Liam #2
"Still mapping. We know of three in the west corridor. Likely more." I look at the glass in my hand. "It's going to take time to clean out properly."
"I'll do it," he says.
I look at him.
"My mess," he says. "My men, my relationships, my — I brought him in, I maintained him, I listened to him." His jaw tightens. "I'll clean it."
"All right," I say.
He drinks. "The Russian girl."
I hold his gaze steadily. "Yes."
"How long."
"Two months, operationally. Recently — differently."
"She was sent to destabilize us."
"Yes."
"And now."
"She's working with us. On the Connolly intelligence, on Viktor's timeline, on the Italian pharmaceutical case." I meet his eyes. "She handed me the proof on Connolly, Declan. It came from her."
He is quiet for a moment. Processing the specific geometry of that — the thing that gave him back his clarity came from the woman who was sent to take it. "She's the reason you know," he says.
"Yes."
He looks at the glass. "That's complicated."
"Yes," I say. "It is."
"Are you—" He stops. "Is it—"
"Yes," I say, before he finishes. "It is what you're thinking it is."
He absorbs this. Then: "That's going to be a problem."
"Probably," I say. "I'm working on the shape of the problem."
He looks at me with the expression he has when he thinks I've made a decision he disagrees with and has decided the moment isn't right to press it.
"The loyalists," he says instead. "The men who've been following Connolly's lead.
Not the ones he turned — the ones who just agreed with him because agreeing was easier than questioning. "
"Three days," I say. "I'm giving them three days to make their decision. With us or not with us, and not with us means out."
He nods. "I'll be there when you tell them."
"That's what I was hoping."
He looks at the ice at his ribs. "Liam."
I look at him.
"Rina," he says. Carefully. "The things you did. The way this — the alliance, all of it — started."
"Yes," I say.
"You've been trying to lead differently since." He says it not as a question and not quite as a statement. As an observation, extended carefully.
"Yes."
"Is it—" He stops again. "Does it work. Trying to be different than what you were."
I think about everything I could say to that question. I think about Nadia in the study with the case on the desk between us, and the warehouse floor, and the farmers market, and a safehouse above a laundromat, and you matter said in the register of a fact rather than a consolation.
"I don't know yet," I say honestly. "I think so. Some days I'm more certain than others." I hold his gaze. "But I know that trying is the only option I have that I can live with."
He nods. He drinks.
We sit in the bad lighting for a while longer.
Then he says: "The girl. Nadia."
"Yes."
"Does she make you better at this." He gestures with the glass, meaning everything — the operation, the leadership, the whole unwieldy thing. "Or worse."
I think about the Connolly file. About the March gap in the Brennan data. About the Italian pharmaceutical case and the receiver handed over in a warehouse and a woman who had two capsules in her coat pocket for three days and came to tell me instead.
"Better," I say.
He looks at me for a long moment.
"Then handle it carefully," he says. "And handle her carefully."
"I intend to."
He nods. It isn't approval exactly. It's the acknowledgment of someone who has decided to trust a decision he can't fully see yet, which from Declan is the closest thing to a blessing I'm going to receive and which is enough.
The men come at two in the afternoon.
Twelve of them, the core of Connolly's network within the compound, the ones who've been operating in the particular grey zone of following a man who was following someone else.
They come into the main hall and they stand with the specific quality of people who know they're being assessed and are waiting to find out what the assessment means for them.
Declan stands to my right.
Finn is at the wall. Mackenzie beside him. Conor at the door.
I look at the twelve men and I tell them what they are — not in accusation, just in the flat factual register of a man laying out what he knows.
I tell them about Connolly and the Antwerp shell and eight months of compromised operational intelligence.
I tell them that the men who actively facilitated it have already been dealt with, and that what I'm looking at now is the question of who's in this room by active choice and who's in this room by passive default.
"You have three days," I say. "To tell me which.
Three days to decide if you're here because you believe in what we're building — the alliance, the direction, all of it — or if you're here because Connolly told you the story you wanted to hear and you believed it without asking who was writing it.
" I look at each of them in turn. "Three days.
After that the question is answered whether you've spoken or not. "
I look at Declan.
He steps forward.
"I was one of you," he says. "I stood where you're standing and I believed what Connolly was selling and I nearly used it to break something that didn't deserve to be broken.
" He holds the room's eyes with the specific authority of someone who has earned the right to say what he's saying through a morning in a courtyard that they all know happened.
"I'm telling you that from where I'm standing now, it looks different.
What we have with the Italians, what Liam's built — it doesn't look like what Connolly said it looked like. "
He steps back.
The room is quiet.
"Three days," I say again.
They go.
Conor closes the door behind the last of them and turns to me with the expression he has when he's decided something. "Half of them will come back," he says.
"I know."
"The other half—"
"Will make their choice," I say. "And we'll deal with it."
He nods.
Finn has crossed from the wall. He looks at me with the damage on my face and the specific quality of a man who has watched something difficult happen and is deciding what it means. "Well," he says.
"Well," I agree.
"Gianna is making dinner," he says. "She started this morning. She says it will be ready at seven and everyone is coming whether they want to or not."
I look at him. "Everyone."
"Everyone," he says. "Her word."
I think about Nadia at the safehouse, waiting. "I need to make a call first."
Finn nods. He doesn't ask who.
I go to the study and I close the door and I call the burner.
She picks up on the first ring.
"Liam," she says.
"I'm all right," I say, before she can ask. "It's done."
A pause. "And Declan."
"He's here," I say. "He's with us."
Another pause. Then: "Good." She says it with the flat certainty of someone who calculated for this outcome and is glad the calculation was correct. "How bad is your face."
"Mackenzie says it'll be difficult to explain at the Italian meeting."
"She's right." A pause. "Ailish called. She says Gianna is making dinner."
"Apparently everyone is coming whether they want to or not."
"I know," she says. "I want to."
I sit with that for a moment. "Then come," I say.
"You're sure."
"Yes."
A pause. "I'll be there at seven."
"Nadia." I look at the window. "I told Declan. About us."
"How did he take it."
"He told me to handle it carefully." A pause. "And to handle you carefully."
Silence. Then: "That's more than I expected."
"He's more than people expect," I say. "Usually."
She is quiet for a moment. "I'll see you at seven."
"Seven," I say.
She hangs up.
I sit in the study with the evening coming in from the window and the specific quality of a day that has done what it needed to do, and I think about dinner at seven and a woman who said she wants to come and a brother who said handle it carefully and the three days I've given twelve men to make their decisions.
A lot can happen in three days.
In my experience, it usually does.