CHAPTER 9 NORA
Patrick Vale's voice stayed in the room after the call ended.
Come ask me yourself.
The words had come out of my mouth before fear could lock them behind my teeth.
Now they hung over the East River counter with the evidence bags and my father's box.
Declan stood so near his coat sleeve could brush mine if either of us moved.
He did not touch me. That restraint scraped at me almost worse than being grabbed would have.
Rina Voss laughed once from the chair where Eamon had her cuffed to the metal leg. The sound was thin and mean. "You think courage protects you from men like Vale?"
"It seems to irritate him," I said.
Her mouth tightened. Good. My arm burned under Declan's handkerchief, and my legs wanted to fold, and I still wanted one thing in the room to be mine.
Declan looked at Aidan. "Drive bagged. Box sealed. Front exit first. Finn takes lead. Eamon takes Selby in car three. Rina rides separate, two men in back with her hands visible. She reaches The Black Harp breathing. Clear?"
Rina's eyes slid toward me. "He says that because you asked. Sweet, really. For a dog."
Declan did not move. The office seemed to brace for him anyway.
I stepped between his line of sight and hers. "She wants you angry. It keeps everyone looking at your hands instead of her mouth."
His gaze dropped to me. For one hot second, every sound thinned. Rain on glass. Plastic evidence sleeves. My pulse beating hard under the knot he had tied around my arm.
"I know," he said.
"Then don't give her what she wants."
"I'm not." His voice lowered. "I'm giving you what you asked for. There's a difference."
I hated that the difference mattered. I hated more that my body understood it before I did. He could have dragged Rina out by her hair and called it justice. Instead, he stood there with violence packed into his shoulders and waited because I had told him to.
June Porter stood behind the counter with both hands around a paper cup Eamon had given her. Her eyes kept returning to the open box. "Do I need a lawyer?"
Cormac Doyle's voice came through Declan's phone, so calm panic felt untidy.
"You need the truth, Ms. Porter. You preserved chain of custody and complied with account-holder instructions.
My office will send a written statement before dawn.
Do not speak to Harrow Lane, East River's board, or anyone claiming emergency authority without calling the number I gave you. "
"They'll fire me."
"They may try. That would be a mistake."
I looked at the woman who had stalled Rina long enough for us to reach the box. Her hands shook around the cup. She was ordinary in a room full of men with guns, and tonight ordinary had taken a risk for my father.
"Thank you," I said.
June blinked at me. "Your father left very strict instructions."
"That sounds like him."
My throat closed around the last word. Declan's hand moved an inch, then stopped. He let me stand inside the hurt without taking it away from me. It should not have felt like kindness. It did.
The move out of East River happened in pieces.
Aidan carried the evidence case against his chest. Finn's voice cracked through comms from outside, calling the curb clean.
Eamon hauled Grant Selby up from his chair while the attorney muttered about privilege and unlawful detention.
Rina walked last, chin high, red scarf removed and bagged like the weapon it was.
At the door, she leaned toward me. "Vale doesn't miss twice."
Declan's hand appeared between us, palm flat against the glass door, blocking her path without touching her. "Talk to her again and you ride in the trunk."
"You can't put me in a trunk."
"Try the sentence again at the curb."
Aidan coughed behind us. It sounded a lot like a laugh.
Cold air hit my face outside, sharp. East River's brick front looked smaller now, almost harmless, which made me want to kick it.
A black SUV idled at the curb with the rear door open.
Finn stood beside it, eyes scanning the street.
Another car waited behind us. A third had already rolled toward the corner with Selby inside.
Declan guided me with his body, never his hands. He walked half a step behind and to my left, ready to take the street first if something moved. My cut arm throbbed under the handkerchief. Every shadow between parked cars looked like a place Vale could put a man.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"Townhouse."
"Rina is going to The Black Harp."
"Yes."
"Then I should be going to The Black Harp."
Declan opened the SUV door wider. "You should be behind stone, steel, and Gabriel's bad mood."
"His bad mood isn't my plan."
"Tonight it is part of mine."
I looked up at him. The streetlight caught the line of his broken nose, the dark scrape near his jaw, the mouth that always looked a second away from saying something sharp as a blade. "You promised every name."
"I promised to keep you alive until every name is spoken. Order matters."
"That sounds convenient for the person giving orders."
His eyes darkened. "Get in the car, Nora. Argue with me while moving."
The fear in his voice did what command could not. It made me climb in.
The inside of the SUV smelled like leather, rain, and faint gun oil.
Declan slid in beside me, shut the door, and the locks clicked down.
Aidan took the front passenger seat with the evidence case between his boots.
Finn drove. The second car pulled out behind us before I had my seat belt fully across my chest.
Declan noticed. Of course he noticed. "Buckle it."
"I am."
"Faster."
"Do you speak to everyone like that?"
"When someone just threatened to let them leave with a pulse, yes."
My fingers slipped once on the latch. His hand twitched near mine, then curled back against his own knee. He let me finish it myself.
That small mercy made my chest ache in a way I had no room for.
The SUV moved through Queens with the river black beyond the warehouses. My phone sat in my lap, screen dark, my thumb on the side button. I wanted Isabella's voice. I was afraid of what mine would do when I heard hers.
Declan glanced down. "Call her."
"I didn't ask."
"I know."
"Then why answer?"
"Because your hand has been on that phone since we left the counter."
I pressed the screen awake before I could argue myself out of it. Isabella answered on the first ring.
"Nora?"
One word, and I was eight years old again, sitting on the kitchen floor while she braided my hair too tight because Dad was late from work and she was pretending not to worry.
"I'm here," I said.
A sound came through the line, half breath, half sob. "Are you hurt? Gabriel said Rina cut your sleeve."
"Barely. Declan wrapped it."
Silence, then Gabriel's voice in the background, low and hard. Isabella must have covered the phone, because his words blurred. I heard my name anyway. I heard Declan's too.
"Bella," I said.
She came back fast. "I'm here."
"You heard Dad."
"Yes."
The word broke in the middle. I pressed my fist against my mouth and tasted salt on my skin. Rain streaked the tinted window beside me. The city moved in pieces of orange light and black glass.
"He said you didn't sign it," I whispered.
"I know."
"He wanted you to believe it."
"I do. Nora, I do."
My ribs hurt. "He called me baby girl."
Isabella cried then. Quietly, because Gabriel Stone's wife had learned to survive rooms with men listening, but I knew the sound. It was the one she made with her face turned toward the stove the night Dad's last appeal got denied.
Declan turned his head toward the window. Aidan looked straight ahead. Finn drove like he had gone deaf on purpose.
"Come to me," Isabella said. "Please. I need to see you."
"I'm on my way to your husband's bad mood."
A wet laugh escaped her. "It's worse than usual."
"Comforting."
"He was scared."
My eyes moved to Declan before I could stop them. He watched the road, jaw set. "They all express fear terribly."
"Yes," Isabella said. "They do."
The line shifted. Gabriel's voice came through clear. "Nora."
My hand tightened around the phone. "Mr. Stone."
"Are you bleeding?"
"I was grazed."
"That wasn't my question."
"The handkerchief is clean. Mostly."
Declan's mouth flattened. Gabriel went quiet in a way that made even the car feel smaller.
"You will come directly inside when you arrive," he said. "You will not go to the Harp. You will not speak to Rina again tonight. You will let Siobhan look at your arm."
"That's a lot of wills for someone who isn't my husband."
Aidan made a small sound in the front seat. Finn muttered, "Jesus," under his breath.
Declan did not look at me. His knee shifted closer, though, a silent warning or a silent prayer.
Gabriel's voice stayed even. "I am the man keeping Vale from reaching you."
"Declan is the man sitting beside me."
That made Declan look.
The words had come out too honest. Heat climbed my neck, sharp and immediate. I kept my face toward the phone because turning to him would have made it worse.
Gabriel heard it. I knew he did. The pause changed shape.
"Declan will answer to me," he said.
"For what? Letting me open the box my father left for me? Letting me hear Vale threaten me instead of hiding it like everyone else hides things from women they think are fragile?"
"For bringing you within reach of a blade."
"Rina was already reaching for my life before I knew her name. At least now I know whose hand held the pen."
Isabella whispered something to him. Gabriel exhaled. "We will discuss this in my study."
"Great. I've always wanted to be summoned by a mob boss after midnight."
Aidan coughed again.
Declan's eyes cut toward him. "You sick, Murphy?"
"Terminally entertained."
My laugh surprised me. It hurt coming out. It also loosened something that had been choking me since the video ended.
Then Finn swore.
The SUV jerked left so sharply my shoulder hit Declan's arm. A white delivery van rolled through the red light ahead of us, slow and wrong, blocking the intersection. Its side door slid open before it stopped moving.