“She was sick at work this morning and she looks wrung out. She says it’s stress.”
My mother gives me a look I’ve known since childhood, one that says she heard the sentence and she does not accept the conclusion. “Where is she?”
“In her room, or pretending she isn’t tired at her desk.”
“I’ll find her,” she says and passes the dish to Maeve so she can free a hand and point at me. “You eat before you leave.”
“I don’t have time.”
“You have thirty seconds and a fork.”
Maeve snorts, I scowl at her. “Why are you here?”
“You called Ma, she called me, and now I’m here to do what you should’ve done this morning, which is ask for help before you run yourself into the ground.”
I take the dish, pull back the lid, and shovel in two bites of lamb and potato while my mother nods once in approval and starts toward Riley’s room without waiting for escort.
“Text me if she spikes a fever,” I say after her.
“She’s not one of your men,” my mother replies over her shoulder. “I know how to care for people.”
I let her go, then look at Maeve. “Stay in the house.”
Maeve folds her arms. “I wasn’t planning to come play dock war.”
“Good.”
By dusk, I’m in the SUV heading east with Conall in front, two more vehicles behind us, and the city outside the glass looks normal in a way that always irritates me before a move. People queue outside shops, buses kneel at stops, teenagers cut across side streets with music leaking from their phones, and half of them have no idea how close they live to men who would torch a route to gain five percent on freight.
Conall checks his phone and turns slightly in his seat. “Harbor master says the dark service boat came back in forty minutes ago, then disappeared behind the decommissioned fuel sheds.”
“Crew count?”
“Couldn’t confirm. He thinks four minimum.”
“Too light for a full hit.”
“Maybe spotters.”
“Maybe.”
I look out at the line of warehouses as we pass the old rail spur, and I run the map in my head. East break. Fuel sheds. Narrow service lane. Blind wall on one side, chain fence on the other, and the water close enough to hear if the wind is right.
They picked it for entry or exit.
“Send two to the upper catwalk before we roll in,” I say. “No lights, no chatter, and if they see movement, they hold until I give the word.”
Conall relays it, calm and clear. The men in the third vehicle answer back with short confirmations.
The gates at the service road are already unlocked when we arrive, which tells me somebody paid somebody, and I feel that familiar cold focus settle in as the first SUV turns off the main road and into shadow. Floodlights from the active berths throw broken strips of white across corrugated metal, and the smell hits hard through the vents—diesel, salt, rust, old rope, wet concrete.
I open my door before the engine fully dies.
“Positions,” I say, and the men move.
Boots fan out across gravel, one pair left toward the sheds, two toward the fence line, another toward the stairs that lead to the catwalk, and Conall stays at my shoulder as I draw my piece and glance once toward the water.
A low shape sits beyond the third shed, half-hidden, no running lights, rocking just enough to show it is occupied.
