“Honey,” he mutters.
Aoife’s drink. I taste copper in my own mouth, not from the air but from the surge of rage that does not know where to land.
We sweep the rest of the space. A drag mark scars the dust where something heavy was hauled across the floor. A cigarettestill smolders in a tin can, lipstick on the filter. A piece of fabric hangs from a nail—not hers, but placed, deliberate, the color too bright to belong in a place this dead.
“They staged it,” Evan says, voice flat. “Brought her here, left traces, then gone.”
Kieran slams a palm against a doorframe, not careless, just bleeding fury into something that won’t bruise. “Van peeled east after this. Street cams lose it past the bridge. Could be anywhere by now. Could be gone.”
The word hangs.Gone.
For the first time tonight, the silence feels like a verdict. The men keep moving but slower, waiting for me to say what none of us want to hear. I look at the cut rope, at the honey on glass, at the drag line that leads nowhere, and feel the hour slipping away grain by grain.
I press my hand to the cold brick until it steadies me. I will not give them despair. Not out loud.
Then Seamus’s voice crackles in my ear, low but sharp with the patience of a man who has never enjoyed being right. “Found it. Not east—north. Traffic cam at the old priory road picked the plate edge again. Same panel van, bumper dent matches. Five minutes after the dock sighting.”
The words land like a fist through glass.
“A priory,” I say, more to myself than to him. Old stone, sub-basements that have not been blessed in decades. A place made for silence.
“Confirmation?” I ask.
“Cross-checked with city grid,” Seamus says. “Van didn’t reappear anywhere east. North is the only line that holds.”
I breathe once, slow, and the despair breaks underfoot like brittle ice.
“Mount up,” I tell the men. “We’re not finished.”
Engines growl awake. Tires spit grit. The convoy turns north, leaving the false trail behind us.
The hallway breathes cold. Damp stone, old lime, a faint animal smell from the drains. Candlelight slides under the door ahead like thin fire, and the men behind me fall into the hush that comes when all the rehearsals end. I taste metal in the air and know it is not only the old pipes. It is the room, and what waits in it.
“On me,” I say, and the lock gives under a shoulder that has broken heavier things. The door swings wide on a cry of hinges, and the scene fixes like a photograph.
Aoife in a chair, wrists roped, chin lifted and blood at the corner of her mouth. Siobhan in a dark dress, hair glossy and pinned with silver, a knife lifted in her right hand as if the past had trained her for exactly this gesture. Wax candles gutter along a ledge, light jumping over wet stone, shadows doubling everyone into saints and ghosts.
I fire before my breath finishes leaving my chest. The shot cracks the room in half. The knife jerks sideways and kisses the wall, metal on stone. Siobhan flinches, and the blade clatters to the floor and skids under the wobbling table with the bowl of melted wax. Her eyes go black and bright at once. She looks at me like a sister looks at a rival, and then like prey looks at weather.
My men flood the doorway. Two go left, two go right, one crosses straight to Aoife and crouches between her knees to block any second attempt on her with his own body. The others take the corners, hands steady, voices low and clipped, the choreography we built for rooms exactly like this one. The world narrows into choices and the next five seconds.
“Do not touch her,” I tell Siobhan, though she is already bare-handed. “Do not move again without permission.”
She smiles in that sharp, private way that always said more about her hunger than her humor. “You are late,” she says.
“Late enough,” I answer and cross the wet floor. I do not lower the gun until I can smell her perfume. Then I holster it and take the rope from Aoife’s wrists myself, because I need to feel the knot surrender. The cord leaves a furious red at her skin. I kiss one wrist before I can stop myself. She looks at me in a way that knocks the air out of my spine.
“I knew you would come,” she whispers, and the words are simple, and they are a benediction I do not deserve.
Behind us, Siobhan moves as if to run. Keane is already there, calm as a grave. He catches her elbow and folds her down with a single turn of his wrist. She tries to make a weapon out of her body. He removes the idea from her and places her on her knees without ever raising his voice. Two more men take her arms. One kicks the fallen knife deep under the table. It rings out like a church bell and dies.
Aoife stands on a wobble and then holds fast. I slide my coat over her shoulders because the room is cold and because she should never be in a room like this without an extra layer between her and the stone. She pulls the lapels close with a hand that trembles once and stops. Her mouth is swelling where fear bit down and kept her brave. Her eyes are bright the way a blade is bright. She is here. Every heartbeat slams gratitude through me.
There is noise now, threaded up from the city through the cracks. Sirens gather somewhere above, wailing toward us, growing and turning and falling away. The hotel must have found its courage. The street must be ready to watch. We do not have time for speeches or for mercy dressed as an argument.
“Move,” I say, and the room obeys. We thread back into the corridor, the candles making a wake behind us. Siobhan spits a name into the air that wants to be Moira, and I do not let it land.Aoife keeps pace at my side, jaw set, chin high. She does not stumble. The men walk with the stance that makes people think they are bigger than they are.
The door to the alley bangs open into winter. Night air shocks the lungs. Snow freckles the spill of light. The city is close, close enough to press its nose to the glass and watch us leave.
