Page 79 of The Dangerous Dance

"How are you," he says.

"Ready," I say.

"That's not what I asked."

"It's what I've got."

He drinks his coffee. He looks at the window. "Gianna's with Mackenzie," he says. "Your sister was awake when we arrived. She was waiting."

"She doesn't sleep before something like this."

"Neither do you, from the look of it." He meets my eyes. "Liam. Are you certain about this approach."

"Yes."

"Not the principle of it. The timing. After last night, after Connolly — Declan's not in his steadiest place. You're asking him to do something physically demanding when he's⁠—"

"I know where he is," I say. "I was in the courtyard with him last night too." I hold Finn's gaze. "Which is exactly why today is the right day. He's raw. He's angry. Not at me, not anymore — at himself, at Connolly, at the months of it. He needs to put that somewhere and so do I and this is the place to put it."

Finn is quiet for a moment. "And after."

"After, we talk. The way we should have talked six months ago." I look at the window. "I need him back, Finn. Not cooperative. Not managed. Actually back. And there's only one way to get there with Declan."

"Through his fists," Finn says.

"Through his fists," I agree. "It's not elegant."

"No." A pause. "It's honest, though." He drinks his coffee. "He'll accept the outcome, whatever it is. You know that."

"Yes. Because he's not Connolly. He never was."

Finn looks at me with the expression he has when something lands in a way he didn't expect. "No," he says. "He never was."

Mackenzie finds me twenty minutes before.

She comes to the courtyard where I've been standing for the last quarter hour doing the thing I do before things — the specific stillness of a man who has done his preparation and is now waiting for the moment to arrive. She walks across the grey concrete in her coat and her boots and she stands beside me and she doesn't say anything for a while.

Then: "I hate this."

"I know."

"Not the principle. The watching." She crosses her arms against the cold. "I can handle the principle. I understand what it is and why." She looks at the courtyard. "I hate watching the two of you—" She stops. "You're my brothers."

"I know, Kenzie."

"Both of you." She says it with the specific fierceness of someone who needs to make sure the point lands. "Whatever comes out of this today, you're both still my brothers."

"I know that too."

She looks at me sideways. "Don't let him hit you in the face more than twice. You have an Italian meeting next week and you already look tired."

Something moves through my chest that is not amusement and is adjacent to it. "I'll do my best."

"Also," she says. "I spoke to her this morning."

I look at her. "Nadia."

"She called Ailish at seven and Ailish passed the phone to me because Ailish was driving." She meets my eyes. "She said to tell you she'll be at the safehouse tonight. That she'll wait."