The table is a horseshoe of petrified oak, cracked but not broken, and seated at the arc are the seven faces I knew I'd encounter sooner rather than later.
The Elders—O'Casey, MacDonnell, Murphy, Delaney, Fitzgerald, Flynn, and Kelly.
The surnames are so old they might as well be adjectives, and each one is paired with a body built for survival, not for comfort.
No one says a word as I cross the threshold.
I'm shown to a chair of chipped steel, set precisely where the table's open end points like a gun barrel.
The driver evaporates behind me, leaving the door ajar, the light from the hallway striping the floor with a suggestion of bars.
I take my seat, cross my legs, and wait.
Fitzgerald, never one for preamble, sets the stakes.
"Donnelly territory is bleeding out. The O'Duinns have already taken Ballymun and are making for the canal. The safehouses at Glasnevin and Loughlinstown—gone. Up in smoke."
He doesn't look at me as he says it.
His gaze is for the others, reading the room for weaknesses.
MacDonnell is inscrutable, chin sunk to chest, while Flynn watches with the kind of stillness you get after too many years in hiding.
Aidan Kelly, now the public face of the Donnellys, sits tomy left, hands folded so tightly the veins on his wrists bulge blue.
His jaw ticks every time someone says the name O'Duinn, but he offers nothing except a steady stream of micro-nods, like he's afraid even a blink would count as mutiny.
Delaney summarizes the intelligence.
"We expect Padraig O'Duinn to move on the docks within forty-eight hours. If he takes the port, we lose every pipeline from Liverpool to La Rochelle."
Murphy, dry as a sodden peat bog, says, "Foreigners are waiting to pounce. The Greeks, the Albanians, the fucking Russians. They can smell the blood from here to the Pale."
There is a silence in which my own breathing feels like an offense.
Then O'Casey, the oldest in the room, says, "We are not here to debate tactics. The Donnellys are spent. The only thing left to salvage is the peace. That's the decision."
No one asks if I have objections.
No one so much as glances my way.
The terms were set centuries ago, before any of us crawled screaming into this world.
Even the crows on the prison roof could recite them.
Fitzgerald signals to Murphy, who pushes a folder toward me.
"You'll be marrying Ruairí Crowley. Ceremony in three days. All assets revert to the Crowley family in the event of noncompliance or sudden death. You'll be given protection. You'll serve as the public face of the new union."
Crowley.
The name had always hovered around the periphery, neutral and unofficial, like an unmarked bill passed in a back room.
I try to remember if I've ever actually seen Ruairí or if he is a specter built of rumor and strategic omission.
The folder contains a photograph—a headshot from some long-forgotten dinner, Ruairí's face clear and unadorned, the eyes a shade lighter than the glass of vodkain front of him.
He looks like someone who has never lost a fight and never enjoyed a victory.
