Like Father, Like Son - 31

Declan left for work the next morning without having come up with a plan the two of them thought would be viable. Nicky, who didn’t have to be at his job until late morning, felt a bit at loose ends after all the activity of the last few days. Deciding maybe he could come up with a workable idea he sat down to think about it.

The last thing he wanted to happen was for anything to point back to either of them, and yet with what Declan wanted to do Nicky knew it was possible. This was not going to be random the way the other kills had been. Declan wanted to target some woman he knew, someone who knew him.

Stupid, stupid. If you’re going to go after a woman exactly like your mother, why not just choose your mother.

He knew why. It was because of Declan’s fear of what would happen if they did, his fear he’d end up just like his father, insane and locked up in an asylum. Nicky remembered Declan’s words clearly. ‘You don’t kill family. If you do then you go insane, like my father.’ They were engraved in his mind.

But from what Declan had told him, his father’s killing his own brother had been an accident born out of jealousy. He was trying to kill his brother’s lover and his brother had stepped between them. As a result both men had died.

Our killing his mother wouldn’t be the same. But how can I convince him of that?

For the rest of the day, when he didn’t have to concentrate on waiting on people who came into the shop, Nicky went over various scenarios on how to approach Declan and show him what he had to do if he wanted to survive and remain…sane Nicky supposed.

By the time he returned to Declan’s apartment building he knew what he was going to do. It could end everything building between them. Or it could change things for the better. Either way he knew he had to do it.

As he rode up in the elevator he prayed he had made the right choice. When he arrived at the apartment he took out his keys, sucked in a deep breath, unlocked the door and stepped inside.