Chapter 9 Alessandro #2
Doyle stares at Killian. He looks betrayed. He looks confused. But slowly, incrementally, he lowers the Sig.
"You're making a mistake, Killian," Doyle mutters.
"If I am, it's mine to make," Killian says. He doesn't move until every gun is lowered. Then he turns to me. "Stay close."
I stay close.
We walk past the men. I can feel their eyes on my back, heavy with hate.
The interior of the bar is dim. It smells of stale beer, sawdust, and the accumulated archaeology of decades of Kavanagh business conducted over whiskey and loyalty. It is a place that feels lived in, worn down by heavy boots and loud arguments.
The bodies are in the back room.
Killian pushes the door open.
It’s a small office, cluttered with crates and files. In the center of the floor, two men are laid side by side.
They are young. Maybe twenty. They look like they were surprised. No defensive wounds visible from here.
The violence is brutal—blunt force to the head, concentrated, efficient. The same methodical distribution Killian identified at the warehouse.
And around each man's throat, knotted with deliberate precision, is a length of silk.
Burgundy silk.
I freeze.
It is the exact shade and weave of the ties I wear. The ties my tailor in Milan sources from a specific mill in Como. The ties I have worn to every negotiation for the past five years.
I crouch beside the nearest body. I inspect the knot.
It is a half-Windsor. My knot.
The length has been cut from what appears to be an actual tie—the edges are clean, sheared with fabric scissors. I touch the fabric. It is authentic. Heavy silk. Expensive.
Someone purchased my ties. Studied my knot. Killed two men and dressed them in my signature.
"It's a mirror," I whisper. "The coin for my man. The tie for yours."
"Who found them?" Killian asks. He is standing over the bodies, his hands clenched into fists, his body vibrating with a rage so potent it feels like heat.
"I did."
The voice comes from the corner of the room.
I turn.
Rory Kavanagh is sitting on a crate in the shadows. He looks small. His face is the color of ash. He is holding a sketchbook against his chest like a shield.
He stands up as we look at him. His green eyes—Killian's eyes, a shade lighter—are wide, fixed on the bodies with an expression that cycles through horror, fury, and a cold, assessing intelligence.
"Rory," Killian breathes. He crosses the room in two strides and grabs his brother by the shoulders. "What are you doing here?"
"I was working," Rory says, his voice thin. "In the studio space. I heard... I heard a noise. By the time I came out, they were gone. And the boys were..." He gestures to the floor.
"Did you see them?"
"No. Just the back of a car. Black sedan. No plates." Rory looks at me. His gaze sharpens. He points at the dead man's neck. "The knot's wrong."
I look at him. "What?"
"It's a half-Windsor," Rory says, his voice shaking but gaining strength. "You tie a full Windsor. I've seen the surveillance photos. I've drawn it. The knot is too small. The loop is inverted."
I look back at the tie. He's right. It mimics the shape, but the execution is flawed. It’s a superficial copy.
"Someone did their homework," Rory says. "But not enough."
Killian pulls Rory into a hug. It’s fierce, desperate. He holds his brother like he’s checking for broken bones. Then he pulls back, his hands framing Rory’s face.
"Go home," Killian orders. "Take Brennan. Lock the doors. Do not leave the apartment until I call you."
"Killian, I can help—"
"Go!" Killian roars. It scares Rory into silence. "I can't do this if I'm worrying about you. Go."
Rory nods. He grabs his bag. He shoots me one last look—a look that says if he dies, you die—and slips out the side door.
Killian watches him go. He takes a breath, shuddering and deep. Then he turns to me.
"We need to leave," he says. "Before Doyle decides to ignore my orders."
We leave.
The walk back to the car is a gauntlet. The men outside are silent now, but the air is thick with the promise of violence. I can feel the target painted on my back.
Killian drives. Slower this time. The urgency has metabolized into something denser—a focused, grinding awareness that fills the vehicle the way pressure fills a submarine.
His hands are at ten and two on the wheel. The blood from his cracked knuckle has dried in a dark line across his finger. He stares at the road, the rain lashing against the windshield in rhythmic sheets.
"The coin for your man," he says quietly. "The tie for mine."
"Mirrored provocations," I say. "Each one designed to implicate the other family. Specific. Personal."
"Using our own signatures. Our own histories." His grip tightens on the wheel until the leather creaks. "Whoever is running this knows us. Knows our families, our methods, our pressure points. They know what will make your brother reach for a gun and what will make my men point theirs at you."
"A psychological operation," I agree. "Designed to accelerate conflict."
"It's more than that."
He looks at me. The dashboard lights cast his face in shadow, cutting his features into sharp relief. The green eyes are vivid, burning with that intelligence the reports failed to capture.
"They sent me a photo of Rory," he says. "They killed your driver. They murdered my men with your tie. Every move is designed to push me further from you and closer to a breaking point."
He stops at a red light. The brake pedal brings the car to a halt that feels heavier than physics warrants. The wipers slap back and forth. Swish. Swish.
"They aren't trying to start a war between our families, Alessandro."
It's the first time he's used my name in the car. It sounds different now.
"They're trying to make me kill you."
The words land in the car like a detonation in a sealed chamber. No escape. No diffusion. Just the concussive force of a truth that reorganizes everything I thought I understood about the last twenty-four hours.
The red light paints his face in crimson. In that light, with that truth settling between us, the man sitting beside me is not my enemy. He is not my ally. He is not my husband.
He is the weapon someone is trying to aim at my head. And he just told me where the trigger is.
The light turns green.
Neither of us moves.
I look at him. I look at the hands that strangled me last night, the hands that pulled a gun on his own men tonight to save me.
"Then we have to disappoint them," I say.
Killian looks at the road. He shifts the car into gear. The engine growls.
"Yeah," he says. "We do."
We drive into the dark, two targets in a black sedan, heading back to a glass cage that is the only safe place left in the city.