The cell rattled as the door opened, and I stepped out of the cage.
“Make this the last time we see each other, Cash Kelly,” the guard said. “You’ve graduated with honors.”
I grinned, and a few minutes later, I took in my first lungful of fresh air in three thousand, six hundred, and fifty days.
This animal was finally relieved of rattling cells and steel bars. Or as the guard had said, I’d finished school, which meant that I’d served my time and was now a free man in the eyes of the law.
It took me ten years to graduate. A detective by the name of Jeremiah Stone busted me on some bullshit charge of racketeering, when he knew damn well I should’ve been booked and charged for two counts of murder. I’d killed the two men—or as I called them, wasted space—that were in the car when my father, Ronan Kelly, was slaughtered in broad daylight.
Charging me with the less honorable crime was Jeremiah Stone’s way of saying fuck you to the son of the man he despised—my old man, Ronan Kelly, or as he was known on the streets, Maraigh (MA-RAH, murder or slay in Irish). Stone had chased him relentlessly and could never catch him. Not until my old man fell to the cement, never to get up again. So Jeremiah Stone disgraced me by refusing to admit to the world that I killed the men who murdered my father in cold blood.
Reminiscing about everything that led up to my imprisonment only brought me to the letter in my hand. I’d gotten it a week before my release, and it was the only thing I’d saved from my time behind bars. I read it every morning, every night, memorizing the words by heart like some sad poetic rhapsody.
Killian, or as I used to call him, Kill. He’d written the letter, breaking the bond not only between brothers, but twins. He apologized in the letter for not coming to see me in ten years, for leaving without saying goodbye, and for the long goodbye that was going to follow.
My twin brother, my blood, half of me, never wanted to see this sinner again because of what had happened the day my old man was killed. The bullet that was meant for me had paralyzed him. He’d never walk again. Instead of seeking revenge, though, Killian had decided to join the priesthood in our native Ireland. He wanted to save souls instead of stealing hearts.
I didn’t have an issue with his life choice. A man should live his life as he wanted. My problem was with his hypocrisy. If there was one type of person I couldn’t stand, it was a fucking hypocrite.
Killian had decided to use his new-found awakening to go from one prison to another—saving lost souls in Ireland—but his own flesh and blood wasn’t good enough to see in the light of day. He’d taken it to heart when our old man said that we were day and night; my brother sang while I stole the air from lungs.
Still, he was out there saving sinners, and the dark half of his life—me—wasn’t even worth talking to. Maybe he felt I was beyond saving.
He was right.
Killian knew I wasn’t through with the world I belonged in, and it wasn’t through with me. I’d claimed my revenge on the men who killed my father, but I still hadn’t had the pleasure of getting my revenge on the men who set the wheels in motion. The downfall of my entire life.
Two men.
Jeremiah Stone and his son, Scott Stone.
It wasn’t the older Stone that I had my sights on any longer. He had retired once his son had been promoted to detective. No. It was his son, Detective Scott Stone, who my eyes were on—eyes that belonged to a marauding green-eyed tiger. My spirit animal, the old man used to say. Our stripes were a natural part of who we were. Mine were earned in battle; his were given at birth.
“If you want to hurt your enemy,” my old man had said to me once, nodding to the tiger basking in the sun at the Bronx Zoo, “you go after what he keeps locked in his heart. Death is not the worse fate he can face.” He chucked his chin toward the animal once more. “That fate—his heart being locked up, not able to run free with its instincts—is the worst fate for that animal. And our circle of men, down to our