Authors: K. Ryan
"You can't fight on Sunday," my dad shakes his head as the words roll off his lips and into the space between us. "If you're aiming to fight anyone connected to the Gianotti brothers, then you can't fight any day."
I huff out a bitter laugh. "If this is all you came here to say then yah wasted your time."
My dad's eyes glaze over with disbelief. "I won't let you—"
"Last time I checked,
Pop,
" the word feels strange on my tongue now and I know I'm not the only one who notices. "I'm a grown man who's pretty damn—sorry, Father—pretty capable of making my own decisions. This is just something I need to do and that's just something you'll have to accept."
"Why?" he implores, leaning into the bar as if the proximity will somehow change my mind. "Why do you have to do this? I don't understand why you'd knowingly and willingly put yourself in this kind of situation."
At this point, I don't see any other options. My hands are tied. Might as well come out with it.
"Valentino Moretti and William Rossi—the same William Rossi who's been buying up our properties in Southie left and right—are the same person."
That hangs in the air a little longer than I'd like and their mouths drop open accordingly. Even now, having had more time than them to digest that, it still packs a mean punch. Our wonderful mayor is a two-timing crook—not like that's really anything out of the ordinary in politics, but I have the evidence on a flash drive to prove it.
"If I win this fight," I press on. "Then I get the deed to that new mall property he just stole right out from under us. And that deed is the last nail in Moretti's coffin. He won't be able to lie, cheat, or bribe his way out of this and with the election coming up in just a few months, he doesn't have a leg to stand on. Brennan might as well just start picking out an office in City Hall now—hell, maybe he'll even get a stab at being mayor, too, since the position will be wide open by the time he gets there."
My dad blinks once. Then again. And again until he finally shakes the cloudiness from his eyes. "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. How do you know all that?"
Just as my mouth opens to respond, it snaps shut again. He doesn't deserve to know. He doesn't deserve to have all the facts because he's never been willing to share any himself. I know I'm baiting him and protecting both Sean and Rae's confidence at the same time, but that just can't be helped.
"It doesn't matter how I know," I shrug. "I just know."
My dad braces himself against the bar's edge and Father Lindsay has to put a hand on his shoulder to restrain him. "You just
know.
"
"Yep."
He shakes his head furiously. "That's not good enough. What you're messin' with here—you don't know what you're really up against. Whatever you think you know, whatever plan you think you have...you can't do it, Jack; you just can't."
I fold my arms across my chest defiantly. He's nothing but a hypocrite, a liar, and a deserter.
"I think we're past the point where you get to tell me what to do,
Pop
."
My dad rears back in shock while Father Lindsay runs a hand over his fading hair.
"Where is this coming from?" my dad asks, despite his priest's pointed side-eyed glance. "You've never been such a cocky little pissant to me before—your brothers never had a problem with it, but you, Jack? This isn't you. This is...I don't know what this is."
Maybe I get to be a cocky little pissant,
I think bitterly.
Maybe I get it now. Finally.
Still, I stand stoic behind the bar with my arms folded across my chest. There's really nothing to say. Nothing that would change my mind anyway.
Father Lindsay sighs heavily in front of me, dips his head down, and glances at my dad. "Tell him, Roark. It's time."
It took us too long to get to this place, but here we are. Part of me wishes Rae was here, too, because she deserves it more than I do. But then again, I don't know if I ever want her anywhere near Roark Callahan on principle alone. He doesn't deserve to stand in front of her and finally admit something he should've admitted 27 years ago.
But, as with all things in life, it doesn't exactly go the way I expect when Roark Callahan opens his mouth again.
I FEEL LIKE I've been walking for hours. It's almost June now and the weather feels ready for it, humid and itchy despite the fact that it's nearly 11 at night, bursting at the seams with new beginnings and second chances. I feel that too.
Somehow, my blind trek away from the bar led me to the red line on Broadway and then I'd just followed instinct from there. Maybe I'd known where I was heading this whole time; I just didn't see it until now.
After I got off the red line on Park, I walked and walked with my hands solemnly in my pockets and my head facing down. It's no accident that I've managed to hike all the way over to Back Bay even though my truck could've taken me there faster. Walking through the city streets where I'd grown up with so much love and devotion...reconciling that now and letting it go is the hardest thing I've ever done.
Nothing is ever quite what it seems. That much I know. No matter what you believe to be true, there's always the underlying possibility that your truth is nothing more than a carefully constructed story structured to keep you under someone else's thumb.
My truth is this: I want to fight on Sunday so I can get that deed. I want to fight on Sunday so I can beat the Gianottis at their own game. I want to fight on Sunday because that, in the end, is exactly what Roark Callahan deserves. I want to fight on Sunday because I finally know how Sean felt all those years ago when he looked our dad in the eye, asked him for the truth, and received nothing in return.
I understand that recklessness because I'm living it now.
And most of all, I want to fight on Sunday because I want Rae to know I won.
It's amazing how much the course of your life can change in ten minutes. That was all it took. In that short span of time to everything I thought I knew ripped wide open. Disillusionment and clarity can make you do some pretty reckless things, but I don't find myself retreating. I find myself moving forward instead.
So here I am. An idiot. An enlightened fool. Nothing but a terrified asshat hoping the only thing good in his life will give him the time of day.
The door opens a few moments later and my heart—God, my
heart
—vaults right into my throat. Surprise colors her pretty face and she sweeps some of that auburn hair behind her ear as her lips dip into a frown.
"Hey," I exhale breathlessly and lean both palms on her doorframe.
"Hi."
Rae blinks a few times before I hear a low growl behind her and she bends down to scoop up that psychotic black cat. Those yellow eyes glint back at me, narrowing with contempt as if to say,
I know why you're here, guy, and I. Don't. Like. It.
Ah well. The thing is just going to have to get used to me.
When Rae comes back to the door after hiding the monster in her bedroom, she doesn't look any less confused than she did before. Not to mention suspicious as all hell that I'm here now, especially after the last time we spoke. I guess I better remedy that.
"Can I come in?"
She hesitates for just a moment and I can't blame her. I earned that.
"Sure," she nods finally and steps aside so I can breeze through the threshold. That frown is still written all over her face as she leans against her kitchen counter, her eyes following my movements carefully, like she can't believe I'm really here. I sort of can't believe it either.
"What's wrong, Jack?"
"Nothing," I shrug and then spread my arms out with a sharp laugh. "Everything. Nothing and everything is wrong."
"Okay."
It's probably best if I just start at the beginning.
"I got a visit from Roark Callahan and Father Lindsay today," I start heavily and I don't miss the way her eyes flash at how I spit out their names. Calling him my dad, my
pop
, just doesn't feel right today. I don't know if it will ever feel right again. "They don't want me to fight on Sunday. Big surprise, huh? Anyway, it got to a point where I thought he might actually tell me the truth—the truth about him, your mom, and everything we don't know about them. Instead, I got a very different truth."
Rae's features twist with concern and her head tilts a little to the side. "What's that?"
"They told me how my dad—my real dad—really died."
Her eyes widen, but I don't find the surprise in them I'd expected. No...it's like she already knows. All she needs are the gory details. And here I sit, complacent and willing to believe any story they fed me because...what? Because I was the orphan, the odd man out, the poor charity case. Because I didn't want them to change their minds and send me back. Because I didn't want to lose the only family I had left.
It was all a lie. Every moment of it.
And as I lay it all out in the open for her, I can still hear his voice in my head, riddled in half-truths and blatant, insulting omissions.
"
I was the one who was supposed to be in the ring that night," Roark tells me, his eyes hollow and void of all the light I'd once seen in them. "I didn't know it right away, but everything about it was a set-up. The ref was paid off. The owner of the club was paid off. Hell, I think even the bets were rigged too. Neither of us knew it, but we took that fight set up by the Gianotti brothers because Shane and I thought that was it—our big break into the boxing market and with that money, we thought we'd finally be able to buy the bar together and make it ours."
He flinches at the memory, but I hardly have time to register it. I'm too busy fighting off this mounting dread, this mounting panic that everything in my life is about to go sideways.
"Moretti was behind the whole thing. He was the one who paid off the ref, the bar owner, and anyone else who needed to be kept quiet. It wasn't just supposed to be a beating though. It was a hit. We'd planned on me being in the ring because I was the surest bet and the quickest on my feet. And when I didn't make it...when Shane got in the ring instead, we didn't know. We had no idea. We just stupidly thought it would all work out the way we wanted it to. Your dad never came out of that ring alive. He didn't even have a chance."
Moretti had obviously somehow found out about his wife's affair and this was as good a way as any to take out the competition quietly and cleanly. It was a pretty good plan, too, except for the fact that the wrong fighter got in the ring that night.
"Where were you?" I can hear myself growl. "Why did my dad fight and not you?"
Roark opens his mouth to speak, but he just can't seem to find the words I need him to say.
He casts Father Lindsay a mournful glance and the best the priest can do is just shake his head and blow out a deep sigh. I expect more from these two men. I expect them to be the honorable, respectable men I've grown up idolizing, but it looks like that pedestal I'd had them on my whole life was a false one. They'd never earned it, not even from the start.
I know exactly where he was and why he wasn't there. He was with
her.
He'd chosen his mistress over his responsibilities over and over again until it finally came back and bit him in the ass in the worst way. I've been paying for that ever since.
"It should've been me," Roark whispers instead. "Maybe everything would be so much better if I'd just died that night. Everything would be different..."
Maybe. But I feel my blood boiling in my veins. Why can't he just admit it? Why can't he just look me in the eye and tell me the truth?
"Where were you?" I try again.
Even now, he can't do it. He wants to, or at least there seems to be a small part of him that wants to lift the burden once and for all, but it's not enough to actually go through with it. And now I'm seeing red, clenching my fists around the edge of the bar to keep myself from wrapping my hands around his neck.
"You have to see now why you can't take this fight," Roark sidesteps around what I really want and barrels forward with what he wants instead. "Everything about it screams set-up. You have to see that. How do you know this won't end the same way as the night Shane died? And even if you get to the end, even if you win, how do you know you'll really get that deed? Going off the word of gangsters...that's no way to enter into any kind of transaction and you know that."
I stare at the man I've called my father since I was three. Because of that, I can give him this one last chance to do the right thing. Now I know exactly how Sean felt, how he could do something as stupid as admit to a crime he didn't commit because I feel like I'm about to go down that same path.
"Is there anything else you need to tell me? Anything else I need to know?"
He gets ten full seconds of my time and when I get nothing but silence in return, I toss the towel strewn over my shoulder down on the bar and stalk outside with my hands in my pockets.
Rae's shoulders slump as my story ends and a trembling hand runs over her face. When she unearths her face, her eyes shine with unshed tears and before I can catch my breath, her arms wrap around my neck to pull me in tight. My nose dives into her hair, breathing her in, taking shelter in her warmth and that airy sunshine scent lingering around her.