The tallest of the intruders stepped forward and addressed Liam’s father. “Gavin Kilbranish,” he said. It sounded as though he was pronouncing a verdict. “You know who I am?”

Liam’s father nodded slowly. His expression didn’t change.

“Then you know why we’re here.”

Gavin nodded again.

The man stepped back and turned to one of the others. “He’s yours if you want him, lad.”

The second man walked over to Liam’s father, unslung his gun and drove the butt into Gavin’s stomach, doubling him over. Then he swung it upward, connecting with his jaw, and Liam’s father crumpled to his knees. He was on all fours, spitting blood into the cracks between the scarred floorboards. It was the first time Liam had ever seen his father at the mercy of another human being.

The second man knelt before him and produced a small weathered book of snapshots. Opening it, he held up a picture of a hard-bitten, middle-aged man. “My da,” he said.

He drove a fist into Gavin’s nose. The sound of cartilage snapping was loud, and Liam was afraid he might be sick. The man flipped a page and held up a new picture, this one of a younger man. A shadow of the previous face remained. “My brother, William,” the man said.

The words still hung in the air as he cracked the butt of his gun down over Gavin’s head. His scalp split and blood flooded forward over Liam’s father’s face.

A new page was flipped, revealing the image of a young woman. “My wife, Anna.” The man stood and kicked Gavin hard in the ribs, drawing a wheeze and a grunt. Gavin’s spit was now a frightening mixture of blood and mucus.

The man stepped back and turned to a final picture that showed the angelic face of a young girl. She couldn’t have been more than five, and her gap-toothed smile seemed at once joyous and mournful. The man pulled a black pistol from underneath his coat and pointed it into Gavin’s face. Gavin rose up on his knees and looked back at the man. He showed neither panic nor fear; only hatred and defiance.