5. Maeve
Maeve
Lorenzo DeLuca’s estate looks less like a home than a cathedral built for men who worship power and expect everyone else to kneel.
The limestone mansion rises behind iron gates on the northern edge of Manhattan, its windows glowing against the hour before dawn.
Armed guards stop our convoy three times before allowing us into the circular courtyard, though every man stationed outside recognises Declan on sight.
Recognition means nothing when someone has learned to forge the Crown’s authority.
Inside the vehicle, Declan sits beside me with blood drying along his collar and one hand closed around the second execution order issued against our son.
He has barely spoken since Adrianos revealed that seven killings carried the same concealed approval anomaly.
Silence fits him too well. It turns his anger into something colder than shouting, something patient enough to choose where the bodies will fall.
Cillian sleeps at the estate under Niamh’s care, surrounded by Declan’s guards, while we walk willingly into a room containing four other kings who may decide Declan is the infection they need to cut out.
Declan glances at the mansion as the driver opens our door. “Stay beside me. Speak only about what you know, and do not provoke Santiago unless you are prepared to shoot him.”
“I survived seven years with a price on my head.” I step onto the gravel and straighten my coat. “I believe I can survive one Colombian with excellent tailoring and an untreated superiority complex.”
“You have not met him properly.” Declan places his palm against my lower back and guides me toward the entrance. The contact is possessive, protective, and far too familiar for a man who threatened to kill me the last time I belonged at his side. “Santiago considers his personality a weapon.”
“Then his enemies must die of boredom.” I feel the pressure of Declan’s fingers through my coat, and my body recognises him with humiliating speed. “You may remove your hand. No one here needs to think we have reconciled.”
“No one here thinks I need your permission to touch you.” His thumb shifts once against my spine before he releases me. “Besides, reconciliation suggests I have forgiven you.”
“That would devastate me.” I look directly into his hard green eyes. “Your resentment is the longest relationship either of us has maintained.”
A DeLuca soldier escorts us through a silent entrance hall and into the library, where the emergency meeting is already underway.
The Crown’s five rulers occupy the long table beneath shelves crowded with first editions and enough concealed weapons to offend every dead author in the room.
Lorenzo sits at the head, silver beginning to mark his dark hair, while Volkov Nazarov watches the doors with the stillness of a man who expects betrayal to enter carrying a gun.
Adrianos stands beside Elena at a wall-mounted screen.
Santiago Vargas lounges in his chair as if sunrise meetings about corrupted assassination systems are a personal inconvenience.
No women traditionally sit at this table, yet Evelina stands behind Volkov, Elena controls the evidence on the screen, and I enter beside Declan carrying seven years of reasons not to care about tradition.
The old Crown would have called us liabilities.
The current one should be intelligent enough to recognise witnesses.
Lorenzo looks at the blood on Declan before his attention settles on me. “I understand your son survived the attack.”
“He survived because the shooter missed.” Declan takes the chair opposite Santiago and pulls the one beside him out for me. “I intend to discuss the distinction with the man we captured.”
Volkov’s pale gaze sharpens. “You have a prisoner?”
“Alive, sedated, and incapable of swallowing anything more lethal than his own teeth.” Declan places both execution orders on the table. “Three others are dead. Their driver escaped, but my road team recovered the abandoned vehicle nine miles from the safe house.”
Santiago leans forward to examine the documents without touching them. “Two orders carrying your authority and one squad of Irish gunmen. This is beginning to resemble either a conspiracy against you or an embarrassingly public confession.”
Declan does not look at him. “If I planned to confess, Vargas, I would choose a priest. At least he would pretend to possess discretion.”
I sit while Adrianos sends a digital copy of the newest order onto the screen.
Cillian’s name fills the wall in stark black letters, followed by his age, physical description, false travel identity, and the address where I believed he was safe.
Seeing my child reduced to operational details turns my stomach.
The order contains none of the things that make him real.
It does not mention that he hates peas, sleeps with one foot outside the blanket, or asks questions until adults begin reconsidering parenthood.
To whoever created the document, he is not a boy.
He is a threat scheduled for removal. Declan’s current authentication string rests beneath the authorisation seal, clean enough to pass every automated check in the Irish system and damning enough to put suspicion around his throat.
Adrianos folds his arms. “The Crown’s execution structure was created to stop any single faction from turning the alliance into a private murder service.
A faction identifies a threat and submits an intelligence package through its secured channel.
The Irish Syndicate verifies the evidence, checks the target against Crown agreements, and confirms that the request serves the alliance rather than one king’s personal interests.
Declan then provides final authorisation and either conducts the execution himself or assigns an approved team. ”
Elena changes the display, revealing a diagram of credentials, verification stages, and approval records.
“Ordinary executions require a full council vote. Emergency requests are different. When delay presents an immediate danger, one faction can submit evidence through its authenticated Crown channel, and the Irish verification branch can approve action without waiting for all five rulers to assemble. Declan’s annual master credential validates his authority, while a live operational code rotates every ninety days.
The code on Cillian’s order was issued three weeks ago, so the breach is current.
The historical cases used different quarterly codes, but all passed through the same hidden administrative override. ”
Lorenzo’s gaze moves across the table. “Meaning someone can manufacture an emergency, make it appear that one of us requested the response, and place a valid execution order in Declan’s hands.”
“Exactly.” Elena brings up seven separate files, each bearing the colours and digital seals of a different faction.
“The false material is not replacing an entire request. That would be easier to detect. Someone is inserting fabricated intelligence into legitimate submission packages, copying faction credentials from authentic communications, and routing the finished order through a concealed Irish approval path. The requesting king sees only the genuine file his organisation submitted. Declan’s office receives the altered version.
The audit ledger records both as the same package. ”
Volkov turns his attention to Declan. His expression contains no accusation yet, but trust among men like these is merely suspicion waiting for evidence. “Then the Irish Syndicate is compromised at the highest level.”
“My system is compromised.” Declan’s hand remains flat against the table, close to the orders but not touching them. “Do not confuse that with my entire organisation.”
“A hidden route survived for fifteen years and carried at least seven executions beneath your authority.” Volkov’s voice stays quiet, making the accusation more dangerous. “Either your organisation is compromised, or its king has spent a decade and a half refusing to inspect his own blade.”
Declan meets his stare. “Careful, Nazarov. You are describing negligence, not treason.”
“I have buried family because of Crown treason.” Volkov’s restraint tightens around every word. “I am careful about both.”
Santiago taps one finger against the arm of his chair.
“There is a simpler possibility. Declan wanted private executions, so he created a route that made the requests appear to come from the rest of us. Now that the bodies are becoming inconvenient, he has discovered a mysterious traitor who happens to possess his codes.”
The room changes around that suggestion.
Guards stand outside the closed doors, but every king at the table is armed, and none has built his empire by waiting for certainty.
Declan’s expression remains unreadable. I know him well enough to see the violence gathering in the angle of his shoulders.
Seven years ago, I would have stayed silent because silence was how women survived rooms controlled by men.
Seven years have taught me that survival without a voice is only a slower form of burial.
I lean forward and draw the first execution order toward me, the forged document that drove me from New York while Cillian was still no larger than a secret beneath my heart.
“If Declan built the override, framing him with an order against his own son would be remarkably stupid.” I look at Santiago.
“He did not know Cillian existed until yesterday. The person using his system knew before he did, found the safe house before we arrived, and waited for me to bring Thomas Keane’s evidence within reach.
That person did not improvise this crisis to rescue Declan.
They exposed the route because the evidence threatens something larger. ”
Santiago’s gaze slides over me with polished contempt. “Your faith in him is touching.”