Declan, the Irish Mafia Reaper

1. Maeve

Maeve

The first message I send Declan O’Rourke in seven years contains four words and no apology.

I am coming back. It is neither a request nor an invitation to discuss the wreckage we left behind, although knowing Declan, he probably reads it as a threat.

I send it at eleven seventeen on a Thursday night while sitting at my kitchen table in Dublin with an execution order spread beneath my hands and my son asleep upstairs.

The message shows as delivered immediately, confirming that Declan still uses the private number Thomas Keane gave me.

I wait thirty seconds for a reply I tell myself I do not want.

None comes. His silence feels exactly like him, controlled enough to make everyone else wonder what violence is happening underneath.

Two weeks later, I step off a plane at John F.

Kennedy International Airport with an encrypted drive hidden inside my coat and Declan’s name attached to an order demanding my son’s death.

New York greets me with fluorescent lights, impatient strangers, and the distinct impression that I have voluntarily entered the mouth of a loaded gun.

I travel alone because motherhood cured me of confusing courage with recklessness.

Forty-eight hours before my flight, Aunt Niamh and Cillian leave Ireland using passports belonging to two people who have never existed outside an expensive database.

They take separate connections through Amsterdam, change clothes before boarding the final flight, and enter America through Boston.

A driver Thomas once trusted takes them to a safe house outside New York, although trust has become a currency I examine more carefully than cash.

Niamh complains throughout the journey because complaining is how she proves fear has not closed her throat.

Cillian treats the false name like a game until I kneel before him and explain that forgetting it could get someone hurt.

His excitement disappears beneath a seriousness no six-year-old should possess.

He promises to remember, then asks whether I am travelling with them.

I lie and tell him I will be only a few hours behind, kiss his forehead, and release him before my arms confess how badly I want to keep him there.

He turns seven in four months, assuming I survive long enough to make the cake he has already requested and keep him alive long enough to complain about the icing.

The execution order is mercifully uncomplicated because it says exactly what its creator wants done.

The Crown crest sits at the top, followed by a classification number, an authorisation chain, and the identifying pattern reserved for the head of the Irish Syndicate.

I recognise the structure because I once worked as a logistics and compliance analyst within the Gallagher shipping network.

My credentials never allowed me to read complete assassination files, but I verified the manifests, shell companies, and transport intelligence attached to Irish operations.

Declan’s current code has changed since I left, yet its architecture is unmistakable.

Beneath it sits the target’s name: Cillian Gallagher, male, six years old, Dublin resident.

The document includes his school, our former address, Niamh’s telephone number, and a photograph taken outside our house nine days ago.

The final instruction is brutally efficient: eliminate the target, recover all documents belonging to Maeve Gallagher, and leave no surviving witnesses.

Either Declan has ordered the murder of a son he does not know exists, or someone powerful enough to use his name intends to make him responsible for it.

I reach passport control with my fear locked behind my ribs and my face arranged into the expression of a woman irritated by airport queues.

The officer asks why I am visiting America, and I tell him I am attending a family reunion, which is close enough to the truth to avoid tempting fate.

He stamps my passport without noticing the identity is only ten months old.

I collect my suitcase and identify the first Irish Syndicate man before the carousel completes another turn.

He waits beside a pillar in a navy suit, touching an earpiece while pretending to study the arrivals board.

A Celtic knot tattoo peeks above his collar, subtle by the standards of men who usually advertise organised crime as though accepting sponsorship.

A second man watches the customs exit, and a third appears in the reflection of a closed currency exchange kiosk.

Three men for one unarmed woman feels excessive, but Declan has never understood moderation.

I take my suitcase and head toward the ladies’ room without changing pace.

The first man touches his earpiece, confirming there are more of them beyond the doors.

Inside the bathroom, I leave the suitcase in the final stall with its tracker still buried beneath the handle.

I reverse my coat from black to grey, twist my hair beneath a scarf, and transfer the execution order into my handbag.

Abandoning my clothes is inconvenient, but I can buy replacements if I remain alive.

I leave through the maintenance corridor beside the washroom after telling a tired cleaner that my pregnant sister is being sick near Gate Seven.

The lie is morally questionable, but so is ordering a six-year-old’s murder, and I am having a difficult week.

I join a family pushing two luggage carts and walk between them until we reach the main arrivals hall.

Behind me, several Irish voices begin issuing orders around the abandoned suitcase.

I allow myself one breath of satisfaction before reaching the escalator leading toward the train connection.

A man waits at the bottom with one hand in the pocket of a charcoal coat and the other loose at his side.

Declan has always known how to ruin an escape without appearing to move.

Seven years have sharpened him rather than softened him.

His red hair is darker than I remember, cut close at the sides, and silver now touches his temples as though winter made an attempt and lost its nerve.

His shoulders look broader beneath the coat, his face leaner, and a faint scar beside his mouth is new.

The eyes remain the same hard green, cold enough to strip excuses from people before they offer them.

He is not wearing an earpiece or searching the crowd because Declan does not require machinery to make a room understand who owns it.

I stop three steps from the bottom. His gaze travels from my boots to the scarf concealing my hair, taking inventory with the patience of a man inspecting property returned in questionable condition.

My body recognises him with humiliating speed, tightening low in my stomach while my pulse shifts beneath my jaw.

Seven years should be long enough to teach flesh basic loyalty, but mine has always suffered from defective judgement.

Declan’s mouth moves at one corner, never becoming anything as generous as a smile.

“You look different,” he says, his voice carrying the same Irish roughness that once made sensible decisions feel cowardly.

I keep one hand on the escalator rail and refuse to descend the remaining steps.

“You look old. It is comforting to know time managed to punish one of us.” His gaze darkens, but the corner of his mouth moves again.

“Still running that mouth, I see.” I tilt my head and give him a slow inspection of my own.

“It was the only part of me you never managed to frighten.” Declan steps onto the bottom stair and allows the escalator to carry him upward.

People move around us without noticing the moment a seven-year silence becomes a living thing between two bodies.

He stops one step below mine, close enough for me to catch the scent of cedar, smoke, and cold air. “You should have stayed buried, Maeve.”

“Lovely to see you too,” I say, although my lungs have temporarily forgotten their responsibilities.

Declan reaches for my handbag, and I tighten my grip before his fingers close around the handle.

“Give me the bag.” His tone carries no anger because Declan saves anger for men who might survive it.

“No.” I smile without warmth and hold on.

“I crossed an ocean, evaded your charming collection of surveillance enthusiasts, and sacrificed a perfectly adequate suitcase to get here. You may forgive me for resisting your conversational technique.” He pulls once, not hard enough to hurt me, but with the quiet certainty of a man accustomed to resistance becoming temporary.

“You left the suitcase in the bathroom.” I keep my expression still even as irritation prickles across my skin.

“Then why did you waste four men chasing it?” His eyes hold mine.

“I wanted to see which of them deserved firing.”