Page 100 of The Dangerous Dance

"It was there when I bought it. It's apparently a fig tree, though I've never seen it produce a fig, which I suspect is a personal failing."

She almost smiles.

"Upstairs," I say. "The top floor. The morning light is—" I stop.

She looks at me. "Is what."

"It's the reason I bought the house. Come see it tomorrow morning."

She holds my gaze for a moment. Then she nods, and the nod carries something in it that is the version of gratitude that doesn't want to be called gratitude.

Conor arrives at nine, on foot, having been dropped off three blocks west by a car that continued without stopping. He comes in through the back garden gate, not the front. He sets his overnight bag down in the hall and he looks at the house the way he looks at operational locations — sightlines, access points, the specific geometry of vulnerability.

"The garden wall," he says.

"Six feet. The adjacent building is residential, low footfall in the evenings. The front is the exposure."

"Camera coverage on the street is limited. Not impossible but it requires positioning that would be visible." He looks at me. "I want someone on the front for the first forty-eight hours. Someone who doesn't know what they're watching. Or why."

"Agreed."

He nods. "The photographs."

"What do we have."

"The lens is professional. Distance suggests a rooftop with line of sight to the compound gate and the farmers market. Two locations within range that fit." He pauses. "But Liam. The distribution channel matters more than the photographer."

"Tell me."

"They're being routed through a Belgrade intermediary that the Italians flagged eighteen months ago as a Bratva conduit. Whoever the photographer was, the prints are being moved through Viktor's network." He meets my eyes. "Which means Viktor's not sitting on them for himself. He's pushing them outward. The target isn't us. It's the alliance."

I look at him. "Marco."

"Marco specifically. Because Marco is the operational point of contact with us, and because what Marco does with the photographs will tell Vito where Marco stands on the alliance. Viktor's forcing the Italians into a position where they have to either renegotiate or walk."

"How long."

"Not yet. A day. Maybe two."

I look at the window. "All right. Get me everything you have on the photographer. And I want to be the one who puts the photographs in front of Marco. Not him discovering them. Me."

"Understood."

"And the crew," he says, after a beat. "The ones who've been asking questions."

"Declan's handling the loyalists."

"Declan's handling the loyalists. I'm talking about the ones in the middle who've been watching to see which way the wind goes." He meets my eyes. "There are men who've been with this family for a decade who are looking at those images and asking if we've compromised our own operation for a Russian national."

"I know."

"The vote needs to happen. Sooner than later. You need a formal confirmation."

I look at the window. "When."

"Two days. Give Declan the time to finish with the loyalists and then call the vote." He pauses. "You'll have it. But you need to do it formally so the middle knows where things stand."

"Arrange it. And Conor — about Ailish."