26. Keira
KEIRA
A s part of our negotiations with Padraig, Moretti is coming, but he doesn't know Ruairí and I are a united front.
The sky above Dún Laoghaire is a chemical wash—gray-on-gray, dense as lead, the kind of weather that makes you feel like even your bones have been smudged out by the lack of contrast.
The cathedral where he will be is three stories of Protestant stone and salt-warped glass, doesn't so much rise as it does endure—blacked out by centuries, hulking and low-slung, built to outlast memory if not faith.
The flagstones in the courtyard are still slick from last night's rain.
Every step up to the front doors is an audition for slipping, but I keep my pace flat and even, letting the heels of my boots slap a warning before me like the tap of a judge's gavel.
My coat—charcoal, high-necked, double-breasted—reaches all the way to the ground, flaring at the hips, cut with enough care to make the children underneath disappear, at least until you know how to look.
The weight is reassuring, an armor I pay for with heat and breath.
I keep my hands in the pockets until I reach the door.
Then I flex my fingers—twice, to chase the sting of old scars—before pulling them free in the open.
Lena keeps a step behind and half a step to the left.
She wears the same navy parka as always, hood up, drawstrings biting into the curve of her jaw, every motion reduced to its minimum signature.
Her left hand rides high, clutching something beneath the jacket, her right hand always exposed, loose, ready.
The only other hint of preparation is the way she scans every window, every possible vantage, her eyes flicking with the predatory micro-movements of a night hunter.
I do not speak to her.
We know our lines.
No cars in the lot.
No tail.
No Crowley men visible, though I can feel them—somewhere in the grid, waiting for the clock to start.
The main doors are unlocked.
Not even an usher or a guard.
I push through and take the aisle, the air inside instantly colder, sharper, the salt in it turned electric by the lack of heat and the leftover ghosts in the mortar.
The windows have been wiped so clean, I can see the little whorls of someone's thumbprints at the corners.
The pews have been swept, the stone floor free of any of the usual urban detritus.
But the real work is in the sound—every footstep, every breath, every click of my tongue is a gunshot in the vacuum.
It's not a church.
It's a stage, set and ready for one act only.
The altar is lit by six votive candles and the pale slant of winter sun.
Five men sit in the front three pews, spread for coverage, each wearing a suit that cost more than my father's house.
The fabric is too dark, too crisp, the kind of navy and black that only looks right on a corpse or an undertaker.
Their shoes are pointed, their cuffs visible, their hands folded but never relaxed.
Each man is younger than he should be, but old enough to have seen what happens when you fall asleep in this city.
At the foot of the altar, Luca Moretti waits.
He is not the oldest of them.
Not even the tallest. But the others orbit him, arranging their gazes to follow his cues.
He leans against the marble rail with one foot up, the casual pose of a man who expects to be obeyed.
In his right hand is a glass of whiskey, not wine, and the way he holds it—stem between two fingers, never touching the bowl—tells me he has never taken a drink he didn't expect to finish.
He smiles when I enter, not wide, just a little upturn at the corners.
"Thank you for coming, Mrs. Crowley," he says.
The accent is Italian, but not the singsong kind.
Naples, I'd bet.
A city with as many vendettas per capita as Dublin, maybe more.
"It's time for new blood," he continues.
"You know that. We all do."
I glance at the men behind him.
None of them move.
I count two bulges—shoulder and hip—but nothing on the ankles.
All are right-handed.
The closest has a wedding ring, the rest have only knuckle bruises for jewelry.
I walk up the aisle, never speeding, never slowing.
I unbutton the top two buttons of my coat as I go but keep the rest cinched.
My gloves are lambskin, black, lined with cashmere.
I remove them one finger at a time, the way my mother taught me, and lay them on the altar rail beside Luca like a peace offering or a challenge, depending on which way you read it.
Lena stays at the back, one row deep, and I can feel the tension in her stance like a string drawn taut.
Luca doesn't look at the gloves.
He lifts his glass and takes a sip, then gestures to the open space in front of the altar .
"Would you join me?"
His English is perfect, but there's a rhythm to the invitation that is neither command nor request.
I step forward until the difference between us is half a meter, then stop.
He looks down at the whiskey.
"Redbreast. Ten years. I hope it's acceptable."
I watch him, then say, "I prefer it neat. But I'm not drinking."
He nods, and for a moment his eyes dart—left, then right, then up to the clerestory window above.
"I heard," he says, voice softer now, "that you are expecting. Congratulations."
There it is.
The opening.
I run my tongue over the back of my teeth.
"That's not public."
He shrugs.
"In our world, nothing is private."
He waits for me to answer, but I don't.
Instead, I reach for the buttons at my waist and undo them, one by one, until the coat hangs open enough to reveal the new curve beneath.
I am not huge yet, but there's no hiding the architecture of my body—a silhouette drawn by hunger and intent, then painted over by something almost accidental.
The air in the cathedral shifts.
The men in the pews look away—some with the reflex of courtesy, some with the calculation of a new variable added to the problem set.
Luca is the only one who keeps his eyes level, though he does not smile now.
I let the coat fall open, not wide, just enough.
My blouse is the same black as the coat, but softer, almost translucent in the cold light.
He studies me.
"You are very brave," he says, and it's almost a compliment .
"Or very stupid," I reply, and that's when I see the edge he's been holding back.
He smiles again, but this time it's all business.
"Padraig said you were done with the Crowleys. That you wanted to make use of what you'd learned and build something smarter—less Irish, more... international."
He tips the glass at me.
"I'm here to give you that place."
I tilt my head.
"You think that's what I want?"
He shrugs.
"Everyone wants something. Even you."
I put my hand on the edge of the altar, cold stone under my palm.
"You know why I'm here?"
He lifts the glass.
"To negotiate."
I look him in the eye, and for a second it's just the two of us, the world balanced on the pivot of a single, sharp moment.
I say, "No. I'm here because I want you to see what the future looks like."
He glances at my belly, then at my hand on the stone.
He gets it, then.
Not all at once, but in increments—the empty parking lot, the absence of Crowley muscle, the fact that I brought only Lena and no one else, the slow, deliberate reveal.
For the first time, I see doubt.
Not much, but enough.
He sets down the glass.
His hands are empty now.
I lean in, voice so low it barely carries.
"You said it yourself. It's time for new blood."
He waits.
"That's exactly why I'm here," I say.
And then I smile, and in the stone and the silence, the echo is sharper than a gunshot.
The silence in the cathedral doesn't last.
The first thing I notice is the sound of the door—a whisper, not a bang, but it's enough.
Every muscle in my back tightens on cue, and I see the way the Italians' heads swivel, four in near-perfect unison, eyes narrowing to slits as if they could outstare the oncoming storm.
Only Moretti keeps his gaze on me, his chin dipping half a centimeter in recognition of the move about to come down.
Crowley men flow in through the narthex.
Not stomping, not rushing—just the smooth, sure cadence of men who have nothing left to learn about how to enter a room.
Fiachra is at the tip, the architecture of his body promising violence and delivering certainty.
Killian's behind him, then two others—faces I know but don't name—draped in borrowed clergy robes, the hems still wet from wherever they fished them out of.
The disguise is theatrical, but sometimes theatre is all it takes to get a man within striking distance.
They fan out with math-level precision—Fiachra straight up the aisle, Killian drifting left, the two in robes peeling off to bracket the pews from either side.
For a half second, I see the panic calculation on the face of the nearest Italian, a tic at the corner of the jaw as his hand moves for his jacket.
Too slow.
The first flash of action is Lena's.
She steps forward, almost daintily, then snaps her booted foot against the riser of the nearest pew.
A communion knife—thin, curved, designed for slicing the holy out of the everyday—slides into her palm, the blade still flecked with old silver polish.
She moves behind the Italian at the aisle end and draws the edge across his throat with such efficiency that there's no sound at all, not even a gurgle.
He stays upright for a moment, then folds sideways, the blood jetting in a perfect parabola onto the lapels of the man next to him.
At the same time, Killian produces a compact subgun from under his fake cassock, the suppressor no longer than my ring finger.
The muzzle pops twice, two coughs in the dead air.
The man he's aiming at takes both in the chest—white shirt blooming, not red but a deep, impossible purple—before he falls backward into the pew, shoes skidding on the polished stone.
The next Italian is on his feet, gun halfway out, but Fiachra is already on him.
No bullets.
Just a straight-arm shiv, the blade driving up under the ribcage, then a twist that pulls the man's gun hand out and away, useless.
Fiachra's free hand catches the Italian by the hair, slams his face down on the pew back, then lets go.
The body lands with a dull thud and a flutter of rosary beads.
Through all this, Moretti stands still.
He holds the whiskey, now trembling just a bit, and watches the world disassemble itself around him.
His men are dying in increments, but he does not reach for a weapon.
He just stares, as if the outcome has already been written and he's stuck playing out the scene for form's sake.
Lena moves next to the altar, her hands covered now, the knife tucked back into her boot.
She looks at me, a little nod, as if to say—Your turn.
I look at Moretti.
He tips the glass at me, then drains it.
"Well played," he says in a voice as dry as salt.
He tries to smile, but Fiachra doesn't wait for the full performance.
He raises his own gun—a stubby, battered thing—and puts two rounds through Moretti's spine, one through the ribs.
The shots are muffled but not silent.
Moretti's legs fold.
He drops the glass, catches himself on the altar, then slumps down, blood pooling at the hem of my coat.
He's not dead.
He's gasping, paralyzed, arms trembling as he tries to get a last word out.
I kneel beside him, careful not to let the blood touch my knees.
I watch his lips move, watch his pupils dilate and contract as if they're arguing with the amount of light left in the world.
For a moment, I almost pity him.
Behind me, the two surviving Italians are on their knees, wrists bound with plastic wire, mouths clamped shut.
One weeps silently, the tears streaking through the blood on his cheek.
The other just stares at the far wall, refusing to blink, refusing even to beg.
Fiachra wipes his blade on the dead man's sleeve, then steps back, giving me the stage.
Lena and Killian check the bodies, pulse and pocket, making sure no one is going to get up and rewrite the ending.
The cathedral is not quiet anymore.
The echo of gunshots and the metal tang of blood have given the air a vibration, a kind of hum that lives just under the threshold of hearing.
I breathe it in, let it settle in my lungs.
Only then do I notice Ruairí.
He enters from the north side, coat unbuttoned, no urgency in his walk, just the long stride of a man coming home at the end of a shift.
He steps over the dead, nods to Fiachra, then turns his eyes to me.
There is nothing theatrical about him.
No raised voice, no gesture.
He comes to stand beside me and looks down at Moretti, who is still alive, just barely.
He says, "We're done here."
And I nod.
The last two Italians kneel, hands shaking, waiting for a verdict.
The Crowleys—what's left of them—stand ready to make history out of the rest.
I look at Ruairí, and for the first time all day, I let myself feel the chill.
He looks back, and the edge in his eyes is the only warmth I need.
We walk out together, past the dead and the dying, past the men who have already chosen which side of history to stand on.
At the threshold, I look back just once, to where the blood is soaking into the old stone, the last of the ghosts being fed.
In the cold air outside, I button my coat and take Ruairí's arm.
Tomorrow, the stories will say it was a massacre.
But they won't know the truth.
The truth is, there are no more wars.
Only what you're willing to become.
We step out into the gray, and the sky breaks open, just a little, letting in enough light to see the future.
I walk into it with my captain, unafraid.