"Shares. An advisory role."
Aidan laughs. It's not a pleasant sound. "An advisory role." He looks at the ceiling. "William."
"I know."
"Jason put a bullet in him. We watched him go down. We wrote him off."
"I know."
"And you let him in." His gaze comes down. "You brought him back in without telling any of us."
"I'm telling you now."
"That's not the same thing, and you know it." He's not shouting. That would be easier. The quiet is worse. "Does Alex know? Jason?"
"No."
"Matty?"
"No."
He looks at me for a long moment, something working behind his eyes that I can't read. Then he looks at Aoife, who's standing in the kitchen doorway and not pretending she's not listening.
"She knows," he says. It's not a question.
"She found out last night."
"Jesus Christ." He runs a hand across the back of his neck and then sits, heavily, like the air has gone out of him.
Aoife moves from the kitchen doorway and takes the chair across from him. Nobody speaks for a moment. The three of us sit with it.
Then Aidan looks at me. "Were you high?"
I snort. It comes out wrong, no humour in it. "Yeah."
His gaze tightens. "Are you high now?"
I lock my jaw and say nothing.
"No." Aoife's voice is quiet and level. "He's not." There's something in it that isn't quite pride but is close enough to it that I don't know what to do with it.
I move past it. "When can we stop hiding?"
Aidan straightens. Something shifts in him, back into business, and I watch the grief and the fury tuck themselves away behind the part of him that functions. "That's why I was ringing. My house is secured. We've reinforced it, cameras on every approach, two men on the gate. It's a fortress. We use it as the base going forward."
I nod slowly. "Can we hold a meeting there tomorrow? I want everyone in the same room."
He looks at me. "Everyone."
"Matty. Reilan. Aoife." I pause. "And Frank."
He looks at me like I've said something in a language he doesn't speak.
"I'm introducing him back in," I say. "In front of everyone. So we deal with the reaction once, together, and then we move on to the actual problem."
"The actual problem?" he repeatsslowly. "Because Frank walking back from the dead isn't enough of a problem?"
"There's something else. But I'm telling everyone at once."
