3. Declan #2
The air between us turns sharp. This is the part where we stop being brothers and start being rivals. I can feel it happening, like old habits sliding back into place.
“I’m not protecting her,” I say. “I’m protecting the family.”
Liam turns, eyes cold. “Those things stopped being separate the day you decided you knew better than me.”
“Don’t make this about pride.”
“It’s always about pride.”
We stare at each other, the weight of every unspoken argument hanging in the space between. Finally he sighs, sits, and steeples his fingers.
“Find out who used her credentials,” he says. “If it was her, I’ll deal with it. If it wasn’t, I want the traitor on his knees by the end of the week.”
“And if it leads back to the Italians?”
“Then we cut the alliance. Quietly.”
His voice is calm again, but there’s something behind it—fear, maybe. The kind he’ll never admit to. I nod once and turn to leave. He stops me at the door.
“Declan.”
“Yeah?”
“If you can’t stay objective, I’ll pull you off this.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He doesn’t believe me, and I don’t blame him.
Back in the car, the city lights smear across the windshield. I drive with one hand, the other tapping the steering wheel in time with my pulse. Every street feels like a trap tonight. I keep seeing those crates, the Russian markings, her handwriting on the manifests.
She wouldn’t. Not Ailish. Not the girl who still triple-checks every file before sending it to Liam. But people change. Loyalty bends.
My phone buzzes again. A message from Conor:
Conor; Got something. You’ll want to see this in person. Warehouse 12. Come alone.
I turn the car toward the river, the night closing in like a promise.
Warehouse 12 sits on the edge of the river, half-hidden by a line of rusted shipping containers. The streetlights don’t reach this far. Only the sound of the tide and the low hum of generators keep the place alive.
Conor’s truck is parked crooked by the loading bay. Its engine’s still ticking when I pull up beside it.
He meets me at the door, face tight. “You’re not gonna like this.”
“I already don’t.”
He pushes the door open. The interior’s dark except for a single bulb swinging above a worktable. Beneath it, a laptop glows. On the screen—security footage, timestamped from two nights ago.
“Play it,” I say. Conor hits the space bar.
The image jumps to life: a figure in a hooded coat moving through the dock office, quick, deliberate. They slide a keycard through the reader, type something into the terminal, pull a flash drive, and disappear into the rain.
Conor freezes the frame and zooms. The hood falls back just enough to show red hair catching the light.
My chest goes cold. “No.”
“It looks like her, Dec.”
“It’s not.”
“You sure? Because I checked the access log—same code you showed Liam. Same minute the manifest was edited.”
I step closer, studying the image until my eyes ache. The angle’s bad, resolution worse, but the outline—the stance—yeah, it could be her. Or anyone wearing her coat. I force the thought down.
“Someone planted it,” I say. “It’s bait.”
“Then they know how to bait you.”
I glare. “You think I can’t be objective?”
“I think you’re already compromised. Liam’s right—”
“Don’t quote him to me.”
Conor lifts his hands. “Alright. But if it is her, we’re one leak away from a funeral.”
I don’t answer. The rain starts again, harder now, rattling the corrugated roof. I grab the laptop, close it, and slide it into a bag.
“I’m taking this.”
“Where?”
“To the techs. I’ll get the original footage before someone decides to edit it again.”
Conor hesitates. “You want backup?”
“No. The fewer eyes, the better.”
He nods slowly. “Watch your back, yeah?”
“Always.”
Driving through the city, I replay the footage in my head on a loop. Every frame argues against her, every instinct argues for her.
I pull over on Merchant Street, kill the lights, and sit there listening to the rain drum the roof. The car smells of gun oil and damp leather. My reflection in the windshield looks like a stranger.
If it is her, what then? Bring her in? Hand her over to Liam? The idea twists something inside me that I don’t have a name for.
I open the laptop again, run the footage frame by frame. There—a detail I missed before. The person in the video wears gloves, black leather, smooth. Ailish hates gloves. Says they slow her down when she types.
Not proof, but a thread. And I’m good with threads.
I close the laptop, start the engine.
The tech office sits above an old printing plant, one of the few places in the city that still belongs entirely to us. Ryan, our systems guy, looks up from his monitors when I walk in. “You look like death warmed over.”
“Do me a favor.” I drop the laptop on his desk. “Find me everything about this footage—metadata, edits, origin. I want to know what camera, what IP, what coffee the bastard was drinking.”
He blinks. “That bad, huh?”
“Just do it.”
He nods and gets to work, fingers flying over the keyboard. I pace behind him, the hum of servers filling the silence.
After ten minutes, he stops. “Okay, this is weird.”
“Define weird.”
“The video’s stitched together. Half of it’s genuine feed from the dock cameras. The rest—different lens signature, different compression. Someone spliced two recordings to make one continuous shot.”
“Meaning the image of Ailish—”
“Could be pasted in. Deep-fake level clean. You’d need to know what to look for.”
My pulse steadies. “Whoever did this wanted her framed.”
Ryan nods. “And they knew you’d be the one to see it first.”
“Can you trace the source?”
“Already on it. Give me twelve hours.”
I clap his shoulder. “You’ve got six.”
I leave, feeling like I am waiting for fate itself to call me.
Outside, dawn edges the horizon. I drive until the sun breaks over the Liffey and paints the water gold.
For a moment, it almost feels like calm, but it’s the kind that comes right before everything falls apart.
My phone buzzes again—unknown number. I answer without thinking.
A distorted voice crackles through the line, male, Russian accent. “Mr. Costello. You’re chasing ghosts. Stop before you make more of them.”
The line goes dead. I stare at the phone until the screen goes dark. Then, I toss it onto the passenger seat and start the car.
Whatever game this is, they just made it personal.