I watch the change happen in real time. The colour drains out of his face, slow and unmistakable, like water drawn from a glass. His gaze goes somewhere that isn't this room and thencomes back, and when it does, he makes the mistake of looking directly at me.
I don't look away.
Neither does he. But his hands, resting on his knees, press flat against his legs, fingers spread, the way a person presses down when they are trying very hard to stay still and their body is working against them.
I saw that gesture the first time I met him.
No one else in the room is doing it.
I say nothing. I watch him, and I wait, and the silence in Aidan's ruined dining room settles around all of us like something with weight.
Reilan opens his mouth.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Aoife
NOBODY MOVES.
That's the first thing I notice. The sound fades, and the room holds itself completely still, everyone suspended in that beat where the body hasn't caught up with what just happened.
I have heard a gunshot at close range before. I know the way the sound moves through a room, the way it doesn't stop when it stops. What I wasn't prepared for was how ordinary William looks afterwards. No shake in his hands. No pause. He just turns back to the room.
Frank is sideways in the chair. One hand trails toward the floor.
I break it down into pieces small enough to hold. Six people when we started. Five now. The wall behind Frank is ruined.William is standing at the head of the table with his hands loose at his sides and his face completely closed, and that is the thing that stays with me. Not Frank. William.
Aidan is on his feet. He's saying something about the room, about Raven, about the wall, and his voice reaches me, but the words don't land. I watch William answer him and then turn back to the rest of us.
"There's something else," he says. His voice is completely level. Like he didn't just shoot a man in front of all of us. Like the wall behind Frank isn't ruined. "This is why I needed everyone here."
I hear my pulse in my ears.
"The Bratva knew we were alive. They knew before the house. They knew exactly where to find us. Someone gave them that information." He looks at each face in turn. Slow. Deliberate. "Someone in this room is the mole."
Reilan opens his mouth.
Nothing comes out.
I watch the color leave his face. Slow and unmistakable, the way I've only seen it happen to him once before — the night our father told us our mother wasn't going to recover. His gaze goes somewhere that isn't this room and then comes back, and when it does, he makes the mistake of looking directly at William.
I'm on my feet before I know I've decided to move. My chair scrapes back, and I've put myself in front of him.
The instinct is embarrassing. William notices. He looks at me, and something passes through his expression that I can't cleanly name. Not amusement. Not contempt. Something more careful than either.
I don't move.
William is looking past me at Reilan. I can see it in his face — that particular stillness he gets when he's found something worth examining. He's very good at looking at people. Sober,he's extraordinary at it. I watch him register whatever he sees and file it away.
I step slightly left. Not enough to block his line of sight entirely. Enough to remind both of them I'm standing here.
"You can't blame family without proof," I say. "The mole could be anyone. Any one of a dozen people with access."
"No," William says quietly. "It couldn't."
He leaves the room.
Aidan follows. Something passes between him and Matty—a look, a decision and then Matty pushes back from the table too. William didn't tell anyone to leave. He didn't have to.
