Chapter 20
Declan
Aidan sits at the table with Whitmore’s building plan on his phone screen, one elbow braced on the wood, reading over the same section for the fourth time.
He doesn’t look at me when Cormac comes down.
He just lifts his eyes, takes in the blood on Cormac’s forearm and the expression on his face, and goes back to the plan.
Cormac goes under the sink and roots around. “Jackpot,” he mutters and grabs the first-aid box before he dumps it on the counter beside me.
“Need a hand?” I ask.
He glances at me. “Nah. Got it.”
“You are a psycho.”
“Says you.”
He pulls out the antiseptic wipes and rips one open with his teeth before dabbing at the cuts.
“Not even going to ask,” I say, and sit down.
“Good. Don’t. It’s none of your fucking business.”
“Dervla is. Is she okay?”
“She’s sleeping.”
It does and doesn’t answer my question.
“Heading to bed,” he says and stalks off with more antiseptic wipes in his hand.
“Well, this was fun. At least it’s safe to go upstairs now,” Aidan says with a smirk.
I return it and shake my head. “Not exactly how I thought our first night here together would go, but close,” I say with a laugh.
“Always trust Cormac to bring the drama,” he says and stalks off, leaving me to clean up after them. As usual. It’s a ritual, I don’t usually mind.
When everything is tidied away, I head upstairs and pause outside Dervla’s door. I push it open quietly and see her fast asleep, curled up under the covers. I close the door and move to my assigned bedroom, stripping off and crawling into bed.
Again.
Hopefully, this time, midnight intruders will stay the fuck away.
But this entire night is bugging me. How did this person not know we were here? Was he not scoping the place out like any good killer for hire would do? I lie there in the dark and pick at it until the shape of it starts to bother me properly.
A professional does not walk into an unknown house blind.
He watches. He learns habits. Entrances.
Exits. How many people come and go. Whether the target sleeps alone or keeps company.
He does not break in less than twelve hours after three men carry bags through the front door unless someone told him the house was still occupied by one woman.
Which means one of two things.
Either he got old information and moved too fast.
Or the person who sent him wanted to test all of us, not just kill the girl in it.
I stare at the ceiling and listen. Old pipes. Wind at the window. Nothing else.
No footsteps. No second intruder. No scrape at the boarded study window.
Still, sleep does not come easily now. My body is tired, but my head is moving too quickly. I keep replaying the hallway. The way the intruder came straight for her. The fact that he did not hesitate as soon as he saw her. The fact that he ignored all three of us until we hit him.
The next thought lands right behind it.
If someone on the Board wanted her dead, they moved too soon. She wouldn’t even have made her case known for the seat yet. Killing her now creates noise. Questions. Garda attention if it goes public. It does not solve the problem cleanly. It makes one.
Unless the point was not clean.
I sit up and drag a hand over my face.
There is one more option. Someone knows enough to understand what she means to the seat, but not enough to understand the timing. Someone adjacent. Someone greedy. Someone acting without authorisation. Someone trying to get ahead of the Board before the Board makes its move.
Or someone inside the Board who doesn’t give a fuck about timing because panic serves them better than patience.
None of those options lets me sleep.
I get out of bed, pull on joggers and a tee, and head back downstairs. The house is dark and quiet. I check the front door first. Deadbolt set. Good. The kitchen next. Empty. I flick the back light on and look through the window at the garden. Empty.
I unlock the back door and step outside, closing it behind me.
Cold air hits me hard enough to wake me properly.
I walk the perimeter in bare feet because boots make noise.
Moving to the shed, I grab the shears and make my way to the overgrown hedge by the study window.
I start chopping. The small, circular hole is a pro job, I note as I hack away.
A glass cutter was used to stick a hand through to open the window from the inside.
That means they knew the house well enough to know the single-pane window was their way in.
I cut back another section and drag it free, tossing wet branches onto the growing pile.
The security light over the kitchen door throws a hard strip across the grass and leaves the rest of the garden in shadow.
Good enough to see. Good enough to think.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Aidan’s voice snaps. “It’s you.”
I look up. Aidan is standing a few feet away, also barefoot and just in joggers, levelling a Glock at my face that is as illegal as the one in my bedside drawer.
“Who did you think it was?” I whisper-snap, lowering the shears. “Another assassin here to cut the bushes?”
“Anyone who isn’t you,” he says, stashing the gun in the back of his joggers. “You’re chopping hedges at what time?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“That’s obvious.”
“Security landscaping.”
He exhales through his nose and steps closer to the study side of the house. The boarded window is visible now that I’ve cut more of the hedge back.
I point with the shears. “He knew this window was vulnerable, not just because of the hedge.”
Aidan’s face changes. Not much. Just enough. “Which means?”
“Which means either he did his homework before we moved in, or someone told him this was the best way in.”
“It makes no sense that he didn’t know we were here.”
“It does if you consider whoever sent him did know and sent him anyway to test our response.”
Aidan goes still for half a second, then folds his arms. “You think this was a fucking probe.”
“I think professionals don’t improvise like idiots.” I toss another branch aside. “Not if they plan on getting paid.”
He looks toward the house. “If it was a test, the result is clear.”
“Yeah.” I wipe sweat and damp hedge muck off my forehead with the back of my wrist. “She isn’t alone anymore.”
He studies the boarded window. The security light catches the hard line of his jaw and throws the rest of him into shadow. “That changes things.”
“It changes nothing.”
“It changes the fact that we are now irrevocably aligned with Dervla Callaghan, and in the way of whoever this was.”
“Backing out?” I growl.
“Not a fucking chance,” he scoffs. “Thinking out loud. We need to get back inside.”
I nod, knowing he’s right. Standing out here in the middle of the night, chatting about hired killers who broke in and didn’t leave alive is not a good move.
Setting the shears down inside the back door, I make sure it’s locked before I wash my hands. Aidan is already moving out.
“Get some sleep,” he says. “Tomorrow, we have to be sharp.”
I nod and turn off the taps, grabbing a tea towel to dry my hands before I head back up to my room.
I do get some sleep. Not much, but enough to stop my head from spinning in circles.
When I wake, the house is quiet in that strange way old houses get after a bad night. Still on the surface. Holding its breath underneath.
I dress and head downstairs before anyone else. I put the kettle on and open the fridge.
We need food. Actual food. Not the random leftovers of one woman living alone with grief and a knife under her pillow.
I grab the leftover takeaway pizza from last night’s dinner and arrange the slices on a tray to warm through.
Cooking helps. It gives my hands something to do while my brain sorts the night into piles I can carry. Tonight, we’ve got a job that could either hand us the truth or get us all caught on Whitmore’s third floor and expelled.
Fun times.
The kettle clicks off. I make coffee first because if Aidan comes down before caffeine, he turns into an even bigger douche canoe.
But it’s Dervla who joins me first, looking like a pissed off poodle with her hair all over the place. “You are too loud,” she complains.
“I was quiet. You were focused too much on sounds.”
“Do you blame me?” she reaches for the mug I hand her.
“No, but you have us here now.”
“Us,” she grumbles. “Do you know what your maniac friend did last night?”
“Yes. It’s not neat, and now he has to live with it.”
“Great attitude,” she says, flopping into a chair at the table. “Why am I allowing this?”
“Because you aren’t stupid and you know if you had been alone last night, things would’ve been way more ugly.” I don’t say the words she is waiting for, so she has an excuse to bite my head off.
That just pisses her off more.
She’s adorable. I turn away so she doesn’t see my smile.
“I saw that, arsehole,” she mutters.
“Drink your coffee, eat leftover pizza and go back to bed. You don’t have to do anything today. I’ll go shopping while the other two stay here, and you can sleep.”
For one brief moment, her expression is like I just handed her the moon. But then she scowls again and mutters something under her breath that I choose to ignore because I value my nuts where they are.