Boston Blood

Sixty seven

Dublin 1985.

Margaret sat on the bottom step in the small hallway smoking her third cigarette in the last ten minutes. The house was empty now. Everyone had left immediately after the shots were fired into the living room window, including her husband. She didn't even bother to ask who it was that had been shot, she didn't care. Frankie told her in the end. Fucking Micka, good riddance. Swine.

She felt like she should have been more shaken up by what had happened but the reality was, she was used to this by now. Her life was a continuous circle of violence and fear. This wasn't the first shooting she had witnessed and she was sure it wasn't going to be the last but what had shaken her to her core was that Frankie had witnessed what had happened tonight. She had tried to shield Frankie from her father's dangerous life for as long as she could but Frankie was a woman now, sure she was only fifteen but she was so grown up. So intelligent, so beautiful and so fucking brave. She saw a lot of herself in her daughter, well what she used to be like before Tommy had robbed her of her innocence and the fire she once had burning within her. She saw that fire in Frankie, though and it burned much more ferociously and angry than it had ever burned inside of Margaret. If she was telling the truth, she wished she could be more like Frankie. She knew her daughter was strong and that she was going to be okay but her baby, sweet, sweet Michael, she was terrified for him. She was so afraid that he was going to get sucked in to a life of crime by Tommy and as she sat there, rubbing her free hand through her hair, she felt like she had failed as a mother.

How could she have let her children grow up in this house with a man so violent and mean? She should have taken her babies away years ago. God she had tried several times but every single time, Tommy had either found her running in the dead of night or had sent some of his lackies to watch her and make sure she doesn't try to leave and every time he caught her, he had made her pay.

The kids would have been too young to remember the last time she had tried to get away from him. Frankie was only eight and she had just given birth to Michael. She had made a promise to them that she was going to take them away and give them the life they deserved. She knew, even then how wild Frankie was and so so angry. Margaret hated herself for thinking it but she knew it was too late for Frankie. She had already seen too much and had planted a deep seed of hatred within her soul and that hatred would rage inside her for her entire life. She just prayed that her daughter was as strong as she knew she really was and didn't let that hatred consume and ruin her life. She adored Frankie but her baby boy had a real chance, a chance to grow up in a loving home, away from Tommy and all the shit he put them through. So she took her babies and she left.

That was the night she fell in love with Paul Donovan.

That night, it was his shift to watch Margaret and that's exactly what he did. She just watched her take her children and load up the car. He didn't try to stop her. He pitied the poor, gorgeous, lonely woman. He didn't blame her one bit for wanting to get away from Tommy. He followed her in his car as she pulled into the car park of a hotel. He was under strict instructions from Tommy, who was away on business, to make sure she didn't leave. He was told, like all his men were, to do whatever was necessary to stop her. Some of the men took that instruction too literally but Paul was different. He had fallen in love with Margaret Kelly when they were sixteen. To him, she was perfect and he knew that he could never lay a hand on her. He truly wanted her to be free, to be happy but deep down, as much as he hated it, he knew she could never be, not with Tommy still breathing.

Margaret sighed in defeat when she saw him, standing beside his car in the car park, waiting for her. She thought she had finally done it this time. God, how stupid am I?