Conor looks at Seamus. Seamus looks at Lorcan. The Brennan brothers glance at each other. Something passes between all of them. The old language of men who've been doing this long enough to know when the tide has turned.
"I want my men under my command," Conor says. "Not taking orders from a Murphy."
"Your men, your command. I coordinate the operation. That's the deal."
More calculation.
"If this goes wrong," Seamus says slowly, "Viktor doesn't just come for you. He comes for all of us."
"He's already coming for all of you." I let that land. "He's been moving through Ireland systematically, family by family, and the only reason you're all still here is because he hasn't finished yet. Dillon O'Rourke is in a hospital bed. My house is rubble. Sunday is your last chance to fight back before Viktor decides you're not worth the effort of keeping alive."
The room is very quiet.
Conor Reilly looks at me for a long time.
"Sunday." He stands. Extends his hand across the table. "You have my word."
I take his hand. Grip it hard.
Seamus stands next. Then Lorcan. The Brennan brothers nod from across the table.
One by one, they agree.
The farmhouse empties slowly. Cars leaving down the private road, taillights disappearing into the gray afternoon. I stand at the window and watch them go and try to feel something other than the coldness that's kept me upright for weeks.
It doesn't work. The coldness is all there is. And maybe that's all right. Maybe that's what leadership actually looks like. Not inspiration. Not speeches. Just seeing what needs to happen and making it happen, no matter what it costs.
Aoife finds me in the bedroom an hour later. Aidan's spare room, the one with the low ceiling and the view of the fields.I'm sitting on the edge of the bed with my hands on my knees, staring at the wall.
She closes the door behind her.
"How did it go?" she asks.
"They're in. All of them."
She moves closer. Sits beside me. Our shoulders touch, and the warmth of her cuts through something I didn't realize was frozen.
She's quiet for a moment.
"When?" she asks.
"Sunday."
"That's two days."
"Yeah."
"And if it doesn't work?"
I don't answer right away. Because the honest answer is one I'm not sure she wants to hear.
"Then we're out of moves," I say. "Viktor retaliates. Hard. And we spend whatever time we have left trying to survive it."
She turns to face me. Her eyes are red-rimmed from last night. From Reilan. From everything that's happened since she walked into my life and I started ruining hers.
"We could die on Sunday."
It's not a question. I don't treat it like one.
