1. Maeve #2
The escalator carries us onto the upper level, forcing me to step around him or collide with his chest. I choose the first option, and Declan turns with me, never releasing the bag.
His knuckles brush mine around the handle, sending a sharp current along my arm.
He notices because Declan notices weakness the way other people notice weather.
“Seven years,” he says quietly. “Not quite. You are four months early.” His fingers tighten almost imperceptibly.
“You counted.” I give him a cool look and ignore the heat collecting beneath my coat.
“I also count exits, weapons, and the number of men pretending not to watch us, so I would avoid feeling cherished.” Five Irish soldiers now hold positions around the arrivals hall.
None approach because Declan has not summoned them, and he does not need to explain that every exit belongs to him.
“I received your message during a Crown meeting,” he says, releasing the handbag only to close his hand around my wrist. His grip is warm and controlled, careful enough to be more unsettling than force.
I twist once, testing him, but he neither tightens his hold nor lets me go.
“Lorenzo was attempting to stop Santiago and Volkov from tearing each other apart, Adrianos had just announced that someone stole hundreds of millions from beneath us, and my dead woman decided to send me four words.” The phrase catches somewhere beneath my ribs.
“I was never your woman.” Declan’s eyes travel over my face with brutal slowness.
“That lie has not improved with age.” I should laugh, but the sound refuses to appear, so I settle for contempt.
“You thought I was dead?” His jaw shifts before his expression closes again.
“Some days. On others, I thought about finding you and correcting the oversight.”
There it is, the threat that followed me through every home, false name, and locked door.
“Remove your hand,” I say. “No.” He answers with irritating calm, his thumb resting against the pulse he has no right to measure.
“Have you considered flowers? Women occasionally respond well to gestures that do not involve unlawful detention.” Declan glances toward the armed men surrounding us.
“You disappeared with information belonging to the Crown, returned under a false identity, and abandoned tracked luggage while my soldiers followed you. Legally, I imagine we are both beyond flowers.” I look down at his hand and remember what those fingers once did with far less restraint.
The memory arrives hot and unwelcome, colliding with another memory of his face on the morning he believed the evidence against me.
“Let me go.” His eyes sharpen. “I did that once.” His voice drops low enough that only I hear it. “It was the worst mistake of my life.”
The admission lands harder than any threat, but I refuse to let it distract me from Cillian.
“Did you send men to Dublin nine days ago?” I ask.
Declan’s expression becomes unreadable. “No.” I stop testing his grip and study him instead.
“Did you authorise an operation involving the Gallagher family?” “No.” His answer comes without hesitation.
“Did you issue an execution order connected to me?” Something changes in his eyes, a slight narrowing that tells me the question has reached the part of him trained to recognise danger.
“What have you brought back, Maeve?” I ignore the way my name sounds in his mouth and force myself to think of Cillian asleep after a nightmare, one small fist wrapped around my sleeve.
“You did not answer me.” Declan releases my wrist but immediately takes the handbag from my loosened fingers.
“If there is an execution order inside this bag, it comes with us.”
I reach for it, and he lifts it beyond my grasp with insulting ease.
“That sounds remarkably like theft.” Declan begins walking toward the private exit, carrying my handbag as though it belongs beside the other things he once considered his.
I remain where I am. He makes it six steps before noticing my refusal to follow, then turns slowly enough to make the surrounding soldiers develop an intense interest in the floor.
“Maeve.” My name becomes a warning. “Declan,” I answer in the same tone.
His jaw tightens. “You are only safe under my protection.” I almost smile because he says it with the confidence of a man who has forgotten that he is one of the dangers from which I have spent years protecting myself.
“Your protection failed me once.” His face changes, not enough for anyone else to notice.
“You never gave me the chance to protect you.”
“You signed my death order,” I say, and the words emerge quieter than I intend.
“I signed nothing.” Declan closes the distance between us until the front of his coat almost touches mine.
“Your false passport was flagged before your plane landed because I had every woman travelling from Ireland screened after receiving your message.” His voice remains controlled, but urgency has entered it.
“Two vehicles followed Niamh from Boston, and one disappeared before my people could identify it.” Ice moves through my veins.
“You followed her?” “You sent an elderly widow and a child into my city under false names. Of course I followed them.” I want to strike him, thank him, and demand the location of every man assigned to Cillian, preferably in that order.
“Are they safe?” His gaze holds mine. “For now.” The answer is not enough, but it is honest. “Come with me, give me what you are carrying, and I will put enough men around you to make God request an appointment.”
I look at his soldiers and wonder which one might already belong to the person hunting my son.
Declan sees the suspicion and mistakes its direction.
“They are mine.” I take the handbag from him before he decides resistance is an invitation.
This time he allows it. “That has never reassured me.” I open the bag and remove the leather folder holding the execution order.
The paper feels heavier when I place it in his hand.
Declan looks at the Crown crest first, then the classification number and authorisation chain.
Every trace of personal anger disappears from his face as the Irish king replaces the man I once loved.
His gaze stops on the current authentication code, and a muscle tightens beside his jaw.
“Where did you get this?” he asks. “Thomas Keane.” Declan looks up sharply.
“Keane disappeared four years ago.” I meet his stare.
“Apparently he found something worth returning for.”
Declan reads the document again. “This code is mine.” I already knew, but hearing him confirm it tightens something cold inside me.
“Did you issue the order?” “No.” The answer is immediate and absolute.
“Then somebody inside your organisation wants the world to believe you did.” His attention drops to the target section.
His entire body becomes still as he reads Cillian’s name, age, school, and former address.
His fingers tighten until the edge of the paper bends beneath his thumb.
He studies the photograph taken outside our Dublin house, his eyes moving over Cillian’s red hair and serious expression.
The resemblance is not subtle, especially when Declan looks up at me with the same offended concentration.
He reads the page once more, slower this time, as though repetition might rearrange the facts into something less impossible. “Who is Cillian Gallagher?” he asks.
I spent the entire flight rehearsing this moment, preparing explanations strong enough to survive his anger.
None reach my mouth. I take the encrypted drive from the hidden seam inside my coat and hold it between two fingers.
“Thomas sent me this because somebody knows I have evidence connected to OB6.” Declan barely looks at the drive.
His attention remains fixed on the photograph.
“Who is the boy?” His voice is rougher now, stripped of command.
“He hates peas, cheats at card games, and sleeps with a wooden fox he insists is a wolf.” Declan raises his eyes to mine, and for the first time since I have known him, something close to fear breaks through his control.
He already knows the answer, but knowledge is not the same as hearing me make it real.
I hold his gaze while seven years of rage, grief, and unfinished desire gather between us like men preparing for war.
“You want to know why I came back?” I ask.
“Because someone has ordered you to kill your own son.”