I sit at the power seat—the north end, facing the wall of windows—and if I lean back at the right angle, I can see all the way to the bay, the whole city arrayed in twinkling rows like so many pawns.
I sign my name on the last set of transfer documents.
The pen—a Montblanc with a hand-carved nib—makes a sound like a surgical incision, crisp and final.
I am careful with my signature—legible but not vulnerable, every letter an assertion, not an invitation.
Ruairí stands over my left shoulder.
He has not sat since we entered the office.
He does not fidget or cross his arms, just stands, patient and silent, a sentry in charcoal wool.
Hereads each document before I sign, and when it is his turn, he signs with an economy that verges on violence—R. Crowley, a single motion, no hesitation.
When we finish the paperwork for the transfer of the Donnelly shell companies, he stacks the files, aligns the edges, and clicks the binder shut.
The sound is a period at the end of a long, bloody sentence.
The office is new.
Or rather, the bones are old—old money, old ghosts—but everything else is new.
The windows are not just bulletproof.
They are smart glass, triple-layered, able to go opaque at a spoken word.
The chairs are ergonomic, Scandinavian, the armrests shaped for comfort or for snapping a man's neck, depending on your mood.
I have never felt so at home.
There is a knock at the door, not a real knock but the ghost of one, the kind that means the man on the other side will enter no matter what.
Fiachra comes in with a tablet and a clipboard, as if he's running a hospital ward instead of a criminal syndicate.
He nods at me, eyes flicking to the stack of documents, then to Ruairí, who gives a half-nod in return.
"Boss," Fiachra says.
No sarcasm, not even a hint of old schoolyard rivalry.
Just the word, as blunt as a brick.
"Numbers from this week."
He slides the tablet onto the desk, careful not to upset the paper.
The spreadsheet is color-coded—green for go, red for dead, yellow for anyone in between.
The totals are more than I expected, less than I wanted.
"They tried the docks again," he says, scrolling with his thumb.
"But we had the new system up. Didn't get past the first checkpoint."
"Who was running it?" I ask.
Fiachra checks his notes.
