Declan pulls out his phone and swipes across the screen before looking up. “Our sources confirm she’s not in the country,” he says, shifting into something more professional. “We’ve checked every Vance property in the States. Nothing. No paper trail, no sightings.”
“Then she’s somewhere else.”
“Obviously. But we don’t know where. The Vances are careful, and we can’t push without starting a war.”
“So we keep watching.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
Declan exhales slowly. “Cassian?—”
“I’m not letting this go. She was taken off the street during the chaos I created. The Vances grabbed her without knowing who she was with, and now they’re hiding her somewhere. That’s not acceptable.”
“Why do you care so much? You spent one night with her.”
The question sits between us.
I can’t stop seeing her face in that security footage. The terror when those men grabbed her. The way she fought, even though she had no chance of winning.
“Just keep watching,” I say. “She’ll surface eventually.”
Declan looks like he wants to argue, then just nods and leaves. The door clicks shut, and I’m alone with Marco’s blood drying on the carpet.
I need to get out of New York.
The thought hits me suddenly. I need space. Distance. Somewhere I can breathe.
I grab my phone and check my calendar. The last time I visited my mother was six months ago, which means I’m overdue. I usually go every four months.
I text Declan:Taking a few days. Going to Ireland. Handle things while I’m gone.
His response comes seconds later:About time. You need it.
The flight to Shannon Airport takes seven hours. I spend most of it reviewing business reports and financials. Territory agreements. Shipment schedules. A proposal about expanding into weapons trafficking. I approve some. Reject others. Make notes. By the time the plane lands, I’ve cleared my inbox and made a dozen decisions that will keep operations running smoothly.
I rent a car and drive south along the coast. The roads are narrow and winding, bordered by stone walls and fields so green they look unreal. The ocean stretches westward, gray and churning.
Nobody knows I come here.
Not the Italians. Not the Russians. Not even most of my own people. Declan knows because he grew up in Ballycotton too, but he would never tell anyone. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Cassian Rourke appeared in New York twenty years ago with enough money to build an empire.
They don’t know about the small fishing village on the southern coast of Ireland where I was born. They don’t know about my mother, who still lives in the cottage my father bought before I was born. I keep it that way, because the moment people know you have something you care about, they use it against you.
Ballycotton greets me the way it always has, with low houses pressed close together, their slate roofs darkened by damp, their whitewashed walls dulled by years of salt and rain. Fishing boats rise and fall in the harbor, their ropes creaking softly againstthe pier, and the narrow cobblestone streets shine under a thin, persistent drizzle that never quite turns into rain. The quiet settles early here, not because there’s nothing happening, but because nothing ever needs to hurry.
I dress down when I visit. Jeans and a plain long-sleeve jacket covering my tattoos.
My mother’s cottage sits on a small rise overlooking the cliffs. The garden is ridiculous. Wildflowers in every color. Roses climbing a wooden trellis. Herbs growing in neat rows. She tends it obsessively.
She’s waiting on the porch when I arrive.
Siobhan Rourke is seventy-three, barely five feet tall, with white hair in a braid and hands gnarled from decades of work. She wears a cardigan despite the mild weather.
She looks me over once and says I look worse than the last time she saw me, which is saying something.
“Hello to you too, Ma.”
