Page 31 of Twisted Enemy
“And you’re okay with that?” My voice screeches into the stratosphere.
“Of course I am.”
I stare. “Are you honestly telling me you don’t remember?”
Breagha gives up trying to hand me the clean top. Her eyes glint like broken bottles as she settles her hands on her hips. “You think I don’t remember?”
“I—”
“I remember Larissa telling us it was time to leave the playground and to head for home.”
“The—”
“I remember saying I wanted one more ride on the slide.”
It wasn’t Breagha who wanted the slide.Iwanted one last spin on the merry-go-round. She has it all wrong. She was only five years old. I try to explain: “You?—”
“I remember the Bad Men coming out of the woods.”
“They—”
“I remember Larissa standing in front of us.”
“If—”
“I remember staying in that dark room for days and days and days. And I remember the sound of champagne corks when we finally got home. And I remember the weeks after—Mam sitting up with me because Larissa was gone, because Granny took you off to Ireland, because you got to go on a plane and to meet all Da’s family, to visit castles and to eat batch after batch of potato candy! You got to do everything, and I was all alone!”
“I didn’t?—”
“I was all alone,” Breagha repeats, ratcheting her voice down. “And you were still gone when I made my First Communion. And I had to confess to Father Dulaney that I killed all those men, the Canton Crew and the Tarasov bratva, everyone who died because Da went to war over us, and it was all my fault because I wanted one more ride on the slide.”
“Breagha, that wasn’t what?—”
“Father Dulaney gave me one Hail Mary. One. And even though it was my First Communion, I knew one Hail Mary wasn’t enough. Those men died because ofme!”
“They didn’t?—”
“And they’ve kept dying, year after year. A gunfight here. A fire there. The bratva always pushing into Canton Crew territory, pushing us back, block by bloody block. The clan always losing.”
“We—”
“The night of your wedding, Mommy came into this room. She said I could start dating now. She said I could find the right man to marry. She said I could help the Crew, more than I’ve ever helped before.”
“You—”
“Shut up, Kate! For once in your entire life, just shut up. Mommy explained everything. The Canton Crew will finally, truly make peace with the Tarasov bratva when Pyotr and Imarry. The clan will survive when I have children. They’ll have a different last name, but no one else will have to die. At last, I get to make things right.”
I’ve never heard my sister like this before—bristling with determination. Breagha is supposed to be the sweet one of us. The good girl. The obedient daughter.
Today, she sounds like a feckin’ military general.
In eighteen years, I never asked what she remembers about that day on the playground, about our time in the cinderblock bunker. She was only five years old. I went into the Cold Room with Tarasov so Breagha would never have to remember.
But she does. Or at least she remembers one fractured fragment of the actual true story. One splintered battle of that war. She remembers it was all her fault.
“Breagha,” I say, my voice as soft as I can make it so she won’t interrupt me again. “You can’t agree to this. Pyotr Tarasov is a Bad Man. He’s our enemy.”
She looks at me, her face perfectly calm. “Of course he is.” Her voice is full of pity, like I’m a grown-up who never learned to read. “You don’tmake peace withyour friends.”
