Page 3 of Titan

It’s hard to see him that way, when I was used to seeing him as a strongman, leading one of the most powerful families in the organized crime world.

“Harrison,” Ethan says, putting his drink down and coming over to give me a hug. “I’m so glad you came.”

“Of course, I came,” I reply, rubbing his hair affectionately. Although he’s four years older than me, he takes after my father and is on the short stout side, while I’m more like my mother, tall and muscular. We both have the O'Connor blue eyes, however, and his are now slightly red and I wonder if he hasn’t been indulging, besides the tears. When I returned to Manhattan after my time in the service, I caught him doing coke one night after a house party. He promised me he only did it occasionally, but I always worried, given the crew he hung out with — sons of other less-savory members of the underworld. “How are you? How’s dad?”

“Barely able to function,” he says quietly, and I know immediately what he means. “He fell down last night, and I wonder if he didn’t have another mini stroke. The doctor was here earlier, and said he should go into the hospital, but Pop refused.”

I go over to my father, who sits surrounded by his family and bend down to kiss him on the cheek.

“Father,” I say and give him a smile.

“Harrison,” he manages, his eyes wet suddenly, like he didn’t believe that I would show up.

I almost didn’t. I wanted to grieve for my baby brother alone, and not have to deal with my mobster brethren, but I couldn’t stay away. I had to be part of the grieving process with the rest of my family.

“It’s so good of you to come,” he adds. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

“I almost didn’t,” I reply, accepting a beer from my brother. “But I’m here now.”

“And I’m glad you are.” He smiles and I feel guilty. Perhaps his youngest son’s death has softened his rock-hard heart.

I step back and watch as the conversation takes place around me and think about my father. Before the stroke, he’d beenan active man in his sixties, leading a construction company operating in Manhattan. I haven’t been a real part of his life for the past two decades, only visiting a half-dozen times over the years.

Liam and I were taken from him when I was ten and Liam was just an infant, when my mother and he divorced. She’d found him screwing one of the secretaries who worked in his office on the waterfront on a day when she was supposed to be busy with family and he went into the office to ‘catch up on some paperwork.’ Liam and I were young enough that she refused to leave us with him, and took us away to Rochester, where we grew up surrounded by her family instead of his. My father was wise enough to know that it was for the best — that we were too young to be taken away from my mother.

He may have even secretly wanted us to get free of the family business, while my older brother Ethan was already involved.

In contrast to my father’s side of the family, my mother’s side was comprised of stalwart upstanding members of the community, including business magnates and law enforcement. Hell, there was even a firefighter in the mix. So totally different than my father’s side of the family that I wondered how the two of them ever got together in the first place.

They met in university, and the two fell in love despite all the cultural differences between the two families.

They say opposites attract. Our two families couldn’t be more opposite.

In the end, I was glad my mother took us away, although it didn’t save my brother from a terrible fate, but I’d been hurt and angry at first. It took years for me to realize she made the right choice. Still, I missed my older brother Ethan. Four years my senior, Ethan was always good to me when I still lived with my father, taking me everywhere with him, showing me the ropes ofbeing a member of the O'Connor clan. Protecting me when the old man was drunk and in a rage.

I still love my brother, even if he’s been deeply involved in organized crime – out of necessity – and slated to take over the family business. When my father had his stroke, he lamented that he hadn’t gotten out of the grip of the Russian Mafia sooner.

Soon, my father would retire because of the stroke. I suspected he would now retire right away, because of the shock of Liam’s death.

Ethan promised me that he planned on cleaning up the reputation of O'Connor Construction, Inc.

“I’ll take us legit,” he said on the phone when he urged me to come back into the family fold. “I promise. Give me a year and you’ll see.”

I doubted his ability to do so, although I truly believed he intended to. How did you extract your family business from the organized crime world it had been in for decades?

I relented and started to spend more time with my brothers, although I avoided my father. I was seeing him now for the first time in over five years.

My father’s company, and soon to be my brother’s, was a front for a money laundering scheme from Russia and was due to an alliance between the Russians in Brooklyn and the Irish Mafia operating in Hell’s Kitchen a decade earlier.

Divide and conquer used to be the tactic used by both organized crime syndicates. Now, it was unite and thrive.

The two branches of the Mafia were both dead set against cooperating with the Italian Mafia, which was still the dominant player in New York.

Instead, they joined forces to compete directly with the Cosa Nostra.

My father is known as one of the princes of the Irish Mafia — a direct descendent of one of the most powerful Irish clans toleave Ireland back in the day when potatoes rotted in the earth and our people starved. He’s a nasty sonofabitch, although you’d never know it by looking at him with half his face drooping and a tissue in his good hand to wipe away the slobber.

Ethan holds up his glass. “To my brother, Liam,” he says, bringing me back to the present. “He was taken from us too soon. Too soon. Mark my words. We will get our revenge. Have no doubt.”

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