Page 70 of Crown of Thorns

"Is there? From Lorcan's perspective."

"Lorcan doesn't know I'm making this call."

The words hang between us. This is the line. This is the threshold where I step out from behind his shadow and into my own authority.

"If he finds out," Roisín says carefully, "he'll be angry."

"Probably."

"He might retaliate against you."

"I'm counting on the fact that he won't."

Roisín laughs. It's a sound without edges. "You're more interesting than I expected, Mrs. Gallagher. Ailish will be returned to Baggot Street within the hour. Unharmed. Consider it a professional courtesy."

She hangs up.

I sit with the phone in my hand and I understand what I've just done. I've given an order. I've made a decision that could start a war. I've acted without authorization, without consultation, without the safety net of Lorcan's operational knowledge.

I've become an operative.

The girl is delivered two hours later. She's intact. Scared. Crying. But alive. Mrs. Fahey takes her to a safe house and I don't ask questions about where. I don't want operational knowledge that could be extracted under pressure. I don't want details that could compromise anything.

That's how you survive. You build walls between what you know and what you do.

I spend the afternoon at St. Cillian's church.

The pews are empty. The light comes through stained glass and lands in colored pools on the stone floor. I sit and I look at my steady hands. These hands that examined a wounded foal in Galway. These hands that held Lorcan's bruises and asked about ice. These hands that just ordered a threat neutralized.

The same hands.

I can't tell which woman I am anymore.

The first woman—the veterinarian—was real. That was genuine. I had purpose and skill and a world that made sense.

The second woman—the operative—is also real. She can make phone calls and understand consequences. She can weigh lives like mathematics and choose strategic outcomes. She's efficient and cold and effective.

But they're not the same person. I'm not sure they can coexist.

I'm not sure it matters.

When I get home, Lorcan is waiting in the library.

His face is completely blank. Operative face. That terrifying emptiness that means he's calculated everything and is running through responses.

"You called Roisín Doyle," he says.

I don't deny it. "Yes."

"You gave an order to neutralize a threat."

"I prevented a girl from being murdered for her father's choices."

"That's not your decision to make."

"Why not?" I walk to the bar and pour whiskey because I need something to hold. "I'm part of this family. You keep saying I'm part of it. I'm your wife. I have authority."

"Authority I gave you."