The Fire (Hurricane Book 4)

by R. J. Prescott

  “Well we’ve had enough of those in the last forty-eight hours,” I explained, retelling the story of Tommy’s brush with death and my attack.

  “I’m so sorry Evelyn. I had no idea that Declan Murphy was capable of something like this, and to know the police will not be charging him? Well, I can understand why you’re so upset,” he replied.

  “Tommy was so amazing after it happened. He saved the other fireman in his team last night and nearly lost his own life doing it. After his shift he must’ve been exhausted, but he took care of me like I was a child. No one’s ever looked after me like that before. Not even Mam.”

  “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. That’s what he does.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Kieran was a little boy when he lost his da, and it was Tommy that got him through it. I’m sure it’s not something they talk about, proud as they are, but Mary told me that Tommy slept in Kieran’s bed for weeks until he stopped crying and having nightmares. Then poor Emily was in hospital for a time after a rather brutal attack and Tommy stayed by her bed day and night so Con could train for his big title fight, knowing she’d be taken care of. And when Kieran’s girl Marie needed a lift, it was Tommy who went to collect her. They were in a nasty motorcycle accident on the way home, and he put himself in harm’s way to push her clear. It’s why he was so badly injured.”

  “But they all treat him like he’s the joker of the group. I had no idea about any of that.”

  “He is the joker. The one that makes them smile when they’re down. The one who brings life and laughter to the group. But he’s also the linchpin that keeps their family together. If they need a favour, it’s more often than not Tommy they’ll ask, and if he sees them in need, you won’t even have to ask for that favour because he’ll already have done it for you.”

  “Isn’t Danny the one that holds them all together?”

  “They love him like a father, but truthfully? He had no idea what to do with those boys when they landed in his lap. Tommy is the only one who grew up in a secure, loving and happy family and he provided that role model to all of them. Him, Mary and John that is. And be under no illusion, those boys know it too. They might be rather rough around the edges, but they think the world of Tommy and if you ask me, I think he’d make you a fine husband. Of course, he’ll likely drive you crazy, but if he loves you, he’ll love you with his whole heart.”

  “You think I should say yes then? I mean, if he asks me again. Because I’m not quite sure that he meant it, and that he didn’t ask in the heat of the moment as it were,” I blurted out.

  “It doesn’t matter what I think. What do you think?”

  “I think I’ve spent far too much of my life thinking, and not enough actually feeling. I was never really young. Not like Mam. I never went to parties and fooled around with boys. I spent my entire life doing what I was supposed to do; what I thought was the right thing. And I was never happy. Not really.

  “I don’t know how to put into words how much joy he’s brought to my life. It’s like I was living in black and white before, and now I’m seeing everything in technicolour. Even the bad stuff hasn’t changed that. Maybe to other people like my mother, what we have doesn’t make sense and won’t last. But I’m not a kid anymore, and I’m nowhere near as young as she was when she had me. I don’t have to justify my decision to her or anyone else.”

  “It sounds to me like you don’t need any help at all. You know, once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, you can meet the most unexpected person at the most imperfect time. I like to think that’s God’s hand giving you a nudge. Whether or not you take the hint, that’s on you. Like I told you before, trust yourself, stand up for what you believe in and listen to your heart. If you do, you won’t go far wrong.”

  “Thanks Father,” I replied.

  “On a serious note, I should warn you that Tommy is a horrible, horrible dancer with a strange infatuation with power ballads. It’s very likely that a solo performance of The Power of Love will be the highlight of your wedding reception.”

  I laughed. “I’m not as concerned with the singing and dancing as I am worried about getting through the whole reception without him taking his clothes off! I’ve heard that drunk Tommy is keen to share his amazing body with the world,” I replied, knowing full well what he was like, and not wanting him to change a single thing about him.

  “You make a good point. Then let’s hope for a power ballad, and pray there’s no nudity.”

  “Thanks again for letting me bend your ear. Tommy is usually my rock when I’m having a bad day, but if he knew what my mother had said, he’d be hurt. I just needed to vent to someone. Get the bad stuff off my chest so I didn’t have to dwell on it anymore.”

  “My door is always open, and any excuse for a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit is a good one. And for what it’s worth, I’ve never known Tommy to do anything without a reason. He may seem impetuous and reckless sometimes, but I’ve rarely seen him second guess himself. If he asked you to marry him, he meant it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  TOMMY

  “Jesus Christ. If it ain’t the leprechaun and his little fucking elf,” Stuart Murphy said. With a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and his gut hanging over the front of his trousers, the vile fucker looked like a swift walk up the stairs would induce a heart attack.

  “Just to clarify, am I supposed to be the leprechaun or the elf?” I asked Danny, selling a bored indifference I wasn’t feeling.

  Danny gave Stuart the stink eye that I was very familiar with. No doubt the smell of cigarette smoke gave him cravings that left him extra cranky. In a move I was not expecting, Danny raised the hammer and smashed a hole in what looked to be a newly plastered wall.

  “What the fuck!” Stuart bellowed. He took an angry stride towards Danny, then stepped immediately back when Danny smacked the hammer into the palm of his hand, as a warning that the wall wasn’t the only target on his radar.

  “I’m well aware you don’t like me, Murphy. And I can assure you that the feelin’ is mutual. But I didn’t think you were a man to go back on your word. Having to drag my arse down here to have this conversation again pisses me off,” Danny said, his voice menacingly calm.

  “What the fuck are you talkin’ about, and why the fuck are you fuckin’ up my site?” Stuart yelled. Either he was a very good actor, or he genuinely had no idea why we were there.

  “I’m talkin’ about your shit stain of a son. The deal was that you and your useless feckin’ offspring keep away from my family, and the location of the gun you used in that robbery dies with me. Now I find out your eldest has been making trouble with my boys in their local, and hassling Tommy’s girl. Even tried to rape her. I’m an old man, Murphy, who wants a quiet life. Given your precarious relationship with the law, I assumed you’d want a quiet life as well,” Danny explained.

  “Look,” Stuart replied, his palms raised in surrender. “I don’t know anything about that, I swear! I gave my boys the order that they were to stay away from you and yours. If they’ve disobeyed it, it’s news to me. You can’t expect me to control everything they do or say.”

  “If you can’t control them, then there ain’t much incentive for me to make a deal now, is there?” I noticed that Stuart hadn’t mentioned anything about Declan trying to rape Evie. Either he felt he couldn’t defend it, or that there was nothing wrong with his kid doing it and both ideas made me want to punch a hole through something.

  “Look. Let’s not be hasty. Let me speak to Dec and find out what’s going on. There must be some reason for what’s happened,” Stuart reasoned, and it seemed clear he really hadn’t ordered his boys to start messing with us.

  “Fine. Where is he?” Danny asked. Stuart seemed jumpy and nervous, which was almost comical given that Danny was an old man in comparison, and less than half Stuart’s size.

  “Declan!” Stuart hollered, not moving from where he stood.

 
“What?” Declan yelled back.

  “Come here!” A few seconds later, heavy booted footsteps thundered down the stairs. Grumbling under his breath, the fat piece of shit that was Stuart’s son appeared. If he was surprised to see Danny and I, he didn’t show it.

  “What do you want?” he said.

  “He wants to know why you’ve been fucking with his boys. Funnily enough, so do I, since I made myself very fuckin’ clear on the subject.”

  “If you ask me, it’s the other way round. I went to the pub for a pint with my mates, not realising it was one of their hangouts. Cowardly fuckers completely outnumber me, and this arsehole sucker punched me.” The smug look on the lyin’ fucker’s face as he delivered his explanation had me wanting to knock him out all over again. What I wouldn’t have given for five minutes alone with him.

  “The pub was our local and you had my girl pinned up against a wall!” I shouted.

  “You asked me to stay away from my brother and his faggot friends. Since when has that slut been anything to do with them? If she likes the taste of my dick, I don’t see why he gets to lay claim to her,” Declan said to his da.

  Never once as a kid did Ma or Da lift a hand to me. I was raised, the only child, in a warm and loving household. Some people might assume that made me soft. Fuck anyone who assumed anything about me. My family extended to the hardest bunch of fuckers you’d ever meet. Brothers raised with me, who taught me how and when to fight. Control was the key that made violence a tool. It allowed me to be a fucking pussycat with the people I loved, and a predator when it came to anyone who fucked with them. Listening to that fat fuck had my control slipping fast. If I took a shot at him, I couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t kill him, and I was fast losing the will to care.

  Having Danny with me was the only thing holding me back. Not only was he the hardest man I’d ever met, he was also the smartest. I trusted that he knew what he was doing. That he had a plan for all of this. I’d made him a promise to keep my cool so he could do what needed doing, but I made a promise to myself in that room. That Evie would never be made to fear Declan Murphy again. Whatever I had to do to keep that promise, I would.

  “Watch your fuckin’ mouth,” Danny said, so quiet and so full of loathing, that even Declan swallowed hard.

  “Evelyn Danaher is a respectable girl and she belongs to Tommy. That means you see her coming, you cross the street. Or even better, you turn around and walk away. You don’t say her name, you don’t talk to her, in fact, you don’t even look at her. As far as you’re concerned, she doesn’t even exist. That goes for the partners of any of my kids. Are we understood?” Danny’s stare drifted back and forth between Stuart and Declan, making it clear he was talking to them both.

  “Or what old man?” Declan said, literally spitting on the floor by Danny’s feet. Before I had the chance to react, Declan’s father backhanded him. Given his size, the fucker barely moved, but his look of shock at being disrespected like that by his da made me smirk.

  “Watch yourself boy,” Stuart warned him. How Stuart Murphy could smack about his son who was two inches taller and around fifty pounds heavier, but still be nervous around Danny was beyond me. But it did make it fairly fuckin’ obvious just how much power over the Murphys Danny’s threat held.

  “What are you so fuckin’ worried about, Da?” Declan asked. “Whatever threat the fucker’s holdin’ over you, it ain’t likely he’s gonna be alive much longer to make good on it, is it?”

  Danny didn’t move a muscle, except to narrow his eyes. It was his only tell that Declan’s words had hit a nerve.

  “What the fuck are you talkin’ about?” Stuart asked.

  “Remember that old bitch that used to live next door? The one who always comes over to talk shit with you after midnight mass every year? Busy body who wants to know the ins and outs of a duck’s arse?”

  “Yeah, I know her. What about her?” Stuart replied.

  “She’s a cancer nurse over at the hospital ain’t she? Anyway, I ran into her a couple of weeks ago and the bitch won’t shut up talkin’. Asked me if I’d heard about poor Mr Driscoll and his lung cancer, and weren’t it a terrible shame that he opted not to have any treatment for it.” Declan looked straight at Danny and smirked. “According to her it seems like he won’t have more than a few months, if that. So I can’t say I really give a fuck what Danny Driscoll has to say about which bitch I can and can’t stick my dick in.”

  “That true?” Stuart asked. My eyes flew straight to Danny and I knew, before he even opened his mouth, that it was.

  “I’m sorry. Was that supposed to be explanation for why your lard arse sack of shit son thinks he’s cock of the feckin’ north?” Danny asked Stuart threateningly, not missing a beat. “Well, let’s assume for one minute that bitch tits is right. All that really means is that I ain’t got nothin’ to lose, don’t it? So the next time he decides to fuck with my family, ’cause he ain’t afraid of me and he clearly ain’t afraid of his father, it wouldn’t really be any skin off my nose to use that gun in my possession to blow his fuckin’ dick off. Now, I’m not so callous as to take a man’s life, but let’s face it, he can live without his dick can’t he? I’ll bet it’s been a while since he’s seen it under that fat fuckin’ gut hanging over his trousers, so I doubt he’d miss it.”

  Danny Driscoll was one fearless fucker. Any other time I’d be in total awe of his ability to verbally cut a man off at his knees. But once I heard the word cancer, I was done. Maybe it was shock, but I liked to think it was resilience that allowed me to stand there, as though I didn’t have a care in the world. I even managed to pull off a look of bored indifference, as though I could smack Declan around if I could be bothered to. Shaking hands were hidden behind clenched fists. Pain was hidden behind a poker face. Not for one second would I give that fat fuck the pleasure of knowing the hurt he’d caused me.

  “I’m gonna fuck you up old man,” Declan warned, taking an aggressive step towards Danny.

  “Did you know the average punch bag weighs around twenty-three kilos,” I asked Declan, stopping him in his tracks. “That might not seem like much to you, but you go a few minutes, pounding on that bag, and you’ll be feeling it for days. Me? Not so much. You see, I’ve been training on that bag, day in and day out since I was sixteen. It seemed important to mention that, so that the next time you make a move in Danny’s direction and I put you through the fucking wall, and keep pounding until you puke, you know where I got the strength.”

  “Enough,” Stuart said, holding his arm uselessly in the air as though to keep Declan at bay. “You’ve made your point Danny. Now it’s time for you to go. I’ll keep my house in order and my boys in line and we’ll forget this ever happened.”

  “Maybe that’s your problem. If you taught your boys to learn from your mistakes instead of forgetting them, fewer people would get hurt,” Danny replied, throwing the hammer at Stuart’s feet. Declan’s eyes were full of hate, while his old man just looked tired. Giving them both one last glare, I followed Danny out the door.

  We climbed into the car and, as I struggled to get the key in the ignition, Danny lay a hand on my shoulder and squeezed.

  “It’s okay son. Just keep it together a little while longer until we get away from here. They’ll be looking through the window and I don’t want any of those fuckers having the satisfaction of knowing they got to you.” Taking a deep, shuddering breath, I started the car, and drove away. I barely focused on the journey, let alone the destination, until Danny gave me directions to a park.

  “Come on,” he said, getting out as soon as I pulled into a parking spot. Following him slowly down a path, I listened to the unbridled happiness of kids playing, and it fucked with my head a little. People were milling about, talking a stroll or walking their dogs, while a group of kids played football on the grass, using their jackets as goal posts. It only felt like five minutes ago the boys and I were doing the same thing. All around me, strangers were going about their business
as though everything was completely normal. For them, it was just another ordinary day. For me, it felt like the end of the world.

  We arrived at a bench, and instead of walking past or sitting down, Danny turned to stare at it. A small, gold plaque fixed to the top of the seat read In Loving Memory of Lily. Taking out a handkerchief, he gave the inscription a rub to polish it clean, then putting his hands and the handkerchief back into his pockets, sat as I joined him.

  “It’s not how I wanted you to find out, you know,” he said, finally.

  “Were you ever gonna tell us?”

  “Honestly? I don’t know. I want to enjoy the time I have left without pity or sadness.”

  “I get that, but you’re also robbing everyone of a chance to say goodbye. The boys might forgive you for it, but what about Em?”

  “If I tell her now, she’ll die a little more every day along with me, and I’m sorry, but I ain’t strong enough to handle that. When the time comes and I can’t hide it anymore, I want to tell them on my terms.”

  “Well that choice went out the window the minute the Murphys found out. Either you break it to everyone or I’ll have to, because I ain’t having them find out the way I did. And what the fuck did that nurse mean about you refusing treatment? Our entire lives you raised us to be fighters, and now, when it’s your turn, you’re backing down?”

  “I’m still here, ain’t I? If I’d given up, I’d’ve drowned myself in a bottle of whiskey when I first had the diagnosis. The cancer is in both my lungs and it’s spreading. Fast. It’s completely inoperable and the only treatment available just prolongs what time I have left. Even if it worked, it would only give me a few extra months. I’d be so sick all that time, I wouldn’t want to live anymore.”

  “But in those extra months they could find a cure! More treatments! Every day I’m always hearing about new drugs and stuff!”