12. Keira
KEIRA
T hat night, I undress slowly, brush my hair with methodical care, and light the bedside candle as if the act might coax peace into the room.
It does not.
When the door opens and Ruairí enters, I am already sitting at the edge of the bed, spine straight, hands folded in my lap.
He does not speak at first.
He closes the door behind him and shrugs off his jacket, laying it over the chair near the window.
His sleeves are still rolled from brunch, and the faintest stain of fig syrup lingers at the cuff.
"You looked well at brunch today," he says, his voice quiet.
"I do what's expected," I reply, and when I meet his eyes, I see something in him tighten.
He crosses the room and sits beside me, close enough that I can feel the warmth of him.
His thigh brushes mine, and for a moment we sit like that, unspeaking.
"I want to go into town," I say at last.
He turns slightly, one brow lifted.
"What for? "
"Fresh air. Real noise. I need to remember the world is more than corridors and curated conversation."
It's not that I don't want to tell him.
It's more that I don't think he's equipped to handle this information just now.
He watches me for a long beat, then reaches out and smooths a strand of hair behind my ear.
The touch is gentle, but I feel it like an anchor.
"Tomorrow morning," he says.
"Lena goes with you."
I nod once.
No gloating.
No smile.
Just the quiet satisfaction of ground gained.
The next morning, Lena drives me to the side street where the midwife lives.
"Fifteen minutes," she says.
"But if you need more, I'll wait."
"She won't tell anyone?" I ask.
Lena glances at me, then ahead.
"Aoife delivered my sister's daughter. She knows how to keep a woman's secrets. She won't tell anyone,” She continues quietly, but not softly.
"Aoife doesn't talk. She listens. That's why the men don't trust her. They don't know what she's seen on those scans."
I nod and step out.
The green door at the side of the butcher's leads to a narrow staircase that smells of old onions and steam.
Upstairs, I knock once.
Aoife opens the door with a towel wrapped around her hair.
Her face is young, but her eyes are ancient, dark with the knowledge of a hundred women's silences.
The flat behind her is warm and faintly humming, low lights and closed curtains.
She steps aside and I enter, inhaling the scents of mint, cloves, and the faint antiseptic sting of wiped-down plastic.
She locks the door, slides the bolt.
"Coat off."
I strip down to my sweater.
The room is overheated but it suits her.
She has me sit on the plastic-covered settee, hands folded, eyes darting around the little kitchen like she's measuring my stress by the teaspoon count in the sink.
There's a teapot steaming on the counter, its whistle unplugged.
She pours two mugs, sets one in front of me, then sits on the ottoman and pushes a small rolling case out from beneath the table with her foot.
We drink in silence for a long while.
The window is fogged, the world outside blurred and soft like a memory.
She studies my face, searching for the part that might break.
"Your color's off. You've lost weight, and recently."
"Whoops."
She doesn't smile.
Instead, she opens the rolling case and lays out her tools.
No white coats or waiting-room gloss.
Just a portable ultrasound unit, clean gel bottles, and a blood pressure cuff held together with two kinds of tape.
She doesn't ask questions.
She reaches for my wrist, checks my pulse.
Presses at my neck, then the inside of my elbow.
The stethoscope tubing has been mended with heat-shrink and patience.
"Lie back."
I obey.
She lifts my sweater, rolls the waistband of my leggings just low enough, applies the gel without warning.
The device hums to life in her hands.
I don't look at the screen.
"Six weeks," she says, more to herself than me.
"No abnormalities. No sign of trouble. And there's two."
I stare at the ceiling, where a water stain has spread in the shape of a fish.
"Wow. That's a lot to process."
She helps me clean up.
"There's a pharmacy on Camden Street. Tell them you need a refill for Fr. O'Shea, and they'll give you the right vitamins. Who else knows?"
"Just Lena."
"You'll need to tell him. Sooner, not later."
I look at her, wondering if she's a mother or if she's ever wanted to be.
I wonder if she's just saying what she thinks I want to hear or if there's a part of her that envies this particular disaster.
"Is there risk?" I ask.
"Genetic. Hereditary."
She shakes her head.
"If you're asking about the Donnellys, you know there's nothing written down. If you're asking about him…" She trails off, thinking, then says, "The Crowleys breed survivors. That's all."
I laugh, because it's all I can do.
She stands, moves to the kitchenette, and comes back with an envelope.
"Inside is a number. It's for the next check-in. One month from today. Not before."
I slip the envelope into my back pocket.
"I need discretion."
"You have it, love."
I count out five bills from the wad in my coat, leave them on the table without folding.
Aoife watches them, then looks at me.
"If you want it gone," she says, "you need to decide now."
I shake my head.
"I want a lot of things, but not to end this."
She nods, and I show myself out.
Lena and I stop on the way for the vitamins, and then we return home in silence.
At the estate, I go straight to my room and spend an unreasonable amount of time cataloging every possible outcome, the way a chess player does in the half-second after a blunder.
Six weeks isn't enough time to change the board, but it's enough to see the shape of the game.
I think of Ruairí's face, how it will look if I tell him.
I pour myself a glass of water, drink half, then pour the rest into the vase on the desk.
These children belong to me.
I can already feel their presence in my blood and in my bones, sure as the very air I breathe.
There is no taking them from me.
What remains to be seen is whether Ruairí feels the same way .
I sit on the bed, press both hands to my stomach, and let the silence expand until it's all I can hear.
I am carrying the future of a family.
I am carrying the past, too, whether I like it or not.
I close my eyes, see Aoife's face, the worry in the corners of her mouth, and wonder once again if I should tell Ruairí, even though there are more moves left to make.
The uneasiness takes root, so I leave my room.
I make a show of normalcy, stopping at the kitchen for coffee, flipping through the day's newspaper, offering a nod to the cleaner.
For the rest of the day, I avoid the main floor.
I drift between the library, the empty guest rooms, the sunroom with its brittle, out-of-season light.
I read nothing, touch nothing, speak to no one.
Each room I enter is a new test of loyalty—who lingers, who vanishes, who pretends not to notice my presence.
The only constant is the sound of the house itself, the low moan of its pipes, the crack of its bones as the cold seeps in.
At dinner, I sit at the end of the table.
Ruairí takes his place at the head, flanked by two lieutenants I've never seen before.
Their conversation is all numbers and risk, the city's bloodless version of chess.
They do not include me, but they watch the way I eat, the way I hold the fork, the way I chew each bite as if it might be my last.
Ruairí doesn't ask about my morning.
Instead, he launches into a story about the port, how the Russians had tried to run a batch of cheap vodka through a Donnelly shell company, and how he'd forced them to drink the entire shipment as proof of good faith.
The men at the table laugh, but it's a hollow, practiced sound.
I smile, too, because the alternative is worse.
When dinner ends, I slip out before the brandy is poured.
I take the back stairs, the ones with the loose baluster at the midpoint, and move through the shadowed halls.
The day staff are gone, replaced by the men who do their work without light or audience.
The guards in the east corridor are doubled up, one at each end, both smoking with the windows cracked.
I pass them with a nod, counting their blinks.
I make my way to the third floor, to the old drawing room with its broken chandelier and the smell of mold.
I sit on the windowsill; legs curled up and watch the city through the slats.
In the distance, the shimmer of lights from the canal, the brief, bright flare of someone's kitchen window as they switch on for the night.
I watch until my eyes burn, until the only thing left is the afterimage of the city on my lids.
When I finally leave the room, it's late.
The house is darker, the air colder, and the only sound is the steady, metronomic tap of my own feet on the floorboards.
I walk with no aim, just a need to see if I'm still allowed.
At the end of the long west corridor, I pause.
There's a light on in the study.
I approach slowly, careful not to betray myself.
The door is open a fraction, just wide enough to see the edge of the desk and the silhouette of Ruairí, hunched over the phone, head bowed.
His voice is tense.
"That's not enough. I need proof of life before noon."
A pause, then, "I don't care how you get it. If they're bluffing, I want it on tape."
A click, a scrape of a glass on wood.
He lowers his voice, almost a whisper.
"If Connolly shows, you know what to do."
The name lands like a stone in my gut.
I feel the old panic, sharp and sour, claw its way up my throat.
Connolly is not a friend, not even an enemy.
He's a warning shot, a threat you make when you want to scare someone into thinking you've already won .
I step back, careful, and retrace my path.
The guards don't see me.
The windows show only darkness.
In my room, I pace the length of the carpet, counting the steps.
I replay the conversation, word for word, looking for the crack, the one thing that will make the world make sense.
If Connolly is in play, then the O'Duinns are out.
The Russians, too.
That leaves only the Italians, or worse, the council itself, the old men who sit in rooms and decide which bodies float to the surface next.
Connolly is a problem with too many variables.
Young, reckless, hungry for territory.
The sort of man who'd rather torch a rival's bar than negotiate.
I only met him once, at the wake for a mutual enemy.
He was already drunk by noon, and he spent the afternoon telling a story about a dogfight in Dún Laoghaire, how the underdog had turned on its own owner the second it lost.
He laughed at the punchline, but his leery eyes were on me the whole time.
I remember the feeling, the disgust that came with it.
If Ruairí is talking to him, it's not for muscle.
He has enough of that.
It's not for money, either.
Connolly is always broke.
That leaves only two options—information or insurance.
I sit at the window, knees tucked under my chin, one hand flat on my stomach.
The sky is so black it's blue, and the only light is the intermittent blink from the security towers at the back gate.
I trace their pattern, looking for any gap or hesitation, but the rotation is perfect.
Ruairí has trained them well.
I close my eyes and try to reconstruct the night my father died.
The phone call, the shout from the kitchen, the single gunshot muffled by the sound of the radio playing some old, soft song.
I see the blood on the tile, the way it pooled with no respect for grout lines or boundaries.
I see the faces of the men who came after—the clean-up crew, the council, even the priest who tried to pretend he didn't know what happened.
What I can't see, no matter how hard I try, is who pulled the trigger.
It doesn't matter.
The bullet is just the last move in a game that started years before.
What matters is the why.
I stand and walk the length of the window, counting the panes, then the guards outside, then the hours left until dawn.
The pregnancy is a problem, but it's also an opportunity.
I run the numbers again—three months until it shows, if I'm careful.
Two months before someone notices I'm not drinking at dinner.
Less than a week before the Connolly meeting goes from rumor to reality.
I consider my options.
Telling Ruairí is an eventuality, but not until he himself tells me what is going on.
These measly freedoms, the little talks we have, all of it is veiled in obscurity and the kind of half-truths that make no difference in the context of the real war.
This is about my family, my father, my legacy too.
If Ruairí wants a Crowley heir, he can have one.
But he should know by now—nothing born of Donnelly blood is ever so easy to control.
I stand, stretch the ache out of my legs, and make the bed.