11. Keira
KEIRA
T he next day, I take my hour at sunrise, beginning in the service corridor.
The window above the delivery hatch is just wide enough for my nose and one eye.
Outside, a van the color of nicotine stains idles with the lights off, one tire flat enough to sag into the mud.
The bakery logo is a faded sticker—a sheaf of wheat and a child with outstretched arms.
No one ever ordered the van to be painted over.
Ruairí's people don't see the point in appearances, not out here.
I time the delivery down to the second.
The van door slides open.
The supplier steps out, all bulk and navy windbreaker, the local accent thick enough to butter a tray of scones.
The man is new, or at least new to the job, which means the route is vulnerable for a week or two before it sets in.
He grunts as he hoists the first sack of flour, balancing it against his chest like a child that might squirm or bite, then trundles up the ramp to the hatch.
My hands are ready before he even knocks.
I have the kitchen clipboard—today's orders clipped to the top, yesterday' s inventory already signed off—and the stub of pencil sharpened to a needle.
When I open the hatch, the cold hits me like a reprimand, but I smile with my teeth.
"Delivery's early," I say.
He shrugs.
"Roadworks at the canal. Missed the backup."
I sign the invoice with the blunt end of the pencil and hand it back, my left hand moving without hesitation, right hand palming the folded note.
He isn't looking.
No one ever is.
I wedge the note between the triplicate sheets, sandwiched tight, and slide it into the creased clear envelope that sits on top of the next flour sack.
There's a science to this.
Weight on the bottom, documentation on the top.
The man's hands are rough, fingers squared off, nails clean but not recently.
He does not check the order.
He just nods and sets the flour sack down on the steel trolley.
Inside the note, the question is simple, couched in handwriting that is not mine.
Was the Wexford shell company ever under a Donnelly alias before the transition?
Please confirm, N. K.
The signature is the important part.
If she's still alive, she will know the answer without blinking.
The man loads two more sacks.
I watch the arc of his back, the way the muscles bunch and release under the jacket, how the tattoos on his wrist peek out when he turns.
He keeps his head down and never looks at me, not even when I fake a cough to mask the click of the hatch.
When the trolley is loaded, he tips a finger to his brow, half salute, and heads back out.
The whole transaction takes less than four minutes.
No one passes, no one speaks, the only witness the mottled gecko clinging to the ceiling above the fuse box, whose tongue flicks every so often in boredom or anticipation.
I wheel the trolley into the pantry.
The kitchen staff won't touch it until the shift changes at eleven.
I have that long to make sure the note stays put.
I wedge the sack with the envelope against the wall, then cover it with a folded linen napkin, one corner sticking out just enough to seem accidental.
The key is to never look twice at the same thing.
As I turn, I catch the soft tread of feet in the corridor.
The guard rotation is predictable, and this is not the right time.
I step into the shadow between two refrigeration units, slow my breathing.
The footsteps pause at the end of the corridor, then resume, softer now.
A figure steps into view at the far end of the corridor.
She wears black from collar to boot heel, the cut of her jacket crisp enough to suggest tailoring, but not luxury.
Her build is unmistakable, broad across the shoulders, compact through the hips, every step placed with the kind of precision that doesn't need to advertise its strength.
Her hair is pulled back in a tight coil, not a strand out of place, and her eyes hold steady, pale and unreadable, the kind of pale that does not reflect light but absorbs it.
There is nothing soft about her.
Not the way she stands, not the way her hands remain visible at her sides without resting.
She is not trying to look harmless.
She is not pretending she belongs here.
She does, and she knows it.
We watch each other for a moment that stretches long enough to carry weight.
I do not move.
Neither does she.
Then I step out from between the refrigeration units, rolling my sleeves to the elbow like I have done this a thousand times.
"Didn't realize the corridor was occupied," I say, my voice even.
Her head tilts just slightly, a gesture so minimal it barely qualifies as acknowledgment.
"Lena," she says.
"Assigned to you as of this morning. "
The words are delivered without ornament, without explanation.
"Bodyguard?" I ask.
She nods.
"Ruairí's orders."
Of course they are.
I shrug, push the trolley toward her, and as I pass, I watch her watching me.
She does not glance at the trolley, nor at the sack with the note.
Her gaze is fixed on my face, as if she's waiting for the truth to fall out and shatter at her feet.
"Anything you need, just let me know," she says, and this time there is the suggestion of a smile, thin as paper.
"I'll do that," I reply.
I leave her in the corridor, the echo of my footsteps retreating into the stone as I head to my room and begin preparations for a brunch that I have to host.
After showering and dressing, I make my way to the kitchen, where the crew have begun preparing the sauces.
I arrange the floral centerpieces myself, heavy blooms in low crystal bowls, thistle and black peony and blood-colored rose, all nodding slightly from the weight of their own beauty.
The staff knows better than to interfere.
I choose the menu in full—roasted quail with spiced honey glaze, griddled sourdough with rosemary butter, smoked tomatoes slick with oil, a sugared tart of late-season figs.
By eleven, the house is full of polished voices and silver.
A brunch for five—mostly wives, one cousin with hungover eyes.
I wear cream silk with pearl buttons and a lipstick too red to be ignored.
I pour coffee from a French press with a steady hand, make conversation with the skill of someone who once watched her mother hold court during a siege.
Ruairí appears near the end, unannounced, his sleeves pushed past his elbows.
His presence reshapes the table, quiets it.
He kisses the curve of my temple like he means it, takes the last seat, and eats a fig with the careful indifference of a man who knows every eye is on him.
Our fingers brush once, by accident or design, near the sugar bowl.
The touch is nothing.
The touch is everything.
I refill his coffee, lean close enough for the scents of bergamot and citrus to drift off my skin, and say, too softly for anyone else, "You should try the quail."
His smile is small and unreadable.
He tries the quail.
That night, long after the guests are gone and the halls are quiet again, Lena knocks once on my door.
I glance over, and she steps inside, a stack of clean towels pressed to her chest.
She sets the towels down on the sideboard and lingers, arms crossed, gaze fixed just above my head.
There's no preamble, no "Sorry to disturb," no performance of duty.
She is here because she wants to be, or at least because she has something to deliver that cannot be left at the door.
She crosses to the window, close enough that I can smell her hair—cypress and the faint salt of her own skin.
She stares out at the grounds, her face composed, but her hands betray her.
She worries the seam of her sleeve, thumb running back and forth in a rhythm that is not quite nervous and not quite calm.
"Long night?" she asks, voice low.
"They all are," I say.
She nods, the ghost of a smile flattening her lips.
"You're lucky. Most people don't sleep at all their first month here."
"I'm not most people."
This time, she does smile.
She leans against the jamb, folding her arms tighter, and looks past me to the moonlit path leading down to the orchard.
"There's something you want to know," I say, not a question .
She hesitates.
The silence swells, not awkward but charged, like the pause before a dropped glass hits tile.
"I saw you," she says, finally.
I wait, exhaling smoke through my nose.
"In the service corridor."
"And?"
"I didn't see anything I wasn't meant to."
She shifts weight to her left foot.
"But if someone else had?—"
"They didn't."
She considers this.
"Good."
She lets the silence return, but now it's easier, more like sharing a blanket than a cell.
I tap the window with my finger, counting the lights that dot the outer wall.
"How long have you worked here?" I ask.
"Three years."
She doesn't look at me.
"Long enough."
I nod, weighing the response.
"And before?"
A pause.
"I was in Kildare. Nanny job. Didn't suit me."
I wonder, briefly, who hires a bodyguard as a nanny, but I do not ask.
Instead, I watch her reflection in the glass, the way her eyes move when she thinks she's being subtle.
"You're loyal to the house," I say, "but not to him."
She shrugs.
"I'm loyal to what I'm protecting."
Her voice is careful, measured, as if she's reading the script for the first time.
We let that hang, the only sound the tick of the hallway clock through the closed door.
I stub out my cigarette, rolling the butt between my fingers.
"Thank you," I say, and it's more loaded than I mean it to be.
She holds my stare for a second, then nods.
"He's not all bad," she says, soft enough that I have to lean forward to hear it, "but be cleaner next time."
I watch her walk out, the click of the door almost a kindness.
When the room is empty again, I stare at the moon, replaying every word, every glance, every flicker of meaning until I fall asleep.
The days spill over one another, and I fill them with work.
My father's records are meticulous, but they stop abruptly the week before his death.
The last entries are in a different hand, blocky and rushed, as if someone else had taken over the accounting and wanted to finish quickly.
I study these pages until the numbers blur, but the pattern never changes—Wexford, followed by an Italian name, followed by a dash and a string of figures that make no sense.
I write the Italian name on a slip of paper, over and over, until it loses meaning.
At night I dream of the port, the hulking cranes moving in slow, balletic arcs, the glow of container ships on the water.
I dream of my father, alive and whole, sitting at the kitchen table with a pen between his teeth, the taste of ink staining every word he speaks.
In the dreams, he never dies.
He just disappears, the chair still warm, the ledger open to the last page.
On the seventh day, I find a thin, battered volumed wedged between two obsolete tax codes titled, Import/Export Compliance, 1978 .
The Donnelly crest is stamped on the flyleaf, and inside is a folded sheet of paper, so old the edges have browned to transparency.
I slide it out, careful not to tear, and read:
Broker—Cesare Rizzo.
Date—March 17, 1998.
Cargo—Sealed per previous arrangement.
Contact—See attached.
There is no attached.
But the name—Rizzo—leaps out at me.
It's the same name from my father's files.
The same name in Ruairí's records, circled twice.
The same name the Italian broker used when he came to the house the night before my father was shot.
My hands shake, but only a little.
I refold the paper, tucking it into my sleeve, and close the book with a soft thud.
A minute later, a sudden, swift wave of a nausea rolls over me, so absolute that I have to run, and almost trip, to the nearest bathroom.
I barely make it before my stomach turns inside out, and only then can I look at myself in the mirror.