like seeing Doug's face beaten and bruised had brought some kind of reality to all the rumours he'd heard about The Estate. The other boys had seen cut-up faces before, it had been a regular part of their crappy childhoods, but even Ste couldn't help feel for the yank. He had a cloth pressed to his hairline to try and catch the blood, but he was hissing every time they hit a speed bump or a minor divot in the van and he'd accidentally hit himself in the face. Brendan didn't seemed to be slowing down for the speed bumps and Ste wondered if the minivan would actually survive the assault.

Eventually the reason for driving to the centre became clear as they pulled up at the side of the road and a few girls Ste thought he might have seen in Violet Zone at dinner time on The Estate got in.

They seemed excitable and a little drunk, but both those things seemed to drain from them when they noticed Doug's face.

'Oh my god,' one gasped, sliding into the seat next to Joel. 'What happened to you?'

'Shut up,' Brendan snapped. It seemed he wanted this journey to be nothing but total, uncomfortable silence. Ste didn't mind, uncomfortable silence suited him right now, but it did mean he could hear the whispered conversation between Joel and the girl.

'What's up with the boss?'

'Brady's just left Macca.'

Ste could imagine her amazement. From the outside, Macca and Brendan had seemed like the perfect couple. They were always stood on the balcony together, always at dinner together, always doing the rounds together but Ste knew from experience that it was all just a show. You didn't have to scratch very deep to see what a car wreck they were.

'Why?'

'He's been having an affair.'

'Which one?' Ste could almost hear the excitement of the gossip in her voice and the solemnity in Joel's when he replied:

'Both of them.'

Thanks for reading!

xx