There's a light on in the study.
I approach slowly, careful not to betray myself.
The door is open a fraction, just wide enough to see the edge of the desk and the silhouette of Ruairí, hunched over the phone, head bowed.
His voice is tense.
"That's not enough. I need proof of life before noon."
A pause, then, "I don't care how you get it. If they're bluffing, I want it on tape."
A click, a scrape of a glass on wood.
He lowers his voice, almost a whisper.
"If Connolly shows, you know what to do."
The name lands like a stone in my gut.
I feel the old panic, sharp and sour, claw its way up my throat.
Connolly is not a friend, not even an enemy.
He's a warning shot, a threat you make when you want to scare someone into thinking you've already won.
I step back, careful, and retrace my path.
The guards don't see me.
The windows show only darkness.
In my room, I pace the length of the carpet, counting the steps.
I replay the conversation, word for word, looking for the crack, the one thing that will make the world make sense.
If Connolly is in play, then the O'Duinns are out.
The Russians, too.
That leaves only the Italians, or worse, the council itself, the old men who sit in rooms and decide which bodies float to the surface next.
Connolly is a problem with too many variables.
Young, reckless, hungry for territory.
The sort of man who'd rather torch a rival's bar than negotiate.
I only met him once, at the wake for a mutual enemy.
He was already drunk by noon, and he spent the afternoon telling a story about a dogfight in Dún Laoghaire, how the underdog had turned on its own owner the second it lost.
He laughed at the punchline, but his leery eyes were on me the whole time.
I remember the feeling, the disgust that came with it.
If Ruairí is talking to him, it's not for muscle.
He has enough of that.
