Read Chapter 29: The Reunion

The harbor smelled of rain and diesel even in the early morning, the mist curling off the water like steam from a kettle. Jack stood across from the Carmine Street coffeehouse, his coat collar turned up against the chill, his hand pressed to his side where the wound still burned beneath the bandage. He’d arrived an hour early. Old habits. The kind you kept when you expected a knife in the back.

The door of the coffeehouse creaked open and a shadow stepped out of the gloom. Patrick. Six years of France had hollowed his cheeks and deepened his eyes, but he walked the same—shoulders square, hands loose at his sides. Jack’s chest tightened. He’d rehearsed a hundred versions of this conversation and discarded every one of them.

Patrick stopped three feet away and looked at him. Not with anger. Not yet. Just a long, searching look, like he was trying to find the brother he remembered in the man standing before him.

“You look like hell,” Patrick finally said.

“You look French.”

A ghost of a smile crossed Patrick’s face, then faded. “Let’s go inside. I got a letter from you that didn’t make any sense, and I came three thousand miles to hear you explain it.”

The coffeehouse was nearly empty, an old Italian woman wiping the counter, a couple of dockworkers playing cards in the corner. Jack chose the table farthest from the windows. Patrick followed, slid into the chair across from him, and set his hands flat on the table. The hands of a soldier now—callused, scarred, still.

“So,” Patrick said. “Start talking.”

Jack looked at his brother’s face. The boy he’d grown up with, the one who’d taught him how to throw a punch, who’d taken the blame for the window Jack broke when they were nine, who’d stood beside him at their mother’s grave. He’d rehearsed lies for this moment, careful half-truths about the business and the money and the opportunities. But he was tired, and his side was bleeding, and Duffy’s blood was still dried under his fingernails.

“I told you I was dead,” Jack said. “I sent the telegram myself.”

Patrick’s face went still. The coffeehouse noise receded, the world narrowing to the space between them. “You what?”

“I faked my own death. There was a riot on the docks. A man named Maloney died that day, and I used his body. Paid a coroner to file the papers.” Jack’s voice was flat, matter-of-fact. “I had to. Frank was closing in on the operation, and I needed to give him something to chase while I built my own.”

Patrick’s jaw tightened. “You let me think you were dead. For six years.”

“It was supposed to be months. A year, at most.”

“And the war? You knew I was in France. You knew I was fighting while I thought my brother was in the ground.”

Jack felt the words stick in his throat. “I knew. I sent letters to your captain, made sure you were reassigned to a safer sector. Tried to keep you out of the worst of it.”

Patrick’s hand slammed down on the table, rattling the cups. The dockworkers looked over; Jack waved them off without taking his eyes off his brother. “You tried to keep me safe,” Patrick said, his voice shaking. “You tried to keep me safe by letting me grieve you. By lying to me for six goddamn years.”

“I did what I had to do.”

“Like what?” Patrick leaned forward, his voice dropping to something cold and hard. “Tell me what you did. All of it.”

And Jack did. He told him about the bootlegging, the crews, the trucks and the boats and the bribes. He told him about the ambush, about Duffy dying in his arms, about the war with Frank that was still burning. He kept nothing back except the letter—Patrick’s letter, the one that Frank still held, the one that promised his death if it ever saw the light.

Patrick listened without moving. When Jack finished, he sat back, ran a hand through his hair, and stared at the ceiling for a long moment.

“So you’re a mob boss,” Patrick said quietly.

“I’m a businessman.”

“You kill people.”

“I protect what’s mine.”

Patrick’s eyes snapped to his. “That’s Frank’s line. You sound just like him.”

Jack felt the words hit like a fist. “I’m nothing like Frank.”

“You held a funeral. You watched our mother weep over an empty coffin, and you let her cry. You let her think she buried her son, and you did it so you could sell whiskey.” Patrick’s voice cracked. “Frank would have done the same thing if he thought it would give him an edge.”

Jack wanted to argue, wanted to throw the truth back in his brother’s face, but the words wouldn’t come. Because Patrick was right. Somewhere along the way, the line between protecting and profiting had blurred, and Jack had crossed it without noticing.

“I’m going to end Frank,” Jack said. “After that, I’m done. I’ll walk away. We can go somewhere, start fresh. You and me and Molly.”

Patrick shook his head slowly. “You think it works that way? You think you can just stop being what you’ve become?”

“I can try.”

“Maybe you can.” Patrick stood up, dropped a few coins on the table, and looked down at his brother with an expression Jack couldn’t name. “But I can’t stand here and watch you become him. Not for another minute.”

He turned toward the door. Jack grabbed his wrist. “Patrick. Don’t walk away. Not like this.”

“Then tell me you’re done. Right now. Walk out of this place with me, leave it all behind.”

Jack’s hand tightened on his brother’s wrist. His side throbbed. Somewhere in the city, Frank was waiting for him—waiting for the letter, waiting for the knife to fall. And Elias Voss was counting on him to finish what he started.

“I can’t,” Jack said. “Not yet. There’s too much to protect.”

Patrick pulled his arm free. “Then you’ve already lost me, Jack.”

He walked out into the gray morning, and Jack watched him go. He sat there for a long time, the coffee growing cold in front of him, his hand pressed against the blood soaking through his shirt.

---

Frank learned about the meeting that same afternoon. A slip of paper passed through three hands landed on his desk, and he read it with a slow smile spreading across his face. Patrick Malloy had returned. He’d left the coffeehouse angry, and he hadn’t looked back.

Frank pulled a cigar from his pocket and lit it, savoring the smoke. His brother had tried to end him. Jack had thrown his loyalty away, sacrificed his own blood on the altar of ambition. But now the altar had a crack in it—and Frank intended to drive a wedge straight through it.

“Find him,” Frank said to the man standing in the doorway. “Find Patrick Malloy. Bring him to me gently. No blood.”

The man nodded and vanished. Frank leaned back in his chair, still smiling. Jack had shown his hand, and now Frank held a better card than any letter.

He held the only thing Jack could never buy back.

His brother’s heart.