Chapter 16 #2
“In her room, or pretending she isn’t tired at her desk.”
“I’ll find her,” she says and passes the dish to Maeve so she can free a hand and point at me. “You eat before you leave.”
“I don’t have time.”
“You have thirty seconds and a fork.”
Maeve snorts, I scowl at her. “Why are you here?”
“You called Ma, she called me, and now I’m here to do what you should’ve done this morning, which is ask for help before you run yourself into the ground.”
I take the dish, pull back the lid, and shovel in two bites of lamb and potato while my mother nods once in approval and starts toward Riley’s room without waiting for escort.
“Text me if she spikes a fever,” I say after her.
“She’s not one of your men,” my mother replies over her shoulder. “I know how to care for people.”
I let her go, then look at Maeve. “Stay in the house.”
Maeve folds her arms. “I wasn’t planning to come play dock war.”
“Good.”
By dusk, I’m in the SUV heading east with Conall in front, two more vehicles behind us, and the city outside the glass looks normal in a way that always irritates me before a move.
People queue outside shops, buses kneel at stops, teenagers cut across side streets with music leaking from their phones, and half of them have no idea how close they live to men who would torch a route to gain five percent on freight.
Conall checks his phone and turns slightly in his seat. “Harbor master says the dark service boat came back in forty minutes ago, then disappeared behind the decommissioned fuel sheds.”
“Crew count?”
“Couldn’t confirm. He thinks four minimum.”
“Too light for a full hit.”
“Maybe spotters.”
“Maybe.”
I look out at the line of warehouses as we pass the old rail spur, and I run the map in my head. East break. Fuel sheds. Narrow service lane. Blind wall on one side, chain fence on the other, and the water close enough to hear if the wind is right.
They picked it for entry or exit.
“Send two to the upper catwalk before we roll in,” I say. “No lights, no chatter, and if they see movement, they hold until I give the word.”
Conall relays it, calm and clear. The men in the third vehicle answer back with short confirmations.
The gates at the service road are already unlocked when we arrive, which tells me somebody paid somebody, and I feel that familiar cold focus settle in as the first SUV turns off the main road and into shadow.
Floodlights from the active berths throw broken strips of white across corrugated metal, and the smell hits hard through the vents—diesel, salt, rust, old rope, wet concrete.
I open my door before the engine fully dies.
“Positions,” I say, and the men move.
Boots fan out across gravel, one pair left toward the sheds, two toward the fence line, another toward the stairs that lead to the catwalk, and Conall stays at my shoulder as I draw my piece and glance once toward the water.
A low shape sits beyond the third shed, half-hidden, no running lights, rocking just enough to show it is occupied.
Then a metal door bangs somewhere ahead of us, quick and hard, and someone starts running.
“Left side,” Conall says, already moving.
I cut right instead, using the shed corner for cover while two of my men push toward the sound, and a shadow breaks across the lane between the second and third fuel buildings. He’s fast, head down, carrying something long in both hands, and the floodlight catches the barrel for half a second.
“Down,” I snap.
The first shot cracks across the yard and takes sparks off corrugated steel where my men were a heartbeat earlier, then all restraint burns off and the lane opens up with noise, boots scraping, metal ringing, short, controlled bursts from my side and wild return fire from theirs.
Conall drops to a knee at the crate stack and fires twice, forcing the runner behind an oil drum cluster. “Three at least,” he calls. “One on the roofline.”
I track up on instinct and catch movement above the catwalk access, a head and shoulder shape sliding behind a rusted vent housing. He’s set to pin the lane while the others pull out by water.
“Catwalk team?” I ask into comms.
A whisper comes back in my ear, breathless but steady. “Visual on roof shooter. Waiting.”
“Take him.”
The shot from above is clean and immediate, and the roofline figure jerks sideways and drops out of sight behind the vent box. At ground level, someone curses and starts firing blindly toward the stairs, and that gives away the second man’s position near the chain fence.
I move.
Gravel shifts under my boots as I cut across the lane, staying low, shoulder brushing cold steel, and the pain in my side catches once when I pivot around the shed corner.
I ignore it and keep going. The fence gunman pops up to relocate, and I put one round through his thigh before he can clear the post. He drops hard, weapon skidding under the fence with a clatter.
“Alive,” one of my men calls.
“Keep him that way,” I reply. “I want him talking.”
A second attacker bolts from behind the drums toward the waterline with a satchel in one hand, and the shape of that bag puts a bad taste in my mouth. Charges, tools, or cash for a pickup. None of it belongs on my dock.
“Stop him,” Conall shouts.
The man reaches the low service ramp and turns to fire back, muzzle flash strobing across wet concrete, and I feel the old rhythm settle into place, sight picture, breath, pressure.
I fire once and catch him high in the shoulder.
He spins, slams against the rail, and goes down on the ramp with the satchel trapped under him.
The low boat beyond the third shed revs suddenly, engine coughing before it catches, and the black shape starts to swing away from the pilings.
“Boat’s moving,” the catwalk voice says in my ear.
“Disable it.”
Gunfire rips from above, sharper angle this time, and sparks jump off the outboard housing.
The boat swerves, overcorrects, clips a piling, and stalls with a grinding hit that throws one man sideways.
He tries to restart, but one of my men reaches the edge and puts rounds into the console. The engine dies for good.
For a few seconds the whole lane is noise and motion, men shouting positions, one attacker crying out from the fence, Conall kicking a dropped rifle away, another of mine dragging the wounded runner clear of the open strip near the ramp.
Then it starts to settle, the way these things always do, in pieces.
“Clear left.”
“Roofline secure.”
“Boat contained.”
“Two down, two breathing.”
I scan the shadows and wait another count anyway, listening for the second movement, the hidden shooter, the late surprise. All I get is water slapping concrete and a loose sheet of metal tapping somewhere in the wind.
Conall comes up beside me, breathing hard but controlled. “One of ours took a graze on the forearm. Nothing else.”
I nod and step toward the man on the ramp. He’s conscious, face pale under dock grime, shoulder bleeding through a dark jacket, one hand clamped over the wound while he stares at me like he knows exactly whose ground he landed on.
The satchel is heavy when I yank it free and drag it closer with my boot. Inside is a mixed mess, bolt cutters, a hard drive case, two wrapped bricks that look like cash, and a compact charge rig with magnet mounts.
“Plant and pull,” Conall says quietly.
“Or cut cameras and leave us blind for tomorrow,” I reply.
I crouch and hold the satchel open under the flood spill while Conall shines a torch from his phone. The charge rig is assembled, timer not armed yet, and the magnets are scored with rust from old marine use. These weren’t built in a hurry. They came prepared to hit infrastructure.
“Who sent you?” I ask the man on the ramp.
He spits blood to the side and says nothing.
I stand and look to the one by the fence, the one with my bullet in his leg. He’s younger, maybe twenty-five, trying to hold his face together while my men bind his thigh.
“You talk first,” I tell him, “you get a doctor first.”
He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head.
Conall glances toward the water. “Police response window is shrinking.”
“I know.”
I point to the wounded pair. “Bag them, hood them, and move them to Shed Nine. Strip everything, including boots. I want photos of tattoos, scars, phones, all of it.”
He nods and starts issuing orders.
The catwalk team comes down with a third body, the roof shooter, dead before he hit the landing by the look of him. In his jacket pocket they find a burner and a folded slip with two times and one code written in block capitals. No names.
That alone tells me enough.
This wasn’t random theft, and it wasn’t freelance sabotage. Someone wanted a lane dark and a route open, then wanted deniability when it went wrong. Patrick’s people have used that shape before, clean hands, borrowed crews, paid doors, no one important visible.
I walk the perimeter once myself, checking the unlocked gate, the cut chain hidden behind the post, the camera junction box near the second shed with its cover loosened but not yet pulled. They were seconds from blinding this entire section.
Conall meets me by the SUVs with a tablet already loaded. “Harbor master sent the wider pulls, and customs supervisor is on hold. Also, your mother texted.”
I take the tablet first, skim the timestamps, and hand it back. “What did she say?”
“She got Riley to eat soup and bread, and she’s resting. Maeve’s staying the night.”
A small part of me unclenches, and I hate that the timing lets me feel it.
“Good,” I say. “Send two extra to the estate perimeter, no uniforms, and rotate the inside hall watch. Quietly.”
Conall studies me for a second, then nods. “You think tonight was linked.”
“I think too many things are moving at once.”
We leave the sheds locked down behind us with two crews in place, one at the gate and one on the water side, and the drive back starts in silence, the kind that comes after a fight when everyone is running through details and counting what almost happened.
My knuckles ache where I braced against steel, my side is hot again under the jacket, and the smell of diesel is still in my throat.
I lean back in the seat and replay the lane, the runner, the satchel, the camera box, and then, against my own preference, my mind shifts to Riley in my office doorway with that look on her face.
I should’ve made the time.
My phone vibrates in my hand as we hit the coastal road, no caller ID, unknown number, and I almost decline it until the timing itself feels wrong enough to answer. Instead I hit accept and slide my thumb across the recorder icon before I speak.
“Who is this?”
A soft breath, then a voice I know even through distortion and a bad line. “You think I’m your enemy, but you don’t know the people in your own house.”
Patrick.
I keep my tone flat and look out the window so Conall can’t read too much off my face. Streetlights pass over wet glass and vanish behind us.
“You called from a blocked number to talk in riddles,” I say. “That’s a step down from your usual standards.”
He gives a short laugh that carries no warmth. “Still performing, even after tonight.”
My fingers close tighter around the phone. “You’re admitting involvement.”
“I’m admitting nothing. I’m offering you a courtesy.”
“From the man sending cutters and charges into my east break.”
A pause. I can hear traffic on his side, distant, then a car door shutting.
“You’re chasing the wrong fire,” he says. “That’s always been your weakness. You see movement, you mistake it for the hand that moved it.”
I let the silence sit a beat and tap the recorder screen once to make sure it is still running. “Get to the point.”
“The woman in your house isn’t who you think she is.”
Every muscle in my back goes hard, and I force myself to keep my voice level. “Careful.”
“Ask her where she was trained,” he continues, calm now, almost patient. “Ask her why she knows your manifests before your supervisors do. Ask her who benefits every time your grief turns you toward the east while something else opens in the west.”
Conall turns slightly in the front seat, hearing enough to know the call matters, and I raise a hand without speaking. He faces forward again.
“You sound desperate,” I say. “That usually means I’ve closed another lane.”
Patrick ignores it. “You’ve built a story in your head about me for years, and stories are useful until they keep a man from seeing what’s standing in his own room.”
My pulse kicks once, hard, and with it comes an older image I have not asked for, Eva in the driver’s seat, her hand on the wheel, the flash, the heat, the smell of burning upholstery and salt air.
I push it down and keep my voice cold. “If this is your attempt to turn me against her, you should’ve called before my men pulled your tools out of a satchel tonight.”
This time, his silence runs longer.
Then he says, very quietly, “You still think I planted every bomb with my own hands.”
“What did you just say?”
“You heard me.”
“Say it again.”
“I said your city runs on lies, Cillian, and one of the funniest is the one you built your life on after Eva died.”
My grip tightens enough that the edge of the phone bites into my palm, and I stare at the dark road ahead while the SUV eats miles under us.
Patrick exhales into the line, and when he speaks again his voice drops into something almost conversational. “If you want the truth about the car, come alone and bring your questions, or keep doing what you’re doing and let the wrong people tuck you into bed while the right ones bury you.”
The line clicks dead.