Page 83 of The Dangerous Dance

He steps forward.

"I was one of you," he says. "I stood where you're standing and I believed what Connolly was selling and I nearly used it to break something that didn't deserve to be broken." He holds the room's eyes with the specific authority of someone who has earned the right to say what he's saying through a morning in a courtyard that they all know happened. "I'm telling you that from where I'm standing now, it looks different. What we have with the Italians, what Liam's built — it doesn't look like what Connolly said it looked like."

He steps back.

The room is quiet.

"Three days," I say again.

They go.

Conor closes the door behind the last of them and turns to me with the expression he has when he's decided something. "Half of them will come back," he says.

"I know."

"The other half⁠—"

"Will make their choice," I say. "And we'll deal with it."

He nods.

Finn has crossed from the wall. He looks at me with the damage on my face and the specific quality of a man who has watched something difficult happen and is deciding what it means. "Well," he says.

"Well," I agree.

"Gianna is making dinner," he says. "She started this morning. She says it will be ready at seven and everyone is coming whether they want to or not."

I look at him. "Everyone."

"Everyone," he says. "Her word."

I think about Nadia at the safehouse, waiting. "I need to make a call first."

Finn nods. He doesn't ask who.

I go to the study and I close the door and I call the burner.

She picks up on the first ring.

"Liam," she says.

"I'm all right," I say, before she can ask. "It's done."

A pause. "And Declan."

"He's here," I say. "He's with us."

Another pause. Then: "Good." She says it with the flat certainty of someone who calculated for this outcome and is glad the calculation was correct. "How bad is your face."

"Mackenzie says it'll be difficult to explain at the Italian meeting."

"She's right." A pause. "Ailish called. She says Gianna is making dinner."

"Apparently everyone is coming whether they want to or not."

"I know," she says. "I want to."

I sit with that for a moment. "Then come," I say.