Read Chapter 30: The Brothers' Rift

The coffeehouse on Carmine Street had gone quiet by the time Patrick stopped walking. Jack didn't know how long his brother had been roaming—an hour, maybe three—but the kid looked like he'd aged a decade in that time. His coat was open, his collar torn where he'd yanked at it, and his eyes had that hollow look Jack remembered from their father after the funeral.

Jack stood in the doorway of the small bakery two blocks from the coffeehouse. He'd followed at a distance, staying to the shadows, letting Patrick burn through the rage. Now his brother had stopped outside a shuttered barbershop, staring at nothing.

"Pat." Jack stepped forward, hands raised like he was approaching a wounded animal. "You need to come with me."

Patrick turned. His jaw was tight. "Don't call me that."

"Fine. Patrick." Jack lowered his hands. The wound in his side pulled, and he pressed a palm against it through his coat. The bandage underneath was wet again. "You can't stay out here. Frank's men are looking for you."

"Let them find me." Patrick's voice cracked. "Maybe they'll put a bullet in me too. Save you the trouble."

"That's not—"

"You lied to me for two years." Patrick stepped forward, and Jack held his ground. "You let me think you were dead. You let me grieve. You let Ma grieve. And for what? So you could pour whiskey up and down the coast and play king of the waterfront?"

"I did what I had to do."

"Like Frank? Is that what you tell yourself? That you're just doing what you have to do?" Patrick laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I saw what Frank became. I saw what he did to people. And now you're wearing his coat."

Jack felt the words land like punches. He wanted to argue, to explain the years of hunger and desperation, the way the waterfront chewed men up and spat them out. But standing here, looking at his brother's face, all of it sounded like excuses.

"Come with me," Jack said again. "We'll talk. Somewhere safe."

"Safe from who? You?" Patrick shook his head. "I don't even know who you are anymore."

A whistle sounded from the end of the street. Jack turned, scanning the darkness. Two figures had rounded the corner, moving with the unhurried confidence of men who knew exactly who they were looking for. Frank's boys. Jack recognized the taller one—a thug named Corrigan who'd worked the docks before Frank pulled him into his organization.

"Patrick, listen to me." Jack kept his voice low, urgent. "Those men are coming for you. Not to talk. To bring you to Frank. You know what that means."

Patrick glanced at the approaching figures, then back at Jack. For a moment, Jack saw the boy he'd grown up with—the kid who'd followed him everywhere, who'd believed Jack could fix anything.

"Maybe Frank's the only one telling me the truth anymore."

"Frank's the reason I'm in this life," Jack said. "He sold me out. He killed people I loved. He's been lying to you longer than I have."

The figures were closer now. Fifty yards. Forty. Corrigan had his hand inside his coat.

Jack made a decision. He closed the distance to Patrick in three steps, grabbed his brother's arm, and pulled him into the narrow alley between the barbershop and the bakery. Patrick resisted for a heartbeat, then let himself be dragged.

"Let go of me," Patrick hissed.

"Not until you're out of their reach."

They moved through the alley, past stacked crates and a sleeping cat that scattered at their approach. The alley opened onto a courtyard behind the buildings, and Jack knew this neighborhood the way he knew the lines on his own palms. He'd run these streets as a boy, stealing bread and dodging the beat cop who chased them.

He pulled Patrick through the courtyard, through a gap in the fence, and into the back entrance of a tenement building. The stairs creaked under their weight as they climbed to the third floor. Jack stopped at apartment 3B and pulled a key from his pocket.

"My place," he said. "One of them, anyway."

Patrick stood in the doorway, arms crossed, refusing to enter. "I'm not staying with you."

"You're not staying on the street, either. Not while Frank's men are hunting you."

"Maybe I should go to Frank." Patrick's chin lifted. "See what he has to say."

"Patrick—"

"You want me to trust you? Then give me a reason." Patrick's voice shook. "Tell me why I shouldn't walk out that door and take my chances with the devil I know."

Jack leaned against the doorframe. The wound in his side screamed, and he couldn't hide the wince. Patrick noticed, his eyes dropping to the dark stain spreading across Jack's coat.

"You're hurt."

"It's nothing."

"You're bleeding through your coat."

Jack looked down. The blood had seeped through the bandage, through his shirt, and was now darkening the wool of his overcoat. He'd been so focused on Patrick that he'd let it go.

"It happened at the warehouse," Jack said. "Frank's men. They got me before I got out."

Patrick's jaw worked. He took a step into the apartment, then another, until he was inside. Jack closed the door behind him and locked it.

"Sit down," Patrick said. "Let me look at it."

Jack shook his head. "I'll see a doctor tomorrow. There's a man—"

"Sit down." Patrick's voice left no room for argument. It was the same tone Jack used when he was running a crew. He sat on the edge of the bed, and Patrick knelt in front of him, carefully peeling back the ruined bandage.

Jack hissed as the fabric pulled at the wound—a gash along his ribs, ugly and red, the stitches straining.

"This is bad," Patrick said quietly. "You need a surgeon."

"Can you fix it?"

Patrick looked at him, and for a moment, the anger was gone, replaced by something older. The brother who'd patched up Jack's scraped knees and split lips. "I can clean it. I can't close it properly. But I can slow the bleeding."

He moved to the small washbasin in the corner, found a clean towel, and ran water over it. He worked in silence, wiping the blood from Jack's side, inspecting the wound with careful hands.

"Tell me about Frank," Patrick said without looking up. "Tell me everything."

Jack hesitated. But Patrick had stayed. He'd stepped inside. That was something.

"Frank and I grew up together on the docks," Jack began. "We ran rum for the same outfit. He was my partner. My friend. We trusted each other with our lives." He paused. "Then he decided he wanted more than his share. He set me up to take a fall, and when that didn't work, he tried to have me killed."

"But you faked your death instead."

"I had to. If Frank thought I was alive, he would have come after everyone I loved. Ma. You." Jack met Patrick's eyes. "I did it to protect you."

Patrick's hands stilled on the bandage. "You let me think you were dead for two years."

"Because if you knew the truth, Frank would have found out. And then he would have used you to get to me. You were safer not knowing."

"Safer?" Patrick laughed bitterly. "I've spent two years carrying your ghost. You don't get to tell me I was safer."

Jack had no answer for that. Patrick finished wrapping the wound, tying the bandage tight, and sat back on his heels.

"You need rest," Patrick said. "And you need to make a choice."

"What choice?"

"This life or me." Patrick stood. "Because I can't watch you become what Frank became. I can't stand by while you turn into the thing you're fighting."

Jack opened his mouth to argue, but Patrick cut him off.

"I'm not going to Frank. I told you that. I won't help him." Patrick's voice was quiet but firm. "But I won't help you, either. Not until you prove to me that you're still the brother I remember."

"Patrick, I'm trying to protect you."

"Protect me by being a man I can respect." Patrick moved to the window, staring out at the dark street below. "Not by becoming a monster."

Jack lay back on the bed, exhausted. The bleeding had slowed, but the pain was a constant pressure in his side. He watched Patrick's silhouette against the window—the rigid shoulders, the stubborn set of his jaw. He looked like their father in that moment, and it cut Jack deeper than any blade.

"I have a place in Red Hook," Jack said finally. "A room above a fish market. The owner owes me favors. You'll be safe there."

"I don't want to be safe." Patrick turned. "I want to be worth something."

"You are." Jack forced himself to sit up. "You're the only good thing I've ever done, Pat. You and the kid I used to be."

Patrick studied him for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly.

"Red Hook," he said. "Fine. But I'm not hiding. I'm not running."

"You won't have to." Jack pushed himself to his feet, steadying himself against the wall. "I'm going to end this. Frank's not going to have the chance to touch you. I'll make sure of it."

"By killing him?"

Jack didn't answer. Patrick's face twisted with something between disgust and resignation.

"There it is," Patrick said. "That's the man you've become."

"One of us has to."

Patrick shook his head and walked to the door. He paused with his hand on the knob, not looking back.

"Show me where this safe house is. And Jack—" His voice cracked. "Don't follow me after that. I need time."

Jack nodded, though Patrick couldn't see it. He led his brother back through the alleys and side streets, avoiding the main roads where Frank's men would be watching. They moved in silence, two brothers separated by more than the darkness between them.

The fish market sat at the edge of Red Hook, its pier stretching into the black water. Jack unlocked the door to the narrow stairs and led Patrick up to a small room with a cot, a chair, and a single window overlooking the harbor.

"It's not much," Jack said.

"It's fine."

Patrick stood in the center of the room, looking around. He didn't sit. He didn't unpack. He just stood there, waiting for Jack to leave.

Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded letter. He held it out to Patrick.

"What's this?"

"Frank's letter." Jack's throat tightened. "He wrote it years ago, when he was trying to get me to leave the game. It's evidence. Proof of what he's done." He paused. "If something happens to me, that letter keeps you alive. Frank can't touch you if the federal men have that."

Patrick took the letter, turning it over in his hands. "You're giving me your leverage."

"You're my brother."

Something flickered in Patrick's eyes—loss, maybe, or the ghost of trust. He tucked the letter into his coat.

"I don't know if I can forgive you, Jack."

"I know."

Patrick didn't say anything else. Jack stood in the doorway for a moment, memorizing his brother's face, then turned and walked down the stairs. He didn't look back.

Outside, the wind off the harbor cut through his coat. He pressed a hand to his side, felt the wet bandage, and started the long walk back to his own rooms. His brothers were both lost to him now—one to blood, one to betrayal. All he had left was the war and the promise of its end.

The streets were empty. The harbor was dark. And somewhere behind him, in a small room above a fish market, the last good thing in Jack Malloy's life was slowly slipping away.