There's nothing tactical in it.
I just need to remind myself that the house and its people are mine.
I pass the study Keira has claimed for herself.
The door is cracked just enough to see inside.
There's a lamp on, low, and the scent of bergamot leaking into the hall.
On the desk, a legal pad with lines of blue ink, the handwriting tight and impatient, a half-empty cup of tea cooling to a skin.
The windows are open a sliver—she likes it cold and says it keeps her sharp.
She's asleep on the couch, legs folded, one arm tucked under her head, the other draped across her ribs like she's holding something in.
The blanket has slipped halfway to the floor.
Her sweater's bunched at the hem, exposing the soft line of her waist.
Her lips are parted just slightly, enough to suggest she gave in to sleep only after fighting it longer than she should have.
A book rests on her chest, spine cracked.
She hasn't turned the page in hours.
Her hair's come loose.
Not all at once, but in that slow way of giving up one by one until it's down around her shoulders like nightfall.
There's ink on her fingers and a faint crease of worry between her brows, even now.
She sleeps like she lives—alert even in surrender, never entirely off guard.
With a tight nod and nothing more, I step away and continue my walk.
When I was a kid, the Crowleys were strictly ruralenforcement.
The real estate was Wicklow, not Dublin, and my father kept the family in line with a shillelagh and an absolute refusal to speak above a whisper.
He liked to settle matters behind closed doors, preferably after midnight, preferably with no witnesses.
We lost two uncles that way and gained three more by adoption.
Loyalty was enforced by blood but never spilled in public.
By the time the city opened itself to us, the only thing that mattered was speed.
My brothers wanted war of the open, dramatic kind that would be a statement of intent.
I watched them for a year before I realized what everyone else already knew—violence is just a lever, and the city has infinite leverage if you know how to use it.
I started making deals, cutting staff, building capital instead of a body count.
The old men on the council called me a coward, but they also called me for a loan whenever their own payroll dried up.
Fiachra never got over it.
He thinks every problem can be fixed with a bullet or a bottle of petrol.
