CHAPTER 2 DECLAN #2
Nora heard it. Her head lifted from the bedroom doorway. The phone stayed pressed to her ear, but her eyes locked on me.
Cormac continued. "He sits on two hospital boards, funds patient access campaigns, and owns silent stakes in three private clinics. He issued a statement after Hale's removal expressing confidence in a thorough investigation."
"That sounds like him washing his hands," I said.
"He used very expensive soap."
Gabriel's voice cut back in. "Does Mercer know about Thomas's fund?"
"Everyone in that room knows Thomas Brooks is the first named patient in the complaint," Cormac said. "But this message implies another file. Something not in Isabella's packet."
Nora ended her call without saying goodbye. She walked into the living room with the bat in one hand and the phone in the other.
"Put it on speaker," she said.
I did not.
Her eyes narrowed. "Declan."
Gabriel heard her. "Nora."
She stopped. For one beat, she looked younger. Then her chin came up. "Gabriel. Did Isabella know you had men watching me?"
"Yes."
I shut my eyes for a second.
Nora's laugh came out sharp. "Wonderful. Efficient betrayal. My favorite."
"She asked for light coverage," Gabriel said. "I approved it. Be angry at me first."
"I have enough to share."
A brief silence. I could almost see Gabriel's face on the other end, pale from recovery, eyes cold, Isabella somewhere near him and probably ready to take the phone by force.
"Good," Gabriel said. "Anger will help. Listen to Declan while you use it."
"I am not one of your captains."
"No," Gabriel said, and the word landed with more care than command. "You are Isabella's sister. That makes you mine to protect until you tell me what protection looks like."
Her face tightened. The line angered her. It also struck something under the anger, because Gabriel had changed since Isabella.
Nora looked at me. "Then start by letting me hear what Cormac knows."
I put the phone on speaker.
Cormac repeated the Mercer trail in cleaner terms: donor payments, private security invoices buried under event staffing, clinic records moved two days after Hale's fall, and one records-storage payment marked with an old CrownShield vendor code tied to Thomas Brooks's denial file.
Nora listened without blinking. Color drained from her face. She stayed on her feet.
"You think this Mercer person came for my father's box," she said.
"Mercer did not personally climb your fire escape," Cormac said. "But someone paid a man who knew what to touch."
"Dad didn't have anything else. Isabella took the file."
"Then we find out why they disagree," Gabriel said.
Nora's fingers pressed into her phone. "And what happens to me while you all find out?"
Gabriel did not hesitate. "Declan stays with you."
Her eyes cut to mine. Heat rose under her fear so fast I felt it across the room.
"Absolutely not."
"Nora," Isabella said in the background, voice close to the speaker now.
Nora flinched a little at her sister's voice, then hardened. "Do not Nora me from your fortress."
"I'm not," Isabella said. "I'm asking you to stay alive long enough to yell at me properly."
That got through. Nora looked away.
Gabriel spoke again. "Declan is assigned to you until this threat is finished. You stay here tonight unless the building is breached again. You will not be alone. Tomorrow, we talk terms in my study."
"Your study," Nora repeated. "Naturally."
"Bring every complaint you have. Cormac will write them down."
"You make that sound generous."
"I make it sound like what it is. A negotiation under threat."
"I will not take your phone," I said.
She looked at me, startled by my voice entering the order.
"I will not move you without telling you why," I added. "I will check the doors. I will put men where they need to be. If a gun comes out, you listen first and hate me after."
Her throat moved. "And if I say I don't want you inside my apartment?"
"Then I stand outside the door."
Gabriel said nothing. Cormac said nothing. Isabella's breathing on the other end sounded uneven.
Nora studied me for a long moment. The apartment smelled of dust, oranges, old radiator heat, and fear she refused to hand over. Her hair had fallen over one cheek. She did not push it back.
"Fine," she said. "Outside."
My ribs pulled tight.
"After I finish clearing the hall," I said.
Her mouth tightened. "You always add a condition."
"Usually more than one."
Gabriel ended the call after ordering Cormac to keep working the number and Aidan to lock the building down without scaring the neighbors. Isabella made Nora promise to call her before sleeping. Nora promised with the tight voice of a younger sister protecting the older one from her own panic.
Then the line went dead, and the apartment felt smaller.
I stepped into the hall with Aidan at my shoulder. Nora stayed inside with the chain on, watching through the gap because of course she would not do the safer thing and sit down.
The hallway gave us the screw, two scraped strike plates, one old gum wrapper under the radiator, and a fresh black scuff near the stairwell door. Aidan crouched near it.
"Delivery shoes," he said.
"Cheap rubber sole. Size eleven or twelve."
"Finn said tall."
"Tall men can still bleed."
Aidan gave me a quick look. "Boss said alive if possible."
"Possible changes."
"You heard him."
I had. I did not like it.
We moved down one floor, checked the stairwell, then the back landing. At the second-floor landing, Mrs. Alvarez opened her door three inches with the chain on. Her silver hair was pinned under a scarf, and she held a wooden spoon like it had jurisdiction.
"What happened to Nora?"
"Lock trouble," I said.
She looked at my gun under my coat and then at my face. "That is a lot of shoulder for lock trouble."
Aidan coughed once into his fist.
"Did you see anyone tonight?" I asked.
"A delivery boy. There was no food smell. Too old for a boy. Gray hat. He looked at Nora's door before he went upstairs. I thought maybe she ordered dinner."
"What time?"
"Before the news started. Nine, maybe. My nephew put a camera outside after the package thief last Christmas. It points ugly, but maybe it saw him."
"Show me," I said.
Mrs. Alvarez hesitated. "Nora is a good girl. Her sister's husband has trouble attached to him."
"Yes."
"You are that trouble?"
"Some of it."
She studied me, then opened the door. "Do not bring blood into my hallway. I just mopped."
Nora would like her. Maybe already did.
The camera feed was bad, tilted toward the stairwell and half-blocked by a fake wreath.
I watched the grainy clip twice. The man in the gray cap came up at 9:06 with a delivery bag on his shoulder.
He paused outside Nora's door for three seconds, turned his head toward Mrs. Alvarez's camera, then adjusted the bag and went up. His face stayed hidden under the cap.
"Send it to Cormac," I told Aidan.
Mrs. Alvarez crossed herself. "Should Nora leave?"
"Not tonight unless I say so."
"Does Nora know you are the one saying so?"
"She has opinions."
"Good. Men who carry guns need women with opinions. Otherwise you get stupid."
Aidan coughed again. This time he was laughing.
By the time I climbed back to Nora's floor, my phone buzzed with Cormac's reply.
Number is burner. Routed through three relays. Last ping touched a tower near Mercer Health Fund's storage vendor in Queens. Payment match likely. Keep her off the street.
Another message followed from Gabriel.
She is yours until I say otherwise.
I stared at the words too long.
Yours was a dangerous word. Gabriel used it for assignments, territory, debts, men under command. He did not mean it the way my body heard it when Nora was twenty feet away holding a bat and her father's box.
I put the phone away.
Nora opened her door before I knocked. The chain stayed on.
"You were gone too long," she said.
"I was downstairs."
"Still too long."
My chest did the same wrong thing again, tight and hard. She looked angry about it, like worry was another invasion and I had caused it by being absent.
"I need to check something outside," I said. "Aidan stays in the hall. Door locked. Chain on. You keep the bat."
"You are leaving me with the man who said roof access was taped?"
"Aidan was shot protecting your sister. He is more insulted by soup than bullets."
From the stairwell, Aidan called, "Depends on the soup."
Nora blinked, then pressed her lips together. This time, it almost became a smile. It vanished before it could soften the night.
"Five minutes," she said.
"Three."
"Do not bargain down when I am being generous."
"Lock the door."
She rolled her eyes and shut it in my face. The chain slid into place.
Good girl, my mind supplied, and I killed the thought before it reached my mouth.
Outside, rain had started again, fine and cold. Finn stood beneath the deli awning across from Nora's building, face grim under his cap. He pointed past Nora's windows to the rusted fire escape landing one floor above hers.
"See the pipe?" he said.
I saw it. Drainpipe bolted to the brick. Flaking paint. A small black lump tucked behind the bracket, angled down toward Nora's apartment door through the stairwell window across the shaft. Too small for most people to notice. Too well placed to be accidental.
A camera.
My hand closed around the railing beside me until the metal bit into my palm.
It had a clear view of everyone who came to her door.
It had watched Nora come home scared. It had watched me enter. Whoever owned the feed had sent the message at the perfect time.
Finn waited beside me. Smart man. He had no unnecessary words.
I looked up at the black lens and felt the night narrow to one point.
Then the tiny red light inside the casing blinked once and went dark.