"No."
Which means this isn't over. Viktor is still out there.
"We need to move to a new location," he says. "This house is compromised. Everyone moves tonight."
"Where?"
"Jason has a place. Somewhere Viktor doesn't know about." His jaw tightens. "Apparently, he's had it since before he left the country. A contingency."
He kneels in front of me. I lean forward and press my face into his shoulder. His hand comes up to the back of my head andholds it there. He smells like smoke and sweat and blood, and I don't care. He's warm and solid and alive.
"The Brennans lost four men," he says quietly. "Three of Aidan's security are dead. Two of Conor's. And one of ours I haven't been able to identify yet."
Nine dead. Nine men who were alive an hour ago. Who had families. Who came when William asked.
"Viktor lost more," he says. "Matty's doing a count."
I pull back. "We need to go."
"I know." He stands. Gently lifts my feet off the gravel and sets them inside the car. The soles leave bloody prints on the carpet. Then he moves me across the seat, careful with my right side, and slides in beside me. Pulls the door shut. The noise drops by half. Muffled now. Almost bearable.
William leans forward and knocks on the partition. "Signal the front car. We're moving."
The driver reaches for his radio.
Jason opens the front passenger door and gets in. He pulls it shut and looks straight ahead.
"Everyone's out in twenty minutes," he says. "Aidan's handling the rear guard. Conor's men will hold the perimeter until everyone's clear."
William reaches over and takes my hand. My bloody hand in his bloody hand. He holds it on the seat between us and doesn't let go.
The car pulls forward. In the side mirror, Aidan's burning house shrinks until the road curves, and it disappears.
CHAPTER THIRTY
William
AOIFE’S HEAD IS against my shoulder. Her breathing has gone shallow, almost even, and for a second, I think she’s passed out. Then her fingers tighten on mine, and I know she’s just holding still because holding still is all she has left.
The convoy consists of three vehicles. Ours is in the middle. Two of Aidan’s men in the lead car, Conor’s crew bringing up the rear. The road is dark. No streetlights on these back roads through Meath. Just headlights cutting through fog and the occasional shape of a hedge whipping past the window.
Jason hasn’t spoken since we pulled out. He’s in the front passenger seat with his weapon across his thighs and his eyes on the road ahead. Every few seconds, his gaze flicks to the side mirror on his door.
My body is starting to catalogue what the adrenaline was hiding. The ribs on my left side where something hit me during the fight. The cut on my forehead has dried into a stiff line of crusted blood. My knuckles are split and swelling from putting a man down behind the garden wall. The ringing in my ears that comes and goes like a radio between stations.
Aoife shifts against me. I look down at her feet. Bare. Cut. Dried blood between her toes. She ran across gravel and broken glass to get to me because she thought I was dead, and the fury I felt when I saw her out there in the middle of it hasn’t faded. It’s just gone quiet. Folded itself into the part of me that knows she did it because she chose me, and punishing her for that would be punishing her for the only good thing that’s happened since this started.
I tighten my hand around hers.
The driver takes a left onto a narrower road. Hedgerows close in on both sides. The lead car’s taillights glow red through the fog ahead of us.
“How far?” I ask Jason.
“Forty minutes. Maybe less.”
“And you’re sure Viktor doesn’t know about this place.”
“I’m sure.” He doesn’t turn around. “I bought it through three shell companies before I left the country. Cash. No paper trail connecting it to any Murphy.”
