Kavanagh’s jaw flexes once, then he nods and drops it. He knows better than to argue with me when I’m settled.
I move deeper into the distillery and check the bottling line, then I check the storage ledger, then I do a walk of the tasting room with my hands behind my back and my eyes tracking small things most people never notice.
A chair pulled slightly off line. A smudge on a glass shelf. A door latch that doesn’t click cleanly.
I fix it all.
At nine, Roarke calls and gives me the short version. The driver’s still held. The van’s stripped. The tags are gone. The note is in my pocket, folded once, then twice, then pressed flat. “Someone wanted you rattled,” Roarke says.
“They don’t get to pick my mood,” I answer.
“You want me to run the note language through the old files?” he asks.
“Do it,” I say. “I want patterns, not guesses.”
He pauses. “And Quinn?”
I don’t answer right away, and my silence is enough. “She’s on schedule,” he says. “No calls, no detours, no weird stops.”
“Keep it that way,” I tell him.
It’s early afternoon when I text Roisin.
Eight sharp. No delays. Bring Quinn through the front.
Roisin replies with one word.
Done.
The day runs tight. I sign off on a supplier, review export numbers, make one call to Belfast and cut it short when the man on the line starts begging for exceptions. Exceptions get men killed.
By six, the distillery is clean and ready, and the tasting room looks like it’s meant for power and not comfort. Low lights. Dark wood. Heavy chairs. Three glasses set at each place. A small plate of bread and cheese that no one touches until I say so.
My men don’t drink on duty, and I don’t drink to feel loose, but I do drink to taste, and tonight I want to see what Quinn does with a controlled setting.
A woman can hide in an office. She can hide behind screens and schedules and polite rules. She can’t hide with whiskey on her tongue and me watching her mouth.
At 7:40, Roarke steps into the tasting room and checks the corner cameras with his eyes, not his hands. “You’re here early,” I say.
“I’m here on time,” he answers, then he nods toward the door. “She’s outside.”
I let the pause stretch. “Alone?”
“Alone,” he confirms.
I don’t ask what he thinks. Roarke’s loyalty is hard and blunt, and he wants her gone the way a man wants a splinter out of his palm. He doesn’t care if it hurts as long as it’s removed.
I care, but then again, not in a way I’d call sane. “Let her in,” I say.
Roarke opens the door, and Quinn walks in wearing a black dress that clings to her like it was cut for her alone, firm across her breasts and narrowing at her waist before falling straight to her knees. There’s nothing careless about it. Her lips are full, painted a deep red that makes a man think of teeth and heat in the same breath. Kohl lines her eyes in a way that turns them into weapons instead of decoration. When she slides her hair back behind one ear, her throat moves, smooth and exposed for half a second.
She looks at me like she’s measuring the distance between my chair and her choices. “Mr. Byrne,” she says, her tone perfectly pleasant.
“Ms. Quinn,” I reply, and I keep my tone even while my attention runs hot.
Roisin steps in behind her and offers a bright, fake smile, then she leaves fast, like she knows she’s stepping out of a storm. Roarke stays at the edge of the room with his arms crossed, and his eyes don’t leave Quinn’s hands.
Quinn keeps her attention narrowed on me. “I didn’t expect a formal invitation,” she says.
