She runs her hand through my hair, and it feels like the only thing that could break me.
"It's time," she says, not as a suggestion.
I look at her, then the room.
"For what?"
She folds her arms, not defensive but resolved.
"To go back. To move the center of everything to the city. We can'trun a war from exile, no matter how many safehouses we own or how many bodies we bury. If you want the city, you have to live in it. You have to bleed in it."
She is right, of course.
I have been avoiding the decision, pretending that the dead air of the estate is a shield rather than a delay.
The Donnelly estate is completely ready, transformed into the headquarters I needed it to be to run the show from Dublin.
The bones are the same—stone, shadow, history—but the guts have been rewritten—redundant comms, kill-chains mapped, escape vectors baked into the old family lore.
I nod tersely.
"I can't argue with that. You go tomorrow."
She watches me for a beat, and something softens—just enough that I see the shape of the thing she's carrying beneath the surface.
"You're thinking about our children," she says, and her voice still holds that rare, sweet softness.
I don't bother pretending otherwise.
"You're not the only one who knows what a vulnerability looks like. It's not just enemies outside the gate. Every crack in the plan, every loose stitch, every man with divided loyalty is a lever someone else can pull. If we walk in loudly, with pieces still loose, we hand them a direction to aim at."
Keira's smile is small and exact.
"The only way to keep them safe," she replies, "is to remove anything that can hurt them. No half-measures. No second-guesses. Opposition doesn't fade because we ignore it. It dies because we take it out of play, and weaknesses" —her eyes flick to me, sharp as a blade's edge— "get hardened or they get erased."
The quiet after that is the kind that can't be filled with words.
I glance at the spread of files, at the red ink marking the clean sweeps, the contingencies layered under contingencies.
"Then we make sure tomorrow isn't a restart," I say.
"It's the beginning."
20
KEIRA
Early next morning, I return to Dublin under escort, two unmarked cars and six armed men flanking me like wolves trained not to snarl unless given reason.
They do not speak unless spoken to.
I don't speak at all.
The decision to return alone was Ruairí's call as much as mine.
He'll move back and forth between Wicklow and Dublin—half ghost, half general—keeping the logistics sharp and the weight of his absence meaningful.
I'll take the city and hold it while I wring out its old loyalties, pull the new lines taut, and stitch everything shut so clean, no one will dare test the seam.
