Page 46 of Arranged Scars
“I’m ready when you are.”
18
FINN
It’s a cool, crisp morning. A good day to bury a piece of shit.
The graveyard is surprisingly filled with people. I’m happy about that. I don’t have to pretend like I care Shane Flanagan’s dead, like I didn’t stab him in the throat with a piece of glass. That bastard didn’t go down easy, which I really liked, but he did go down.
Caroline is with her family most of the morning and I stick with mine. We cross paths a few times, but nobody expects us to be anything but cordial. She’s only an arrangement, after all.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were bad luck.” My brother Seamus grins at me. He and I have always been the most alike. Cormac and Declan are always so fucking serious, while Seamus and I see the world for what it is: fucked up and hilarious.
“Why’s that?”
“You marry the girl and suddenly her brother ends up dead.” He casually leans against a random tombstone. We’re standing onthe edge of the crowd. The city’s underworld really showed up to this thing. The Flanagans are important and powerful, everyone wants to show their respect to the grieving fucking parents, not that anyone actually cares about the dead asshole.
“You think there’s a connection?”
Seamus shrugs lightly. “You did know him back in the day, right? You spent summers with his family, didn’t you?”
I glance at him. For a moment, I think he might know something. But no, at best he’s got a hunch.
“We weren’t really friends back then. I was busy going to camp.”
“Ah, yeah, the rich outdoorsy camp Mom and Dad shipped you off to. You loved it there, right?”
“Sure did.”
“Did the Flanagan kids go too?”
“For a few weeks.”
“Guess it’s just odd, is all. Did you hear how he died? Stabbed in a brothel. Rumor says some crazy girl lost her mind and went to town on him with a bottle. Can you imagine?”
“Yes, I really can.”
Seamus grins and slaps me on the back but his hand lingers on my arm. He’s smiling, but there’s a warning in the way he’s looking at me. “Let’s hope your bad luck’s over now.”
I pull away. “I doubt it.”
He looks like he wants to say more, but Mom and Declan come over, and he decides not to press. The service is over and thecrowd begins to break up. I excuse myself and go find Caroline standing awkwardly apart from her family. Malachy, Dermot, and Redmond are all with their father, the three remaining boys the vision of strapping young criminals, while the quiet, mousy little mother is off to the side, her eyes red and puffy from crying.
Then here’s my wife. Beautiful and slender, a lot like her mother, but with more curves. She looks incredible in that black dress. There’s something insanely attractive about knowing she wants her family as dead as I do, and yet she’s still capable of standing with them, greeting the mourners and the guests, and pretending like she cares about any of this.
“Come to collect your wife?”
I flinch as old Eamon Flanagan approaches. His living sons watch, all three scowling. Those bastards never liked me, except for when they were trying to make me bleed. Not much has changed in all these years.
“I figured it’s that time.”
Eamon nods at me. Back in the day, he was like a monster lurking in the darkness. I was terrified of him the most. Not necessarily because he was the one with the hammer or the knife—that was his boys—but because he could’ve stopped it, but he chose not to. In fact, I think he encouraged a bit of cruelty from his children. It was his way of toughening them up, and the torture was meant to do the same to me.
It worked. It hardened me. It turned me into what I am now, which is broken in more ways than I can count.
“I know you didn’t want this marriage.” He glances back at his daughter. Beautiful little Caroline. “God knows why you would. She’s fine to look at, but what else is there?”
My guts clench. I bite back a retort.She’s got more spine and more wits than all your walking corpse boys have put together. “She’s a good match.”
