CHAPTER FIVE #2
"We're meeting first thing tomorrow morning. Maverick's calling everyone in. This means war."
War. The word lands like a stone in my gut. War means blood, means bodies, means everything I've been trying to avoid since I got back from London.
War means losing more people I care about.
"I'll be there."
"This means the girl you’ve got; she’s a real fucking target now, Freddie. All the women are. No one is fucking safe."
"Stephen—"
"We’ll figure out where that cunt is, Fred, and when we do, we’re going to gut him."
The line goes dead. I stare at the phone for a moment, trying to process what just happened. Jer's gone. The man who was the closest thing to a father I ever had is lying on a slab somewhere while Trace Harrington celebrates.
Everything inside me has gone cold, shut down. I’ve gone into survival mode. It’s the only way I know how to deal with loss this big.
"Bad news?" Alastríona asks.
Her voice sounds muffled, like she's speaking through water. It takes me a moment to remember where I am, and who I'm with.
"Yeah."
I don't elaborate. I can't. If I start talking about Jer, I'll fall apart. And falling apart isn't an option right now. Not with her watching, not with Henry waiting, not with a war starting.
She doesn't push. Doesn't ask questions or offer sympathy. She just sits there, giving me space to process. Smart girl. She knows when to leave well enough alone.
The Dublin lights get closer. My hands are steady on the wheel, but inside I'm falling apart. Jer's dead. Ava's dead. Everyone I've ever cared about ends up in the ground while I keep walking around like some kind of fucked-up ghost.
Maybe that's what I am. Maybe that's all any of us are in this life: ghosts haunting the spaces between violence and love, never quite belonging to either.
"Freddie." Alastríona's voice again. It’s soft and careful. Like she's talking to a wounded animal.
"What?"
"Whatever happened... I'm sorry."
Simple words. Honest ones. No platitudes about everything being okay or time healing wounds. Just acknowledgment that sometimes the world breaks things that can't be fixed.
"Thanks."
"Was it someone close to you?"
"Yeah."
"I know what that's like."
Of course she does. She lost her father eighteen months ago; she knows exactly what it feels like to have the ground ripped out from under you.
"How do you deal with it?" I ask.
"You don't. You just keep moving until one day it hurts less."
"And if it doesn't hurt less?"
"Then you keep moving anyway."
Smart girl. Wise beyond her years. She probably had to grow up fast with Killian for a father.
We're in the middle of the city now, driving down Dublin streets I know like the back of my hand, around corners where I learned to pick pockets, and past alleys where I learned to fight. Every street corner holds a memory, most of them violent.
"Where are we going?" she asks.
"Henry's house. He'll want to meet you before things get complicated."
"Complicated how?"
"There's going to be a war. Your arrival just became a lot more significant than anyone expected."
She processes this, nodding slowly. "Because of what happened to your friend?"
"Because of what happened to everyone. This has been building for months. Tonight was just the match that lit the fuse."
"And I'm caught in the middle."
"You're family. That makes you a target and an asset at the same time."
"Wonderful."
Can't argue with that. The timing couldn't be worse. She’s walking into Dublin just as everything goes to hell, just as old alliances crumble and new enemies emerge.
But maybe that's for the best. Maybe chaos is exactly what she needs to find her place in this world. Sometimes you have to break things completely before you can build them back better.
"Are you going to be alright?" she asks.
Strange question. Nobody's asked me that in years. Jer used to, back when I was young and stupid and got myself hurt more often than not. But he's gone now.
"I'll manage."
"That's not what I asked."
No, it's not. She asked if I'll be alright, and the honest answer is probably not. Jer's death has torn something loose inside me, something I can't put back together with willpower and stubbornness.
But she doesn't need to know that. She has enough problems of her own without taking on mine.
"I'll be fine."
"Liar."
"Yeah. But I'm a functional liar."
That gets me another almost-smile. That’s two in one night. Must be some kind of record.
We're close now. I can see Henry's neighborhood up ahead, the kind of expensive Dublin suburb where old money goes to pretend it's respectable. Big houses with bigger walls and security systems that cost more than most people make in a year.
"Last chance," I say. "There’s still time to turn around."
"And go where? Back to Belfast? Back to pulling pints and dodging grabby drunks?"
"Back to a life that's yours."
"Was it mine, though? Or was it just another form of hiding?"
Good question. Maybe we're all hiding from something. Maybe the only difference is whether we're hiding behind bars or behind walls.
"Your call."
She looks out at Henry's street, at the life waiting for her beyond those gates, then she takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly.
"Let's go meet my family."
I pull up to Henry's gate and punch in the code he gave me. The iron gates swing open with mechanical precision, revealing a driveway that probably cost more than my flat.
Here we go. Into the lion's den, with a girl who doesn't know she's about to become a pawn in a game bigger than anything she's imagined.
I hope I'm not making the biggest mistake of my life.
I hope she's strong enough for what's coming.
I hope any of us are.