Chapter 40
Irish
The clubhouse had settled into the kind of late-evening noise that only existed when everyone had finally stopped pretending work was finished.
Harbor House plans covered one end of the long common-room table beside takeout containers, three laptops, and a stack of documents Cipher had printed because apparently even people who trusted technology eventually reached the point where staring at another screen became intolerable.
Somewhere near the bar, Raze and Mace were arguing over whether an old surveillance camera could be repurposed for the workshop without Cipher discovering what they had done, which guaranteed Cipher already knew and was waiting to see how badly they embarrassed themselves.
Sunshine sat beside Storm comparing apartment layouts from the survivor-housing project, while Skye had taken over a section of wall with paint samples, accessibility notes, and enough measurements to make the clubhouse look temporarily annexed by Thistle I hadn't known she existed.
The impossible part was me standing inside the clubhouse while someone I loved occupied space within my family without making me feel as though one world threatened the other.
For years, I had divided my life into pieces because separation felt safer.
Ireland existed behind me. The club existed in front of me.
Rory belonged to people who died, Callum belonged to the years when I was trying to become someone else, and Irish belonged here because road names were uncomplicated in ways real ones rarely managed to be.
Then Skye walked into the middle of all of it and apparently decided compartmentalization was another badly designed structure she intended to renovate.
She looked across the room and caught me watching, naturally.
Her eyes narrowed. I lifted the coffee, and she pointed toward it in silent accusation because it had gone cold.
I checked and discovered she was right. I hated that.
She smiled and returned to Steel. Toxic came through the chapel doorway a few minutes later and crooked one finger toward me.
"Cipher found something."
That ended the domestic part of the evening.
I set the coffee down and followed him inside.
By the time the door closed behind us, most of the senior brothers had already gathered around the table.
Trigger sat near Toxic's right, Ledger occupied the far side with several financial reports open in front of him, and Cipher had connected his laptop to the wall display.
Hawkeye stood near the rear instead of taking a chair, quiet as always and close enough to the exit that I suspected the habit had become permanent long before he ever joined us.
Skye entered with Storm a moment later. Nobody questioned why she was there.
That mattered too. Cipher waited until everyone settled before bringing up the first record.
"Saint Brigid's server pull finished rebuilding the damaged directories."
Toxic leaned forward. "How complete?"
"Sixty-two percent on active files. Less on historical. Enough to confirm we were right about the network."
A diagram appeared on the screen. Properties spread across Ireland, England, Scotland, several American states, and enough shell entities that even after weeks of looking at Order structures I felt my stomach tighten.
Saint Brigid's had not been a regional outlier or a forgotten property Harrow happened to reuse.
It had been one node inside a system designed to move people through housing, medical facilities, religious compounds, schools, charities, and private residences without any single organization appearing responsible for the whole. Cipher enlarged the financial branch.
"Ledger found something buried in legacy transfers." Every eye moved toward our treasurer. Ledger's expression hadn't changed, but something about the way his hands rested beside the papers told me whatever came next was personal enough that he would have preferred it wasn't. Toxic noticed too.
"Go ahead."
Ledger looked toward Cipher. Cipher opened a historical account.
The name attached to it meant nothing to me at first. DAHLIA MERCER.
Then another line appeared. DEPENDENT TRANSFER — INFANT FEMALE — HOPE.
Ledger went completely still. Nobody spoke.
I looked from the screen to him. His face had gone pale. Toxic's voice changed.
"Ledger?" For several seconds he didn't answer. Then he pushed back slightly from the table.
"I know that name." The room became quieter.
"Which one?" Steel asked.
"Dahlia." He looked at the screen as though he had stopped seeing the rest of us.
"She was my mother."
That hit harder than any file name should have.
Cipher's hands stopped above the keyboard.
Skye sat beside me now, her shoulder brushing mine.
Toxic didn't ask Ledger whether he wanted to continue in front of everyone.
He simply gave him the choice the way our club had slowly learned to give choices even when urgency wanted answers faster.
"You want the room cleared?" Ledger swallowed.
"No." His voice sounded rougher than usual.
"Keep going."
Cipher nodded once. The next page reconstructed a transfer twenty-eight years earlier.
A woman identified as Dahlia Mercer had moved through a Covenant predecessor residence while accompanied by a young male child and an infant girl whose legal records had been altered within weeks.
The boy's name appeared only once in the surviving archive, under the birth surname Ledger had left behind years ago. The room changed around him.
Cipher spoke carefully. "The infant was transferred separately to an adoption intermediary tied to a West Coast religious charity.
We have reason to believe the adoption itself eventually became legitimate, but the transfer that placed her into that system wasn't." Ledger's gaze remained fixed on the screen.
"Hope."
"Aye." His hand tightened.
"She's my sister." Nobody answered because the evidence said possible and likely, not absolute. Ledger knew that. He was too good with numbers not to. Still, some truths announced themselves emotionally before paperwork finished catching up. Cipher continued.
"We have a name associated with the adoptive placement, but I haven't opened it beyond the restricted record." Ledger finally looked toward him.
"Why?"
"Because it's her life." That answer came from Skye. Everyone turned. She held Ledger's gaze.
"If she's alive and has no idea this history exists, finding her isn't the same as deciding she wants contact." Ledger looked at her for several seconds. Then nodded slowly.
"Aye."
The word carried more weight than agreement.
I recognized the conflict in his face. It was the same one I had lived inside for years: wanting answers badly enough that waiting felt impossible, while knowing another person stood on the other side of those answers with a right to decide what happened next. Toxic leaned back.
"We verify first." Ledger's jaw worked.
"Then?"
"Then you decide whether you want contact attempted, and if you do, we find a way that gives her every possible exit.
" Skye's fingers touched mine beneath the table.
I looked down. The lesson had traveled farther than any of us expected.
Choice wasn't merely something we offered Order survivors.
It was becoming part of how we handled one another. Ledger nodded.
"Do it." Cipher closed the restricted record.
"For what it's worth, the surviving transfer logs also show Dahlia actively resisting the separation." Ledger's eyes lifted.
"What?"
"She didn't surrender either child voluntarily." The silence that followed belonged to Ledger. Nobody broke it. Eventually he exhaled and looked toward Toxic.
"I want everything."
"You'll get it."
"And whoever moved them." Toxic's expression hardened.
"We'll get that too."
There was the next war, although it wasn't for tonight and wasn't mine to lead; I felt it entering the room all the same.
The Order had touched more of us than we understood.
The Order had reached my family, Isla, the women and children at Croft House and Saint Brigid's, and now Ledger, perhaps even Hope.
And somewhere beyond everything we'd already uncovered, Harrow and Vale were still moving. Cipher switched screens.
"There's more."
Raze, who had somehow remained quiet for almost four entire minutes, muttered, "Of course there fucking is." Storm elbowed him. Cipher ignored both.
"The recovered transfer schedule includes East Coast destinations that don't match any properties we've identified yet.
" A map appeared with markers across South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia.
One entry sat close enough to our territory that the air in the room shifted. Toxic swore. Trigger leaned forward.
"Current?"
"Last movement was six weeks ago."
"Residents?"
"Unknown." Skye studied the property code.
"Is there a building record?" Cipher opened it. An old private school converted into a religious retreat. Then renovated again. Skye's expression changed.
"Send me the plans."