It outlines an agreement between the Italians and the Crowleys, dated two weeks before my father's funeral.
In the corner, a scrawled annotation in another hand reads,Donnelly noncompliance equals escalation.
I read it twice, then once more, before gathering the pages, replacing them in the envelope, and returning it to the drawer, locking it as I found it.
The room is still warm, but I am not.
Back upstairs, I sit at the edge of the bed and let the robe fall open at the collar.
My skin is flushed.
I fold my hands in my lap and look at the carpet, waiting for something in me to settle.
When Ruairí enters, he says nothing at first.
He closes the door behind him, and I feel him watching me before he speaks.
Then, quietly, he says, "You were in my office."
I nod, albeit weakly.
He replicates the movement.
"Then I suppose you know. The deal was in place before I knew. I've been trying to track who pushed it through. Your father wasn't the only one left out of the room. But he may have been the first to understand the cost."
He crosses to the window, resting one hand on the frame.
"Whatever else you think of me," he says, "know that I plan to finish what he could not."
7
RUAIRÍ
In the month that she's come home, Keira has made it her business to be everywhere she shouldn't be.
Today, Fiachra stands in the map room, his arms folded so tightly across his chest it looks like he's bracing for a gust of wind that will never arrive.
He has a talent for looking like he'd rather be anywhere else.
The map splayed across the table is the only thing holding his interest, and even that is starting to seem personal.
He's pinned every district with color-coded markers—blue for us, green for the O'Duinns, yellow for the Russians, a thin pink flag for the Italians, who breed like an infection but never seem to hold ground.
The west side of the city is a constellation of little red pins, their heads gleaming in the cone of light from the desk lamp.
Each one is a mess I will have to clean or a debt I will have to pay.
"Do you know what she was doing in the wine cellar last night?" Fiachra finally grumbles, and his voice is half whisper, half accusation.
I run a finger along the southern port, tracing the border of our last untouched supply line.
"Inventory," I say.
"She was counting the exits," he says.
"And not the ones anyone would show her on a tour. She found the old dumbwaiter in the laundry chute. Did you know that was still open?"
I shrug.
