17. Keira
KEIRA
I wake with a start and a gulp of air.
The container is deceptively small.
Or maybe it's just that the bodies take up so much more space when they're no longer invested in personal boundaries.
Six of them, arranged by chance and physics—one folded at the waist like a discarded doll, two draped over each other in an embrace that means nothing, the rest scattered along the edges.
Blood everywhere, seeping into the grooves of the corrugated floor, glistening in the tracks where boots or knees or faces have been dragged.
Ruairí stands in the center of it, hair matted to his forehead, shirt torn open and dark with blood that isn't his.
He surveys the carnage like a man taking inventory at the end of a bad fiscal quarter—detached, but not unfeeling.
His eyes are clear and blue and utterly without remorse.
One of the Connolly men is still alive, a fact he advertises by groaning and clutching at the hole in his thigh.
He tries to pull himself toward the door, leaving a wet trail that would be poetic if anyone cared.
Ruairí glances at him, then looks away.
I see the calculation—leave the survivor, let him crawl out into the city, tell the story.
A message with more credibility than any body dumped in the canal.
My wrists burn.
I bring them up to my face and see the angry red grooves, the skin broken in places and caked with someone else's blood.
I test my hands—numb, but functional.
The left thumb is dislocated, hanging at an unnatural angle.
I pop it back in without thinking, and the pain wakes up the rest of my body.
The headache is immense, but compared to the rest, almost a relief.
I try to speak, but my throat is raw, and nothing comes out.
Ruairí turns to me then, as if he's been waiting for a cue only I could give.
He kneels; boots slick with blood and puts a hand on my shoulder.
It's gentle, not a gesture I would have expected after what I've just seen him do.
"Up you get," he says, voice low.
There's a tremor in it, but not the kind that comes from fear.
He lifts me by the elbows, careful to avoid the bruised spots.
My legs wobble, then remember their purpose.
I stand, swaying, and catch a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the container wall—face pale and streaked with sweat, hair plastered to my cheek, mouth set in a grim line that doesn't quite belong to me.
When we step outside, the cold comes at me with teeth.
It's colder than I remembered, the night having advanced while I was unconscious.
The sky above the docks is a thick blue, punctuated by the harsh floodlights from the nearby yard.
The ground is gravel, sharp and uneven.
The first breath I take fills my mouth with the stink of diesel and salt.
I make it two steps before I double over and vomit.
It's nothing but bile and acid, but the act is pure and total, an evacuation of everything that refuses to be processed by the mind.
I dry heave until I'm empty, then straighten, wiping my mouth with the back of my sleeve .
Ruairí doesn't flinch.
Instead, he shrugs off his ruined coat—custom-tailored, navy, probably worth thousands—and wraps it around my shoulders.
I'm so cold that the blood on the lining feels warm.
The coat hangs on me like a shroud.
He holds it closed at my collarbone, his hands slick with red and trembling just enough for me to notice.
Behind us, the survivor is still crawling.
He makes it as far as the edge of the loading dock, then collapses, face buried in the gravel.
Ruairí watches him for a moment, then looks down at me.
"We need to go," he says, softer now.
"Can you walk?"
I nod, or I think I do.
My feet move, and that's enough.
He keeps one hand on my back, steering me past the sprawl of bodies and out into the dark.
We leave the container behind, its door gaping like the mouth of a cave that never learned to swallow.
At the edge of the yard, there's a car.
Black, low, windows tinted.
Ruairí opens the passenger door and lowers me in, tucking the coat around my legs.
When he closes the door, the world shrinks to a muffled hush, the only sound the faint click of cooling metal and my own breathing.
I watch him through the windshield as he walks around to the driver's side, pausing to look back at the scene we've left.
He stands there for a second, silhouetted by the orange lights, then wipes his hands on his pants and slides in next to me.
I take a deep breath in as he starts the engine, and the heater comes on with a whoosh.
The warmth is immediate and almost intolerable.
We sit there, not moving, for what feels like forever.
I turn to him, searching his face for the thing I'm supposed to say.
He stares straight ahead, hands clenching and unclenching on the wheel .
"You let him live," I rasp.
He doesn't look at me.
"Someone has to tell the story."
I nod and lean back against the seat.
The coat is heavy, and the stains are starting to dry.
The car pulls away.
Ruairí drives with both hands on the wheel, knuckles white, jaw clenched.
Somewhere along the coast a fog has formed, rolling inland in loose, lazy spirals, softening the edges of the warehouses and cranes that border the docks.
Ruairí flicks the headlights to high and then low, like he's not sure what the situation demands.
I huddle in the passenger seat, his coat still wrapped around me, the blood stiffening at the seams.
My hands are raw, and I can't stop flexing them, watching the way the skin stretches over the tendons.
I press them to my stomach, just to remind myself of where I am in the world.
Ruairí keeps his eyes on the road, but every few minutes he glances at me, quick and sharp, as if he's checking a gauge that could redline at any moment.
His jaw works from side to side, and the knuckles on his right hand are swollen and beginning to bruise.
The left hand, which was gentle with me, rests on the shifter.
The radio is off.
Neither of us wants the news.
The only soundtrack is the low whine of the engine and the rhythmic slap of the windshield wipers.
The air in the car is a mix of leather and blood and the last traces of the docks.
We hit the bypass and take the old roads to the estate, bypassing the city proper, and I begin to realize how far they took me.
The fog thickens, turning the landscape into a negative—trees and hedges and half-seen stone walls rendered in black and white, all detail erased.
Every so often, we pass a car going the other way, and the flash of their headlights leaves ghosts on the glass .
I try to focus on the mundane.
I count the traffic cameras on the overpass, the broken reflectors in the median strip, the way the drive feels different now than it did that morning.
When we reach the long lane up to the house, the fog is so dense I can barely see the gate ahead.
The guards at the gatehouse wave us through.
Their faces are drawn and gray, and they do not salute or even look directly at Ruairí.
There is a message in their silence, but I am too tired to parse it.
Halfway up the drive, he pulls off to the verge and kills the engine.
The car ticks and settles, the heater blowing lukewarm air into the footwells.
We sit in the dimness, the house a smear of light far ahead, the world outside reduced to a single cone of visibility and the fog that presses in from all sides.
He doesn't speak.
He just sits, breathing slowly, fingers still clamped around the wheel.
I stare at the dash, then at my hands, then at him.
I try to line up the words in my head the way I practiced them.
The sequence is simple, but the delivery is always a risk.
"I have something to tell you," I say.
My voice is hoarse, but steady.
He nods, once.
I look down at my lap, then up at him again.
"I'm pregnant… with twins."
I expect a reaction—shock, anger, disbelief, anything.
Instead, he just looks at me, the blue of his eyes flat and unreadable.
He doesn't move, doesn't blink, just lets the statement settle in the air like the aftermath of a gunshot.
I wait, counting the heartbeats.
The silence stretches, then snaps.
He opens the driver's door and steps out into the fog.
For a moment, I think he's walking away, leaving me here to finish the drive alone.
But then he circles the hood, opens my door, and crouches down so we're level.
He puts his hand on the side of my face, just above the bruise at my jaw.
His palm is warm, but his thumb is cold and a little sticky with dried blood.
He leans in, so close I can smell the sweat and salt on his skin and presses his lips to my forehead.
He holds it for a long time, as if he's trying to memorize the shape of me with his mouth.
When he pulls back, his face is different—softer, but also harder, if that makes sense.
The lines around his eyes are deeper, and there's a new tension in the set of his shoulders.
"Did they know?" he asks, his voice so low it barely registers.
I nod.
"They did."
He closes his eyes, just for a moment.
Then he stands, brushes the dirt from his knees, and gently shuts my door.
He walks to the back of the car, lights a cigarette, and stares into the night.
The glow of the ember pulses in time with his breath.
I watch him through the window.
The fog swallows the smoke as soon as he exhales.
He was mindful enough to do this outside, with me in the car.
That alone surprises me, but he also came.
He saved my life.
He wouldn't have done it if I were nothing more than leverage.
He finishes the cigarette, flicks the butt into the ditch, and gets back in.
We drive the rest of the way in silence.
When we reach the house, he stops at the portico.
The housekeeper is waiting, her apron already stained with whatever the kitchen has prepped for tonight.
The guard at the door stands a little straighter but doesn't speak.
Ruairí turns to me before we get out.
His voice is calm, but there's an edge to it.
"They don't get to walk away from that."
It's not a threat.
It's a promise.
I follow him inside, my legs still shaky, and wonder which one of us is more afraid of the future.
Probably me.
But maybe not.
Everything is too bright inside.
The lamps in the foyer have been switched from the usual gold to something closer to daylight, which makes every surface seem exposed and suspect.
I step out of my shoes and let the housekeeper take my coat, her hands trembling as she tries not to touch the places where the blood has crusted dark.
Lena is waiting.
The moment she sees me; she runs over to wrap me in a hug which I return.
Sometimes, life puts you in situations that take a professional relationship to a different stage.
This happens to be one of them.
Ruairí doesn't pause.
He moves through the side hall, past the trophy wall with its photos of men who look too much like him, and into the service corridor where the guards change over at the half-hour.
They stand straighter as he passes, eyes fixed at a point just above his head.
I watch him walk as I trail behind, the way the muscles in his back bunch under the torn shirt, and for a moment he seems less a man and more the idea of one—unbreakable, relentless, entirely constructed for survival.
Fiachra is waiting at the end of the corridor, phone in hand, face set to grim.
He's traded the bloodstained windbreaker for a blazer, but there's a smear of something on the lapel and he hasn't noticed.
The overhead lights cast hard shadows down his cheeks, making him look older than usual, or maybe just tired in a new way.
He holds the phone out to Ruairí without a word.
On the screen, a grainy CCTV still shows the survivor from the container, face swollen and eyes wild, being carried into a clinic by two men in Connolly colors.
The timestamp is less than an hour old.
Fiachra says, "They're already denying. Whole council statement—no one authorized a move, nothing to do with them, old guard acting alone."
Ruairí watches the video in silence.
His face is unreadable, but I see the pulse in his jaw.
"They'll try to spin it," Fiachra adds.
"Say it was a freelancer. Maybe even blame you."
Ruairí hands the phone back and wipes his hand on his thigh.
"It was sanctioned."
Fiachra nods, the corners of his mouth twitching.
"Of course it was."
A pause, then, "You want to go public?"
"Not yet," Ruairí says.
He turns to me, and his eyes are the coldest I've seen them.
"If we answer now, they'll have cover. I want to know who gave the order first."
Fiachra glances at me, then leans in.
"There's something else."
Ruairí raises an eyebrow.
"What."
Fiachra lowers his voice, but the walls in this house are meant for secrets.
"They had your route. The time, the security detail, even the service entrance. Someone inside gave them the schedule."
For a moment, no one moves.
The world is as silent as the inside of a grave.
Ruairí's hand closes around the back of a chair, the wood creaking under the pressure.
"Who?"
Fiachra's jaw tightens.
"Still digging. But it's not random."
The realization hits in stages—the way the guards at the gate avoided our eyes, the new cook who never speaks above a whisper, the cleaner who swapped shifts last minute.
The house feels suddenly porous, every surface a potential transmitter, every silence a trap.
I say, "It could be anyone."
Fiachra nods.
"Could be everyone."
Only at this point do I allow the exhaustion to take over.
My head swims and I take a wobbly step.
Ruairí notices and is with me in a second, holding me in his arms as I finally let go.