Chasing River (Burying Water #3)(71)

I swallow, trying to decide how to explain this in a way that she—a foreigner, and a daughter of a police officer—might understand. “I told you about my family history already. I grew up in a household of staunch republican support, even if they weren’t actively supporting the fighting. Generations of Delaney men fought for Ireland back when the fight was about freeing Ireland and protecting the right to be Catholic. They lived and breathed that fight with the strength of the army around them. Some of them died for it.

“It’s what my brothers and I grew up hearing about. So for us, the IRA isn’t about terrorism. It’s about fighting for what we believe in. We’d still join the marches every year in Belfast, protesting for the rights of Irish Catholics, because that was our heritage. It’s what we’d always done.

“When I was eighteen, I moved to Dublin, to the house that our nanny left us. Aengus was twenty-two and already living there, working in the bar. Rowen was still back home, finishing high school.”

I feel her eyes on me now and turn to meet them, only to have her look away, her attention on the ceiling again.

“Aengus and I were close, despite the four-year age difference and him being so hot-headed. He told me that he’d met a group of guys who supported the cause just like our family did.” I snort, remembering the conversation, how Aengus went on and on about Jimmy Conlon, who was second-in-command at the time, over pints and smokes, excitement flowing through his veins faster than the alcohol.

“He told me about this camp outside Dublin—just like the kind our da went to when he was a teenager. They taught you how to fight and load guns and stuff. I thought it’d be grand to know how to do that, because all Delaney men know how, right? I was eighteen and stupid and I thought we might be doing something important, following in some grand tradition. That maybe, if there was ever another uprising, we’d have our own stories to share with our kids, just like our da did with us.” I had always been the smart one, so how I let a fool lead me into that mess is still unfathomable. “So one weekend, I climbed into Aengus’s car. We drove an hour, to this guy’s property. There was a lot of land there, with targets set up to learn how to shoot. Aengus was one of the fellas training us. He’d been there plenty of times already, so he knew what he was doing. I never connected it with this RIRA group, and I never had any intention of hurting anyone.

“Anyway, the gardai had caught wind of this place—a bunker, they called it—and had been watching it for a while. They busted it that same weekend.” I had an AR-15 in my hands when the shouts erupted and men emerged from the long grass surrounding us, the fluorescent garda name across their chests, barrels pointed at me. “We all pled guilty. The other fellas were sixteen and seventeen. They went to Oberstown, basically a juvenile detention center for boys. But because of my age, I got tried as an adult. And because of my family name, everyone assumed I was lying about not being involved with the IRA. I was really lucky, though. The gardai didn’t have enough to make the paramilitary group charges stick—some technicality, I don’t know—so I only got three years for firearms possession. Aengus got six for his part.”

“You were in prison for three years?”

I roll onto my side to face her, to see the shock and horror in her face. I know what she’s thinking right now. She’s trying to imagine being locked up in a cell for that long. Three years of your life is a long time at any age. But at eighteen . . . it feels like an eternity. “I only had to do half of it, and then they let me out on license, for good behavior. I had a curfew, and had to report in twice a week to a license officer, but at least I was out, sleeping in my own bed.” I used to be a heavy sleeper, but now I wake up at the slightest creaks in the house.

I study her as she processes that, her silhouette begging me to touch it, her chest heaving up and down with her breaths, the thin cotton tank top doing nothing to cover her tits, the two little sharp points that poke out thanks to the chill in the air. Or her fear. I had those nipples in my mouth just this morning. I’d do anything to have them again.

I stay on my side of the bed, though. I’m no idiot.

“What was it like?” she finally asks, tipping her head to face me. “Being behind bars for so long.”

“Tough. Because of the circumstances, we were put in Portlaoise, a maximum security with murderers and rapists. A lot of really bad bastards.” Men who had been in there as long as I’d been alive and wouldn’t be getting out anytime soon. Men who’d become so acclimatized to prison life, they wouldn’t survive outside of it. “It was a long eighteen months. I cried into my pillow the first night in my cell,” I admit with a soft chuckle, adding, “I’ve never told anyone that.” I wasn’t the only one. The nights were quiet around there for the most part. Impossible not to hear the occasional sob, the regular piss. The too frequent grunts of a fella getting off, either on his own or with help.

“I spent most of it in my cell, reading books and working out. The guards treated me alright for the most part.”

“Did you ever get hurt?”

I heave a sigh. “Once in a while I’d have some sick f*ck sniffing around me. I guess I was considered a catch for the long-timers. I’ll tell ya, I learned to shower really fast.” Not quick enough to avoid witnessing what some inmates were willing to do to get their fixes. The first day home, I stood under that showerhead until the water ran cold. And then I called up an old girlfriend and f*cked her for half the night.