24. Declan
Declan
Twenty-four hours after Maeve orders me to propose properly, I discover that organising murder is easier than arranging romance.
Murder requires a target, a weapon, and enough foresight to remove witnesses.
Romance apparently requires flowers, timing, emotional honesty, and consultation with a six-year-old who has inherited his mother’s contempt for inadequate planning.
Cillian rejects my first idea because it involves a private dining room and no cake.
He rejects the second because a string quartet would make conversation difficult.
When I explain that proposals traditionally concern the two people considering marriage, he informs me that our family has suffered enough from decisions made without including everyone affected.
The boy has known me less than three weeks and already uses my failures as negotiating leverage. Pride makes discipline impossible.
“We should take Mam somewhere important.” Cillian sits behind my desk with a pencil tucked above one ear. “Not expensive. She does not trust expensive things.”
“Your mother accepted a house.”
“She complimented the kitchen.” He draws a line through my written proposal plan. “That is not the same as trusting it.”
I examine the page he has vandalised. “You have crossed out champagne.”
“She says it makes people agree to regrettable things.”
“She drank champagne the night we first discussed having a future.”
“And then she ran away.”
“The events were separated by several years and considerable treason.” I take the pencil from him. “Your analysis lacks context.”
Cillian reaches for another. “Where did you talk about the future?”
The answer arrives before caution can dress it into something safer.
The roof garden of the Raven Hotel. Maeve and I spent our first night there, though the future came months later when affection had become too large to pretend it was only appetite.
The hotel was never elegant enough for the Crown.
Its narrow rooms, temperamental lift, and leaking roof kept most wealthy criminals away.
I owned it through an Irish shell company because its upper floors offered private meetings and excellent sight lines across Lower Manhattan.
Maeve liked the rooftop because no guards followed us through the rusted service door.
She said the city sounded honest from that height.
Every lie became small enough to survive.
“The Raven.” I turn the silver lighter in my hand. Maeve gave it to me after carving my initials beside the hotel’s tiny bird emblem. “There was a garden on the roof.”
“Does it have cake?”
“It has been closed for six years.”
“That sounds like no.”
I make three calls. By sunset, the Raven’s roof has power, the old lift has been inspected, and a bakery has delivered a cake small enough to avoid resembling a wedding rehearsal.
I refuse flowers after remembering Maeve once described roses as guilt with thorns.
Cillian brings one of Valeria’s Irish storybooks because he believes props improve serious conversations.
He also insists on carrying the ring, though he makes me confirm twice that it contains no tracking device.
Maeve knows I am taking her somewhere but refuses to dress for the occasion until I define it.
She finally appears in black trousers, a dark green blouse, and the expression of a woman prepared to discover an ambush.
Her hair falls loose over her shoulders.
I have seen her in bloodstained clothes, evening gowns, and nothing at all.
She remains most dangerous when dressed for an argument.
“You requested twenty-four hours.” I hold out her coat in the entrance hall. “I used twenty-three and a half.”
“Efficiency from an O’Rourke usually leaves bodies.” She slips her arms into the sleeves. “Should I bring a weapon?”
“You bring one everywhere.”
“I meant a visible weapon.”
“Cillian will be with us.”
“That does not answer the question.”
Our son appears at the top of the stairs wearing a navy coat and carrying a white bakery box with both hands. Niamh follows behind him, attempting to hide a smile she will deny under questioning. Maeve looks from the box to me. Suspicion narrows her eyes.
“You involved the child.” She fastens her coat. “That seems emotionally manipulative.”
“He insisted.”
“You allowed him.”
“I am learning to respect independent authority.”
Cillian descends carefully. “There is cake. You should complain after we eat it.”
The Raven Hotel stands on a narrow street between buildings that grew taller while it remained closed.
Its brick exterior has darkened with age, and the tarnished bird above the entrance still appears offended by the city.
I sold the property after Maeve disappeared because every room contained some version of her.
Last week, I bought it back from a developer who planned to tear it down.
He believed my offer generous. The man delivering it believed refusal might shorten his life.
Romance and business continue sharing methods.
Maeve stops beneath the faded sign. For once, she has no immediate insult. Her gaze moves to the fifth-floor windows, then the alley where she once kissed me before walking inside. Memory softens her face and hurts me more cleanly than anger.
“You sold it.” Her voice is quiet. “I checked the ownership records after I left.”
“You checked?”
“Pregnancy was tedious. I occasionally investigated whether you had mourned me appropriately.”
“I bought it back.”
“Yesterday?”
“This morning.” I open the door. “The developer was flexible.”
“Did he remain alive?”
“He seemed attached to the condition.”
The lobby smells of dust, old wood, and fresh paint.
I have not restored the rooms or hidden the building’s age beneath polished stone.
Maeve loved the Raven because it never pretended to be more refined than it was.
The lift remains unreliable, so we take the stairs.
Cillian complains at the third floor that romance should involve less exercise.
Maeve takes the cake box from him, and I lift him onto my back for the final two flights.
His arms lock around my neck with casual trust. I will never become accustomed to that gift.
The roof garden waits beyond the old service door.
Most of the plants died after the hotel closed, but the stone benches remain beneath strings of warm lights.
New ivy climbs the brick wall where Maeve once wrote our initials with chalk and accused me of becoming sentimental for refusing to let the rain wash them away.
The marks vanished years ago. I had a craftsman carve them into the stone this morning, preserving something we were too careless to protect the first time.
Maeve notices immediately. Her fingers move over the letters. “You had this done today.”
“I considered carving them myself.” I set Cillian down. “Then I remembered your opinion of my handwriting.”
“It resembles a threat sent during an earthquake.”
Cillian places the cake on the nearest bench. “Can we begin? I was told not to eat until after the important part.”
Maeve turns toward me. “You bribed our son with sugar to accelerate my proposal.”
“I prefer operational incentives.”
“You could simply ask.”
“Yesterday, I did. You complained.”
“I requested effort.”
“You received a renovated roof, historical vandalism, and cake.” I take her hand. “Try to appear overwhelmed.”
She is overwhelmed. I see it in the faint tremble of her fingers and the way her breath catches when I guide her toward the far wall.
Seven years ago, we stood in the same place while rain threatened the city.
Maeve had stolen my coat and wrapped it around herself, leaving me in a shirt that did nothing against the cold.
She asked whether I intended to spend my entire life killing people for the Crown.
I told her I intended to spend it ensuring she never had to fear anyone.
She called the answer arrogant, then admitted she wanted a future with me anyway.
“I remember what you said here.” I stop beneath the carved initials.
“You told me you wanted mornings that did not begin with guards outside the door. You wanted a kitchen with enough windows to offend my security advisers, a dog I would pretend not to like, and children who knew my voice before they learned to fear it.”
Maeve looks toward Cillian. He sits on the bench with the bakery box in his lap, listening without pretending otherwise. “You said children were a strategic weakness.”
“I was an idiot.”
“That diagnosis took years.”
“It required a specialist.” I tighten my hand around hers. “You told me wanting a family did not make me weak. It gave me something worth becoming better for.”
“I believed I had time to convince you.”
“You did.” I look at our son. “Someone stole the years in which you should have done it.”
Cillian opens the storybook and studies the page with excessive concentration.
He knows this part belongs to us, though his presence remains essential.
Our future is not two lovers reclaiming what existed before him.
It is three people deciding what comes next after surviving the choices that separated them.
“I cannot return the years we lost.” I face Maeve fully.
“I cannot give you Cillian’s birth with me beside you, his first steps, or the nights you stayed awake because every car sounded like my arrival.
I cannot erase the threat I made or the blood on my hands.
Seven innocent people are dead because I accepted obedience in place of judgment.
Marrying me will not make me a better man retroactively. ”
Maeve’s eyes shine, but she refuses to let the tears fall. “This proposal has become impressively cheerful.”
“You requested honesty.”
“I did not ban charm.”