16. Cillian
CILLIAN
M y phone blares at six a.m., cutting through sleep. The beach house trip cut short only yesterday, and now another bigger crisis demands my immediate attention. Eamon's name flashes on the screen— again. She ran, like a thought she would, only I never thought she would run to me, not from me.
"What?" I ask, jumping from bed.
"South Boston they blew the shit out of our storage facility," Eamon says. "Five men down, two critical. They disabled security remotely and only took shipping records."
"Moretti's crew?" I pull on pants while Orla sits up, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
"Looks that way. This was a clean job. Eight minutes in and out."
I turn to Orla. "Get dressed."
She moves quickly, no questions. Seven minutes later, we are speeding down I-93, whatever we started in my bed earlier abandoned.
"What happened?” she asks as I push past ninety.
"Attack on our off-site storage facility. I need to handle it myself." I keep details minimal, watching her from the corner of my eye. I still can’t trust her, this could have been her—except she was with me.
She’s not afraid, panicking, she is not even shocked.
"What would they want at a storage facility?" she asks.
"We'll see when we arrive," I answer, filing away her reactions.
Cars fill the lot when we arrive. EMS treat injured staff while private security secures a perimeter. The cops are not invited—not yet. Eamon meets us at the door, blood staining his shirt sleeve. He looks between me and Orla, confused why I would bring her—why she is even still alive no doubt.
"They went straight for what they wanted, and knew where to find it" he says, walking beside me. "Turkish and Ukrainian manifest records. They took both digital and paper files."
"Our people?" I ask.
"Peters and Mahoney are in surgery. The others took clean head shots." He looks to see Orla’s reaction, unsure of what I am doing with her.
I mull it over, it is a very strange thing to steal from us. Moretti wouldn't make this move, it is not about territory and that is his only motive. This is something else, I have a prickly feeling about this.
“Dad wants half-hour updates."
I turn around to send Orla home—this goes beyond an assistant's job—she shouldn’t be here. This is family business. But she is already on her phone.
"Orla Kelly from Kavanagh Import. We need shipment KIE-3072 rerouted to Providence immediately. I'll send authorization codes and a new documentation now."
She meets my eyes, phone against her chest. "The missing files match the accounts on those shipments, they might be planning something."
"Thank you," I say, masking my suspicions. "That works."
Orla returns to her call as Eamon catches my eye. His look says what I'm thinking. How the fuck does she know about our Providence backup plan?
"Cloud backups will recover most of the data," she says, approaching with a tablet. "But the Eastern European manifests are a problem. They were kept separate for—" She stops, choosing words. "—regulatory audits."
"How do you know about those files?" I ask.
"I've organized your digital systems for three months." She meets my eyes. "I see patterns, I told you that."
Her answer sounds defensive.
I catch Eamon's attention and signal with a small nod toward Orla. He understands without words.
Four hours into our recovery plans, Orla brings a proposal I never expected.
"We can use Gibraltar," she says quietly, showing documents on her tablet. "If we route through their servers, we can bypass all compromised systems."
I stare at her. Our Gibraltar operation is known to only eight people in the fucking world. She is not one of them, it doesn’t exist on paper. A tiny blip in a tax haven far away.
"How do you know about Gibraltar?" I ask, actually I accuse. I am done with her lies and secrets now.
"Contingency planning," she answers. "Disaster recovery plan, section five, from last month's update."
A good lie. Those documents only mention "European alternative routing" with no specific locations.
"Make it happen," I say.
As she walks away, I text Eamon.
Track everything she touches, get a tap on her phone something is not right here.
He responds.
On it.
By midnight, we resume our operations. All our clients remain unaware of problems while our underground logistics are routed through alternate channels.
Orla is in the kitchen making coffee. She pours me a cup.
"Good work today," I say. When I want to scream at her, yell and shake her, demand she tells me all her secrets.
"Just doing my job," she replies.
"It is not your job to know about Gibraltar?" I watch her face fall, then recover.
"I pay attention. You mentioned Gibraltar on calls."
I sip the coffee. "My mistake, I will be more careful about what I say."
It’s a test she fails without knowing. Those details mean she was digging places she shouldn’t be digging.
"Go home, rest," I tell her.
"I want to finish securing the Baltic route," she says. “I will rest once I know all opur data is safe, and that things are running smoothly.”
Perfect response.
"You can work from the security office," I say. "Code 5931."
"Thanks," she says, walking out.
I count to thirty, then check my security app. Camera 16 shows her on the elevator. Camera 22 captures her on the third floor. Camera 24 records her entering the security office with my code.
What she doesn't know is that office connects to our restricted archives with records dating back years, including Thomas Nolan's time with us. Records valuable to law enforcement.
Records that contain things she knows—but shouldn’t know.
I send Eamon another text.
She took the bait. Watch only.
If she did this—police, rival family, or something else—I need to know.
I drink my coffee while watching her. Orla goes into the records and pulls files from five years ago. Not random browsing an exact file, just one.
Why?