38. Ronan

Chapter 38

Ronan

M illennium Park is crowded on a weekday afternoon with tourists taking pictures in front of the bean. People mill around all over the place, and I feel extremely uncomfortable moving slowly through them, keeping my eyes open for any sign of danger.

But that’s impossible to judge. Everyone I pass might be one of my own cousins sent to put a bullet in my head, even after everything I’ve done for the family. The mom pushing her stroller’s hiding an AK-47 underneath the fake baby; the old man holding hands with his old wife is about to pull out a knife and stab me in the face. I’m being unreasonably paranoid, but I can’t help myself.

I’m in a dark place. I can almost see myself from a distance. My own family is falling apart, and I’ve been betrayed by the very people I’m supposed to be protecting.

I don’t know where I went wrong with Cormac. Maybe it isn’t my fault, and he was always going to try something like this—the family has no shortage of vicious, self-involved, and highly ambitious people. I’m sure half of them would happily take my position if they could. Except Cormac’s the only one with a poor sense of morality and loyalty.

Once, when we were kids, I remember playing with Cormac and a few of the other cousins around my age. We liked the usual kid shit: playing tag, wiffleball, manhunt, that sort of thing. Cormac was a small kid back then, almost the runt of the group, and he played twice as hard and ten times dirtier than anyone else to make up for his size, and I remember hating being on his opposing team. Well, so did the other cousins, and one of the bigger kids named Padraig decided to teach little Cormac a lesson on civility and hit him right in the face with a soccer ball, hard enough to make his nose bleed.

In our world, even as kids, crying is unacceptable. If Cormac let loose the way he wanted, he would’ve been branded a little baby and treated even worse from then on. I’ll never forget the way young Cormac stood there on the field, sniffling, blood dripping down his mouth and chin and staining his shirt, and stared at his attacker with the biggest, saddest fucking eyes in the world.

That’s when I walked over and punched Padraig right in the face and knocked him on his ass. There was a little scrum after that, and Padraig went home yelling curses and swearing he was going to get revenge on me and Cormac the following day. I expected little Cormac to be happy I stepped in and helped when he was too stunned and hurt to help himself, but all I remember is him staring at me and mopping at his bloody face with his shirt, and saying, looks like you fucked me, you stupid asshole, think twice before you get involved next time .

I was stunned. But I was also a kid and thought life was simple. Turns out, Cormac was right, and eventually he had to fight Padraig himself, put in a few good hits, and get his ass whooped, just to make the bigger kid leave him alone.

I still haven’t forgotten that lesson. Sometimes, even the best of intentions aren’t worth shit if you can’t back it up with a little rational thought.

I find the grown, adult version of Cormac sitting on a bench on the edge of the paved area where the bean sits. He looks tired, but his face is hard as I approach. There are no visible weapons on him, and I don’t see any of the other cousins lurking around. As far as I can tell, he’s alone.

“Wasn’t sure you’d show up,” he says as I take the seat next to him.

“I half expected you to kill me,” I admit.

“You brought backup?”

“No, not yet. I don’t want this situation to escalate.”

He seems thoughtful. Cormac isn’t that little kid anymore, but the boy is still inside of him. He still has that ruthless calculation and that dogged fight, and I know that if this really did come down to a war, he is not going to be an easy opponent.

“You know that thing isn’t really called the bean, right?” Cormac nods to the big sculpture. It looks like a big, concave pillow with each downturned end on the ground. Just like a bean, really. “Its actual name is Cloud Gate.”

“That’s a much nicer name.”

“Imagine you worked your ass making something like that, gave it a pretentious fucking name like Cloud Gate, and everyone started calling it the bean instead? I bet it drives him nuts.”

“I don’t know.” I stretch my legs and try to seem casual, even if I’m jittery and I don’t like talking about art right now. “He might just be happy that people enjoy his work.”

“Could be,” Cormac concedes.

Another silence falls between us. I think of all the morning breakfasts we’ve had together, all the drinks we’ve shared, all the laughs. We’ve even sparred a few times, and it was never acrimonious, at least not until my father died and I took over as boss. We got along, really, and while we weren’t exactly friends, at least we were civil to each other.

“How’d we get here, Cormac?” I ask him softly. “Why’d you do it?”

His jaw tenses. He stares at the bean—Cloud Gate—and shakes his head slowly. “You know why.”

“Come on. We’ve known each other most of our lives. You’re really going to tell me you want to rip our family in half?”

“I don’t want that at all, but if I don’t do something about you, I’m afraid the family’s doomed either way.”

“We’re expanding. We’re getting stronger. I know you don’t like Valentina, but?—”

“That girl is just a symptom.” He looks at me finally, and it’s like I barely recognize the man behind those eyes. It hurts me more than I expected.

He’s my cousin. Not blood, but close enough, and some of the men that went over with him are actually related to me.

“Tell me why then.”

“We were a community, Ronan.” He leans back against the bench and folds his hands in his lap. “You remember what the family was like when we were growing up, right? Everyone knew each other. All the businesses we invested in were owned or operated by Hayes Group members. Your father got the product coming over from Ireland, and all the profits were split equally among the members. Everyone was happy. But it started to change.”

“That’s how life goes,” I say even if I share his sense of nostalgia. Only nostalgia isn’t reality—it’s only a yearning for a past that may or may not have been real. “And we were kids back then. Life always seems amazing and easy when you’re a kid.”

“It’s more than that. Your father started to make changes toward the end of his life. He brought in more outsiders. Hired more people for the businesses that weren’t on the inside. Half of them weren’t even fucking Irish.”

“If we’re going to grow, that’s what has to happen.”

“Then maybe we don’t grow. Maybe we call what we have good enough and take care of everyone we care about before we start obsessing about getting bigger. That’s what I want. That’s what I think the family needs. No more outsiders. No more change.”

I feel helpless as I think through the ramifications of that strategy. Cormac probably doesn’t realize that the family wasn’t always in good financial health, and it was only by expanding at the end of my father’s life that we managed to get back into good shape. But it’s not like that was widely known—Dad made sure to keep it to a few key uncles and core family members, including me, because he didn’t want our enemies to realize we were weak.

“There’s no turning back,” I tell him, hoping he hears the sincerity in my voice. “We can’t bury our heads and pretend like the world isn’t moving on. If we want to make our family strong, we need to open up to new businesses. We need to keep up with our enemies. You know what happened with Gregory and the Righteous Servants, don’t you? That could happen again, and if we’re not prepared?—”

“That only happened because you decided to stick your dick where it doesn’t belong.” The force of Cormac’s anger surprises me. I always picture him as cold and conniving, but there’s a real heat in him right now that I didn’t know existed.

“It has nothing to do with Valentina.”

“You’re right. The girl’s fine. I don’t even dislike her. But she’s everything I’m against. She’s an outsider, she’s expansion, she’s getting involved in shit we shouldn’t get involved in at all. That’s why I took the drugs, and that’s why I’m going to do everything I can to save what’s left of our family.”

I let his words sink in and a hopeless despair threatens to overwhelm me. I hoped I could come out here and discuss some changes with him and convince him that I’m doing everything I can to make everyone happy—but that’s clearly not going to happen.

I misjudged the depth of his passion.

“What do you want? What can I do to avoid hurting my own cousins?”

“Step down.” Cormac’s face is hard. He buries all those feelings with a startling quickness. “Announce to everyone that you’ll no longer be boss.”

“So you can take my place?”

“Me or someone that thinks like me. I’m not doing this for myself though.”

“That’s hard to believe.”

He doesn’t take the bait. “Once you step down, you leave town. Get out of Chicago, go somewhere else. I don’t care where you go. Take the Santoro girl with you. Once you’re gone and the uncles all agree on a new boss, I’ll return the product and life can go on without any problems. Nobody has to get hurt. Nobody has to suffer. Except for you, Ronan.”

I knew it would come to this. It was always about getting me out of the way. He says he doesn’t care who takes my place, but we both know that’s total bullshit. He wants the job, and if not him, then he wants someone he can manipulate. Which is just as good as him taking the family over.

“I’m sorry, Cormac, but I won’t be blackmailed. I’m not going to step down.”

“Then it’ll be a civil war. I know you can’t let me get away with keeping the product, and you know I can’t just sit back and do nothing. I made promises to the guys that followed me.”

“I don’t want that. Nobody wants to hurt the people they grew up with.”

“And yet here we are. Step down, Ronan, and save a lot of lives.” He gets to his feet. I stand as well and struggle to hide the sorrow raging through my chest.

“I’m prepared for war if that’s where this is going, but I really hope you change your mind. Bring the product back. Apologize to the uncles and take a pay cut for a year. We can move past this, Cormac. Nobody has to get hurt.”

“We both know we’re too far gone. There’s no turning this back, even if I wanted to.” Cormac nods to me and starts to walk off. “Good luck, Ronan. I hope you do the right thing.”

I watch him go. As he leaves, I feel my place in the world shift. My axis tilts, and it’s like I’m tumbling through space.

My family is going to kill itself. I can see it happening so clearly. And yet there’s no reasonable way for me to stop it.

Except by stepping down.