Chapter 2
Irish
By the time we made it back to the clubhouse, the smell of smoke had worked its way so deeply into my clothes that I could taste it every time I breathed.
The compound was nearly two hours behind us, but pieces of it had followed us home anyway: ash caught in the seams of my boots, dried mud along the bottom of my jeans, the ache in my shoulders from hours spent shifting debris, and three photographs of ledger pages sitting inside the secure folder on my phone.
I had looked at those photographs more times during the ride than I wanted to admit.
Liverpool. Holyhead. Dublin. Cork. The marks were old enough to drag memories out of places I had spent years keeping closed, yet what bothered me most wasn't recognizing them.
It was knowing I had seen their language before anyone in the Flaming Skulls knew the Divine Order existed.
I parked beside Trigger's bike, shut off the engine, and sat for another moment with my hands resting on the handlebars while familiar voices drifted from inside the clubhouse.
An ocean away from Ireland, surrounded by men who knew me as Irish and rarely asked for anything more, I should have felt the distance that had protected me for almost fifteen years.
Instead, County Clare had never seemed closer.
The clubhouse doors opened before I reached them, and Charlie came racing through with one boot on and one bare foot slapping against the floor.
Remedy followed several steps behind her carrying the missing boot and wearing the patient expression of a father who already knew resistance was pointless.
"I don't need it," Charlie announced as she dodged around me, apparently continuing an argument that had started before I walked in.
Remedy caught the back of her shirt before she reached the parking lot and swung her around with practiced ease.
"You do if you intend to keep all ten toes.
" Charlie considered that with the solemn concentration only a child could give such a threat before reluctantly lifting her foot.
The ordinary scene hit me harder than it should have after the morning we'd spent walking through what remained of the Order's compound.
Inside, Lark and Sunshine were organizing food for the rescued women who would arrive at Harbor House later that evening, Willow was helping Summer clear crayons from one end of the table, and Daisy had somehow convinced Bishop that carrying three boxes at once was more efficient than making two trips.
Nobody here behaved as though any of this was unusual anymore.
The club had developed its own rhythm after every rescue: get people out, feed them, give them somewhere safe to sleep, make room for however many needed us, and keep going.
The club had changed over the years, but the part that mattered had only become clearer.
We protected what chose to stand with us.
Toxic was waiting near the entrance to church.
He didn't say anything when I approached, only tipped his head toward the room, and that was enough to tell me Cipher had found more.
Raze and Storm were already seated when I walked in, Storm with a coffee in one hand and the exhausted look of someone who had been awake far too long.
Trigger stood along the wall beside a younger man I had noticed around the clubhouse for several months.
Mason Walker was still a prospect, which meant most of us called him Prospect more often than anything else, but the name Hawkeye had started following him after Trigger discovered exactly how far the kid could see and how patiently he could wait.
A long black case rested against the wall beside him.
Raze glanced at it, then at Hawkeye. "Tell me you didn't bring that damn crossbow into church.
" Hawkeye's expression barely shifted. "Didn't think leaving it in the parking lot was smarter.
" Trigger's mouth twitched. Raze looked toward me as though expecting support.
"You know guns have been invented, right?
" Hawkeye answered before I could. "They've also been heard.
" I took my seat without bothering to hide the small smile from his words.
The prospect noticed it and wisely said nothing.
Cipher brought the main screen to life, and whatever humor had existed in the room disappeared beneath a map spreading from the eastern United States across the Atlantic.
Eli appeared on a second screen from the tech room, surrounded by enough open windows to make my eyes ache.
"We started matching the routing marks you identified against the financial records Storm recovered," Cipher said.
"They're not random maritime codes. The Order adapted older port identifiers and combined them with internal classifications.
" He enlarged one ledger entry. What had looked like meaningless columns at the compound now sat beside translated labels.
The translated classifications included households, daughters, penitents, teachers, healers, and entire families.
Nothing on the screen called them cargo because that wasn't how the Order thought about the people it moved.
These were assignments inside a religious system, transfers from one controlled community to another.
Storm leaned forward and pointed toward several dates.
"These movements spike whenever a property gets investigated or one of their American communities attracts too much attention.
They aren't selling people overseas. They're relocating their own members before anyone can find them. "
"Making them disappear without actually losing control of them," Steel said.
Cipher nodded. "Exactly."
More markers appeared. Glasgow. Edinburgh.
Newcastle. Yorkshire. Liverpool. Belfast. Dublin.
Galway. Some represented registered charities.
Others belonged to private clinics, religious schools, property companies, restoration foundations, and residential trusts whose paperwork looked legitimate until Cipher placed the directors beside one another.
The same surnames appeared again and again behind different companies.
Money moved from American accounts into British charities, from British charities into construction firms, and from construction firms into private medical facilities that somehow spent more on locks and security systems than they did on medicine.
I listened while everyone studied the network, but my attention caught on one name near the bottom of a list and stayed there.
Covenant Renewal Foundation.
For a few seconds, the clubhouse disappeared.
I remembered my father sitting at the kitchen table with papers spread around his dinner plate because Mam had threatened to throw the entire stack into the fire if he tried carrying them into the sitting room again.
I remembered Declan muttering about invoices that refused to balance and telling Finn to stay out of his study.
I remembered arguing that he had become paranoid during those last months, secretive enough that none of us knew what he was afraid of until fear became something we understood too late.
The foundation name on Cipher's screen wasn't exactly the one I remembered, but it was close enough to make something cold settle beneath my ribs.
Steel noticed where I was looking. Of course he did. "Know it?"
I dragged my attention away from the screen. "Know something like it."
"From Ireland?"
"Aye."
The word came out heavier than usual, and Toxic's gaze shifted toward me without comment.
Cipher opened another file. "There's more.
One of the English properties receiving money through Covenant Renewal is called Blackridge Hall.
Officially, it's being converted into a residential retreat for women recovering from trauma.
Historic estate. Large renovation. Very respectable website.
" His tone made it clear what he thought of respectable websites.
"The interior-design company contracted for portions of the restoration is Scottish. Thistle & Stone Interiors, Edinburgh."
A photograph appeared beside the company name, showing two women standing in front of a narrow storefront beneath a sign bearing the same name.
One was fair-haired and smiling at the camera while holding what looked like a rolled blueprint.
The other stood beside her with auburn-brown hair pulled away from her face and a hand braced against the sign as though they had just finished hanging it themselves.
Cipher highlighted the first woman. "Isla Lennox. Co-owner and project manager. Missing twenty-three days."
The second woman's name appeared.
Skye Fraser.
"Business partner," Cipher continued. "And judging by the number of calls she's made to police, property owners, contractors, and anyone else who'll answer the phone, she's not accepting the official explanation."
"What explanation?" Raze asked.
"That Lennox left voluntarily."
Storm gave a humorless laugh. "Convenient."
"Eli pulled travel records," Cipher said. "No verified departure from the country. No normal financial activity. Her passport hasn't been used. The property claims she left the project early, but their timeline doesn't match the design company's records."
My attention returned to Skye Fraser's photograph.
There was nothing particularly dangerous about her.
No weapon. No hard expression. Just a woman standing beside the friend who had disappeared.
Yet anyone willing to make twenty-three days of noise after being repeatedly told to stop was already a problem for an organization built on silence.
Toxic closed the folder in front of him. "So Scotland first."
I looked at him.