The lads start moving—closing crates, shouldering bags, drifting toward the vans outside. The meeting is winding down the way it should. Clean. Efficient. Forgettable.
That’s when the air changes. I feel it before I hear it. A pressure. Like the moment before a storm breaks. There’s a sharp crack—too loud to be a door, too wrong to be anything else. Gunfire. Not close. Not inside. Outside. By the vans.
Someone shouts. “What the feck—”
Another crack. A scream this time.
Declan swears, loud and ugly. “Get down!”
I’m already moving. The world narrows to sound and motion. I drop behind the table as splinters tear from the crate beside me.Wood explodes. Metal screams. The smell of gunpowder fills the air, sharp and choking.
This isn’t a warning. This is a hit. Men are shouting now—panicked, furious. Boots pounding concrete. Someone fires back, wild and useless. I reach into my coat—Pain blooms hot and sudden in my side. It’s not dramatic. There’s no warning. Just a brutal impact that knocks the breath clean out of me. I hit the floor hard, teeth rattling, vision flashing white. For a moment, I don’t understand. Then the burn sets in.
“Fuck—” I gasp, fingers slick as they press instinctively to my ribs. Blood. Too much of it. Seeping fast, warm against my palm.
Gunfire continues. Deafening. Chaos. I drag myself behind a stack of pallets, breath coming short now. Each inhale hurts like hell. I clamp my jaw shut, force myself to stay quiet. Stay upright. Stay alive. My dagger’s in my hand—I don’t remember drawing it. Muscle memory. Training. The blade feels steady even as everything else starts to tilt. Someone crashes past my hiding place. Not one of mine. I catch a flash of unfamiliar jacket, hear a southern accent bark an order.
Not Declan’s rivals. Not the usual. This was planned. For me.
My vision swims. The warehouse lights blur. The cold creeps back in, sharp and mean. I press my forehead to the concrete for a second, just to steady myself. Not like this, I think. Not on my knees. Not caught out.
Another shout. Closer now. I push myself upright, dagger ready, blood soaking my coat, heartbeat thundering loud enough I’m sure they can hear it. The world holds its breath—and then everything goes quiet.
Too quiet.
I don’t know yet who’s coming through that door. Only that the string inside me has snapped,
and whatever follows will not be gentle. The silence doesn’t last. It never does.
Boots hit concrete—measured, unhurried. Not panicked like the others. Not sloppy. Whoever it is isn’t hunting. He’s arrived. I force myself upright, dagger slick in my hand, blood soaking through my coat now. My vision tunnels. The world narrows to the doorway as a shadow cuts across the bare light.
Then he steps into it. Finnian O’Callaghan looks like sin remembered.
Black coat. No insignia. No rush. There’s blood on his knuckles that isn’t his, and his eyes—cold, bright, furious—lock on to me like I’m the only thing left in the room worth saving. For a heartbeat, neither of us moves. Then his mouth curves. Not kind. Not soft. Amused in that way that used to make boys cross the street and men piss themselves.
“Christ,” he says mildly, eyes flicking to the blood on my hand. “You really do make a mess of things, don’t ye?”
My grip tightens on the dagger. “Get the fuck away from me.”
He ignores that entirely. He steps closer, over bodies, over broken crates, over the wreckage like it’s nothing. Like this isn’t an ambush gone sideways. Like this isn’t Belfast burning quietly behind him.
“Did ye really think,” he says, voice low, lilting, deadly familiar, “that I’d let you die, a rós?”
The name hits harder than the bullet. I lunge. It’s stupid. Pain flares white-hot, steals my breath, but I don’t care. I swipe for him anyway, dagger aimed true—He catches my wrist easily. Too easily.
“Tsk,” he murmurs, twisting just enough to make me hiss. “Still all teeth.”
“Let go of me,” I snarl. “I’d rather bleed out than—”
“Save it,” he says, already hauling me in. His arm bands across my back, iron-strong, unapologetic. “You’re leavin’.”
“I am not—”
He lifts me off the ground like I weigh nothing.
I slam my fist into his chest. “Put me down, you bastard!”
He laughs. Actually laughs. Low and delighted. “Still got fire. That’s good.”
