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“You’re going?” I ask him, honestly surprised.
“If I can resolve this without blowing up the family, I’m going to take the risk. Please don’t argue. I need to know you’re safe.”
I bite my lip to keep from talking more and give him a nod.
Ronan turns away. He walks to the edge of the aisle and pauses like he wants to look back, but his shoulders straighten, and I can guess what he’s thinking: this is his purpose. Even if it’s hard, even if he’s walking into a trap, this is what he’s meant to do.
I hate it so much. I want to call him over and kiss him. But he continues forward and doesn’t look back.
Chapter 38
Ronan
Millennium 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 myposition 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.”
