5. Maeve #3
Lorenzo calls a twenty-minute recess while his staff converts the adjoining study into an operations centre.
I leave the library because the air has become too crowded with men discussing Thomas as if he is already a body.
A guard directs me toward the back of the house, where Isabella has been watching Cillian since Niamh brought him over under a second convoy.
Lorenzo insisted his estate was safer while Declan’s home was searched for additional breaches.
I find them in a sunroom overlooking a walled garden.
Cillian sits at a small table with an abandoned chessboard before him and an alarming slice of chocolate cake on his plate.
Across from him sits an elderly woman in a pale blue dress, listening with grave attention while he explains why knights are superior to bishops.
“The knight can jump over everyone.” Cillian moves the chipped white piece from his grandfather’s set. “That means walls are useless against him. He also attacks sideways, which is sneaky but legal.”
The old woman smiles. Her silver hair is pinned neatly at the nape of her neck, and age has made her appear delicate without diminishing the intelligence in her eyes. “The most dangerous pieces are often the ones people misunderstand. Kings attract attention. Knights reach places no one expects.”
Cillian notices me and points his fork toward the cake. “This is Valeria. She says cake is acceptable during an emergency because fear burns sugar.”
“I said grief burns sugar.” Valeria’s voice is warm and faintly accented. She looks at the portion Isabella has given him and sighs. “But apparently this family now serves children enough chocolate to survive bereavement in advance.”
Isabella enters from the garden doors carrying Cillian’s coat. “He asked for a large slice. I respect a man who negotiates without shame.”
“You are both corrupting him.” I kiss the top of Cillian’s head and inspect the cake as if it may contain a concealed weapon. “I have spent six years teaching him restraint.”
Cillian takes another bite. “It did not work.”
Isabella laughs and helps him into his coat. “Come with me. Lorenzo keeps koi in the inner courtyard, and they are fed almost as obscenely as the Crown.”
After they leave, silence settles over the sunroom.
Valeria pours tea into a second cup without asking whether I want it.
Her hands tremble slightly as she lifts the pot, and I steady the saucer before it tips.
She thanks me with a smile that makes the gesture feel natural rather than observed.
Lorenzo’s elderly mother-in-law should have no place in the Crown’s war, yet she seems perfectly at ease inside a fortified estate filled with armed criminals.
Perhaps age has reduced danger to something repetitive.
Perhaps after raising a family like this, gunmen are merely badly mannered visitors.
“You love Declan.” Valeria adds milk to her tea. “That appears inconvenient for you.”
“I used to love him.” I sit opposite her and glance through the glass at Cillian walking beside Isabella. “Now I mostly resist the urge to stab him with household objects.”
“Love changes its wardrobe when it is wounded.” Valeria’s smile carries no judgment. “It rarely has the dignity to leave.”
I should dismiss her observation, yet fatigue has stripped the armour from places I thought had scarred closed.
“Eamon raised Declan after his father died. He taught him how to survive, how to lead, and how to become the man the Irish Syndicate needed. Five people can access the current operational code, but Eamon has held high-level authority longer than anyone except Declan. Even questioning him will feel like asking Declan to betray his father.”
Valeria places her cup aside and covers my hand with hers. Her skin is thin and cool, her touch gentle enough to remind me of my grandmother. “Do not ask him to choose you over the man who raised him. Give him the truth and let him decide what loyalty is worth when it demands blindness.”
The advice lands with the quiet weight of experience.
I think of Declan carrying out seven executions because the Crown taught him that obedience protected everyone.
I think of Eamon standing in the entrance hall, grieving the years Declan lost with Cillian while warning him not to let guilt restore trust too quickly.
Perhaps he is merely cautious. Perhaps I have spent so long expecting betrayal that kindness now resembles camouflage.
Yet loyalty that forbids questions is not loyalty at all.
It is obedience wearing a family name. Declan must reach that conclusion himself, because if I force it into his hands, he will see only the woman once accused of betraying them.
Valeria withdraws her hand and lifts her tea again. “Men who rule empires imagine betrayal arrives carrying a knife. Usually, it has been pouring their whiskey for years.”
A servant appears in the doorway to summon me back to the library.
I leave Valeria beside the chessboard, her gaze resting on the empty square where Cillian’s knight once stood.
When I return to the meeting, Elena has placed a map across the screen.
Three possible execution sites flash red, each connected to a vehicle assigned through an Irish shell company.
Declan stands at the centre of the room with Thomas’s photograph in one hand and his phone in the other.
He looks every inch the Reaper the Crown created, except now he knows someone else has been choosing his dead.
“If we don’t reach Keane tonight, you will execute the first man capable of proving you were used.”