I don’t look back. I move south with the crowd, phone in one hand and jacket undone, the picture of a man who believes he’s invincible. The reflection in a restaurant window reveals what I want: a tall shadow pacing me half a block back. Dark coat. No hurry. No interest in being subtle.
Donal McKenna.
I angle off the avenue into a service lane that dead-ends between a hotel loading dock and a cinderblock wall. The trap is textbook: one exit, overhead scaffolding, and two of my guys already posted as construction workers, hard hats hanging low. A black van idles with the engine off. Leo’s in there with a tranquilizer and a canvas wrap in case this turns messy.
I walk to the far wall, pocket my phone, and wait.
Donal rounds the corner and the temperature drops. He’s broader than I remember, beard thick and shot with auburn, and eyes as flat as pond ice. A scar runs along the ridge of his knuckles like punctuation. He takes in the scene, first me, the blind wall, the dock door, and the scaffolding. Then he smiles like we’re about to play a game of cards.
“Rossi,” he hisses.
“McKenna.”
We regard each other like old colleagues at a wake. Even though I’ve only seen the man once in my life… four years ago. Or at least that’s what I remember. He could have been at the Quinlan compound that day, but it was utter chaos.
“What brings you to Manhattan on this lovely spring day?”
“I think you know why.” His eyes darken.
“Why don’t you enlighten me?”
“I’ll tell you one thing, you sure like to be seen.” He glances at the glass tower behind me. “Makes the hunt so civilized, polite even.”
“I figured I’d save you the trouble of shooting me in the back.”
He tuts, amused. “In my line of work, we don’t call that trouble.”
“You’re welcome then.”
He lifts a nonchalant shoulder. “Let’s cut the bullshit, Rossi. The first trigger failed so I’m here to make things right.”
I let the grin slice across my face. “Don’t be so hard on your wee little sister. Killing me isn’t that easy.”
Something mean glints in his eyes. Surprise and anger. “Not mylittlesister. My blood, yes, and my business, always.”
“So business sent you to clean up her mess then.”
“Business sent me to end yours.” He rolls his shoulders, gaze flicking once to the roofline. He clocks the hard hats, then glances back at me like it doesn’t matter.
Leo’s voice is a thin thread in my ear. “He’s alone. On your word.”
I keep my hands loose at my sides. “You came all this way to shake my hand, Donal?”
“No, to tell you something before we finish this.”
“By all means.”
He steps closer, boots whispering on grit. Up close he smells like stale beer. “While you’ve been staging your little theater in the atrium of Gemini Tower, I set my table elsewhere.”
“Meaning?”
“I don’t know what you did to her, how you got in her head… But it doesn’t matter anymore.” He grunts. “Tiernan didn’t trust you to sit still.” His smile widens, now wolfish. “Quinlan isn’t a patient man, nor one to take failure lightly. He’s trailing her down even now.”
Cold drops into my gut like a stone through ice. My pulse kicks so hard my vision tightens at the edges. “Bullshit,” I snarl, but it doesn’t land. Cat’s dot on my map blinks across my vision.
Donal watches the math scrawl across my face and laughs without a sound. “You thought you were clever. Get me to look one way while she slips the other. Now, I’ve got to wonder why? Why would you go through all that trouble to try and save someone who was sent to kill you?” He eyes me, a vein pulsing across his forehead. “I can’t quite figure it out, but I will.”
“You’re so off the mark it’s pathetic,” I bark.
