Then, he does something catastrophic. He rises. He steps into the open ground, his tall frame a deliberate target, drawing the shooters’ eyes away from the wounded men trapped near the inspection lane. It’s a trade—his life for their seconds. He’s always been the one to buy us time, but time is a currency we're running out of.
I push up, ignoring the fire licking at my ribs, and move to flank the second van. My men follow, our return fire becoming a measured, punishing flow that forces the attackers into a tighter, desperate circle. We have them. We almost have them.
Then the world shifts again.
Roarke reaches for the youngest crew member, his hand outstretched to drag the boy behind a stack of barrels. The shot doesn't come from the vans. It’s higher, sharper—a third position near the warehouse roofline that I missed. I see Roarke jerk, a sudden, unnatural snap of his shoulders as if an invisible wire had yanked him from behind.
He simply folds. It should be biologically wrong for a man this huge to crumple like a piece of paper… Roarke,myinvincible Roarke. Time becomes a viscous, agonizing stretch of grey. The world narrows to the sight of him hitting the concrete, his blood a dark, spreading ink that stains the pier I worked so hard to claim.
“Roarke!” The name is a raw shard in my throat.
I move without a thought for the lead biting into the metal behind me. I drop beside him, my boots skidding in his blood, and grab the lapels of his jacket. I haul him toward the shadow of a crate, my side screaming in protest, but I don't feel it. I only feel the fading heat of him.
His eyes are open, focused on the grey sky, but the light behind them is flickering.
“Stay with me,” I command, my voice breaking. “Roarke, stay with me.”
His mouth moves, a faint, wet sound. I lean in, my ear near his lips. “Finish it,” he whispers, the words a final, iron instruction. He isn't asking for a priest or a medic. He’s giving an order.
The sniper fires again, the bullet sparking off the concrete an inch from my knee. I look up, my vision sharpening into a cold, lethal clarity. I track the muzzle flash near the roofline. I breathe out, the world going still. I fire once. Twice. The figure above stumbles, silhouetted against the sun for a fraction of a second before vanishing into the dark of the rafters.
Behind me, the yard is being reclaimed. My men are advancing with a redirected fury, forcing the vans into a frantic, screeching retreat. But the victory tastes like ash.
Roarke’s breathing is shallow, a series of ragged, wet hitches. I press my hand against the wound in his chest, feeling the life-force of the man who raised me, who stood by me when I buried my father, flooding between my fingers.
“Cillian,” he whispers, a ghost of a smirk touching his blood-slicked lips, “Keep making me proud.”
His hand, which had been gripping my sleeve, goes slack. The weight of him changes, becoming a heavy, hollow thing that anchors me to the pier.
The yard grows quiet in stages.
First the gunfire stops, then the shouting thins, then the only sound left is the slap of water against the pier and the faint hiss of something still burning near the loading bay. Smoke drifts low across the concrete and out over the harbor, and one of my men calls out that the shooters have pulled back beyond the east exit.
“Pier’s secure,” someone says.
Secure.
I’m still on my knees beside Roarke when the meaning of it settles in. My hands are pressed hard against him, blood slick and dark between my fingers, and for a second I forget to breathe. His eyes are open but unseeing, fixed on the gray sky above the warehouse roofline, and there’s a question frozen in them that I’ll never get to answer.
He died facing forward.
He died standing.
He died because he stepped into open ground to drag a boy half his size out of fire that wasn’t his.
I sit back slowly on my heels. The concrete is wet beneath me, and my shirt is soaked through on one side where the bullet grazed me, but I barely feel it. The pain is distant, like it belongs to someone else. “He’s gone,” one of the men says quietly.
I nod once.
Kinsella stands a few yards away, his coat half-buttoned, coffee cup shattered somewhere near his office door. His face is ashen, and when he looks at Roarke, his mouth trembles before he clamps it shut. He takes a step forward, then stops, like he isn’t sure whether he’s allowed to approach.
“This wasn’t supposed to—” he begins, and the words die in his throat.
I rise slowly to my feet. The world tilts for half a second and then steadies. My side burns now, the warmth spreading under my jacket, but I ignore it.
Kinsella walks toward me with measured steps, his boots crunching over broken glass. When he reaches Roarke’s body, he kneels without ceremony, not touching him, just lowering himself as if the weight of the moment demands it.
He was neutral once.
