24. Ruairí
RUAIRí
I have been at the makeshift headquarters not too far from the Donnelly estate for an hour.
My shirt sleeves are rolled to the elbow, the fabric cut by a blade of light that sneaks in through the kitchen window where the tape has peeled.
I pace the length of the room—ten steps from the table to the sink, eleven if I count the hop to avoid the loose floorboard near the radiator.
The first thirty minutes I spend checking the perimeter, not because I need to but because I need to do something with my hands.
I run the tip of a key along every seam of the window frames.
I lift each edge of the carpet, searching for microphones, trackers, the seeds of tomorrow's betrayal.
The only thing I find is a mouse trap, sprung and empty, and the faintest line of blood along the baseboard.
I wipe it with my thumb, then lick it, out of habit.
I check the radio, then the phone.
The radio hisses static, the kind that never resolves into a voice, just a bed of sound that says the world is still spinning.
I thumb through the pre-sets, each click a small admission that I don't want to be alone with my own head.
Nothing on the frequencies but Russian pop and the screech of distant taxi dispatchers.
I turn it off and listen to the silence, which is worse.
The phone, at least, offers the possibility of violence.
I check the call log—nothing.
I check the contacts, finger hovering over each name.
Lena, Niamh, Fiachra, Killian, Keira.
I stare at her name longest, as if I could will it to ring just by the force of wanting.
I set the phone down face-up on the table, daring it to betray me with bad news.
The place is too quiet.
My nerves itch.
The skin along my jaw is tight, and I feel the old urge to break something just to prove that I still have the power to do it.
I resist.
Instead, I wipe down the table, then the chairs, then the handles of every drawer and cupboard.
I don't know who will come after us, or when, but I want them to find nothing but the evidence of desperation.
I sit at the table, arms folded, and watch the door.
In the dead hours, my brain invents footsteps in the hallway, hands on the lock, the soft clink of a gun being readied outside.
I play out every scenario—the ambush, the slow approach, the surprise of a friend turned enemy.
I think about Fiachra and the way he'd probably just rip the door off its hinges and announce himself with a joke.
My knee bounces, leg never still, and I tap a pattern on the table top—three quick, three slow, three quick.
The old distress code, but also the rhythm of my own heart, thumping in my chest like it wants out.
I should call someone, but I don't.
I wait, because the game is patience, and the first to crack is the first to lose.
At the sixty-minute mark, I pour myself a glass of water from the tap.
The water is brown for the first second, then runs clear.
I drink it anyway.
I look up and catch my own reflection in the window, distorted by the layer of tape and grime.
I look like a ghost, or maybe a man who has been haunting this place.
At the exact moment when I feel like my head is about to implode, Lena shoulders through the doorway first, her coat a soaked animal, her face half hidden under a mop of black hair plastered to her forehead.
The adrenaline is still in her—she moves in quick jerks, hands never empty, mouth tight as if she's already chewing through the next problem.
She dumps the coat onto the nearest chair, where it oozes water onto the vinyl, and for a second she stands motionless, arms out, as if making sure the room will not collapse under her weight.
Behind her, Niamh appears.
No umbrella, no rain on her at all, as if she has convinced the weather to spare her out of mutual respect.
She is smaller than Lena, with eyes so pale they look like cracked marble, and she wears her composure like a badge of office.
She surveys the room, clocking me, then the table, then the position of the radio on the shelf.
She smiles, thin as a rumor.
Lena paces once around the table, then sits, legs wide, elbows on knees.
Her hands tremble just enough to betray her.
She grins at me, the flush in her cheeks still working its way down from her scalp.
"That was a fucker," she says, and the words are a dare.
"You see the front page yet?"
I shake my head, motion to the phone.
"You bring a print?"
She laughs, then digs in her bag.
She produces a folded sheet, wrapped in a plastic bag to keep the ink from running.
She tosses it across the table, where it lands with a slap.
The headline is block caps.
RUAIRí CROWLEY SPLITS WITH DONNELLY HEIRESS. CITY brACES FOR BLOOD .
The photo underneath is a shot of me, walking away from the headquarters, collar up, eyes shaded.
Niamh reads upside down, never moving her lips.
She glances at Lena, then at me.
"They bought it," she says, voice so flat it might as well be Morse.
"The break. The whole thing. It was perfect."
Lena rolls her eyes, but she's pleased.
She drums her fingers on the table, then glances at the radio as if expecting it to erupt in applause.
"The council thinks you finally came to your senses. That you took what you needed from the Donnellys, then cut loose. It took one morning for them to believe you'd knife your own wife just to get back in the will."
I shrug.
"They're not wrong."
Niamh laughs, quick and dry.
"That's what makes it work."
She moves to the window, peels up the edge of the cardboard, and peers out at the street.
Her reflection is a ghost, barely there, but her eyes flick back to me in the glass.
"Your enemies are exactly where we want them. Hungry, hopeful, and not half as clever as they think."
I pour water for Lena, then for myself.
The tap still runs brown for a second, but we let it settle.
I hand her the glass.
Her hands are steadier now, but her eyes keep darting to the door as if expecting the past to show up and demand an explanation.
Niamh circles the room, trailing her finger along the edge of the table.
"You should've seen them, Ruairí. The looks. O'Duinn's lot were drooling. They're already running side bets on whether you'll crawl back to Keira in a week or if you'll put a bullet in her before the next council meeting."
I say, "What's the spread?"
Lena barks a laugh.
"Even money on your making her disappear. Three to one she comes after you with a machete."
I let the smile curl at the edge of my mouth.
"They always underestimate her."
Niamh grins, all teeth.
"That's the genius of it. They think you've gone soft. That the new Crowley is a shell, a pawn for whatever girl gets to your zipper first."
I stiffen, but she's right.
That's the whole play.
Niamh slides into the chair opposite me, folds her arms, and leans in close.
"What's the next move?" she asks.
I glance at the radio, then the phone.
"We wait. Give them a day to get comfortable. If the council wants to test me, let them. The first shot comes from their side."
Lena snorts.
"You know they'll send someone by midnight. Just to be sure you're really out."
"Good," I say.
"Let them try."
Niamh studies me.
"You think Keira's ready?"
"She's always been ready," I say, and it's almost a confession.
"She just never had the excuse."
We sit in silence, the three of us, the only sound the drip of rain on the window and the faint hum of the fridge.
Niamh pushes the newspaper across the table until it's in front of me.
"You want to keep this? For the scrapbook?"
I look at the headline, the photo, the name they gave me.
I shake my head, then tear the page down the center, right through the heart of it.
The pieces fall to the floor, and we watch them settle.
"Let's see what they do next," I say.
Niamh's eyes are shining now, and even Lena looks alive for the first time in months.
The morning after, the city is already two days ahead of itself.
The news of the split has grown legs and teeth, each retelling uglier and more inventive than the last.
I watch the rumor metastasize in real time, from a whisper in a pub to a full-blown crisis on the breakfast radio.
Every fifth call on the burner is an update from the ground?—
"They're saying she begged you to stay. They're saying you took a swing at her."
"O'Duinn's crew are shopping odds on how long until someone ends up in the canal."
"The girls in Phibsboro think you're on suicide watch."
Even the guards at the station are talking about it, betting cigarettes on which one of us will burn first.
Niamh is a switchboard for pain, and she delights in every scrap of evidence that the machine is running hot.
She catalogs each escalation, a running tally of who's spreading which story and why.
"Your man with the nose from the docks? He's telling everyone you left because the babies aren't yours."
"Some fella in the flats says he saw you crying outside the pawn shop."
"One of Keira's own dropped a line to the papers—said you never loved her, that you were only in it for the money."
She smiles when she says it, not because it's funny, but because it means the plan is working.
Lena hates it.
She paces the length of the makeshift headquarters, muttering curses in two languages, hands twitching every time the radio spits static.
She wants to fight back, to phone Keira, to punch the next person who repeats the lie.
But she doesn't.
She keeps her mouth shut and her eyes open, scanning the window every half hour for the car that will pull up and end the whole game.
The Elders are officially involved by noon.
The call comes in on the radio, a coded phrase from a council member whose voice I know too well.
"They want to see you, Ruairí. They want to know what the fuck is going on."
The message is equal parts warning and invitation.
I laugh when I hear it, then turn the radio off and stare at the wall until the static fades from my head.
The spread is working.
The streets believe it, the guards believe it, even the old men at the betting shop believe it.