"Pass."
I make the coffee. The instant crystals dissolve into water that's barely warm—the safehouse doesn't have a kettle, just the tap. It tastes like mud and chemicals. Alessandro drinks it without complaint.
The man who drinks single-origin espresso is standing in a kitchen from 1971 drinking brown water.
He fits here. The observation lands without context. He just does.
"The table," he says.
We sit. The kitchen table is wood, scarred with cigarette burns and knife marks. Alessandro wipes a section clean with his sleeve. He lays out what we have.
His phone. The decoded message. A pen he found in the junk drawer, and a sheet of paper torn from a water-stained notebook.
"Chronology," he says. He writes fast. Clean, tight handwriting. "The Russians initiate a destabilization campaign targeting both families simultaneously. Marco is killed and staged with a Kavanagh coin. Your men are killed and staged with Falcone silk. A surveillance photo of Rory is sent to establish a personal threat vector."
"The meeting location encoded inBéarlagairon Marco's phone. Someone with Kavanagh cultural access planted the file."
"Which leads us to the meeting site. Where we observed—" He pauses. He looks at me. The pen goes still. "Seamus Maguire."
Hearing the name makes it real again. In the car, I was bleeding and running on adrenaline. Here, in the quiet, the betrayal settles in my gut like lead.
Uncle Seamus. My godfather.
"He has access to the language," I say. My voice is flat. "He's one of the seven. He's been part of the inner circle since before I was born. Da trusts him with everything—territory maps, supply chains, troop movements. If Seamus is compromised, then every piece of intelligence the Kavanagh clan has generated in the past two decades is in Russian hands."
"Which explains the precision of the attacks," Alessandro says. He draws a line connecting Seamus to the warehouse hit. "Theyknew Marco's route. They knew the warehouse codes. They knew how to stage the coin and the tie with enough accuracy to be convincing."
"They didn't expect us to be looking at the same evidence at the same time."
"No." His pen stops. "They expected the truce to shatter. They expected you to kill me, or my family to retaliate against yours. The entire operation is predicated on the assumption that we are enemies playing at alliance."
"And instead we're eating beans in a safehouse."
"And instead we're eating beans in a safehouse." His mouth twitches. A ghost of a smile.
It lands in my chest with a warmth the coffee couldn't provide.
"We need proof," Alessandro says. "Seeing Seamus isn't enough. We need him in the act. A recording. A transaction. Something we can take to the Dons."
"We can't use Falcone assets," I say. "If Seamus has compromised us, the leak flows both directions."
"We can't use Kavanagh assets either. If Seamus knows we're looking, he goes to ground."
"Then it's us."
"It's us."
The words hang in the air. Two men against two families and an external enemy. Operating on stolen cars and safehouse pantries.
"We don't go back until we have the head of the snake," Alessandro says. "Not to the penthouse. Not to Gallagher's. We operate independently until Seamus is confirmed."
"That means cutting off from our own people. Rory. Rocco."
"Everyone except each other."
I look at him. He is serious. He is committed.
"Alright," I say.
