Something shifts low in my chest when her eyes meet mine. Not comfortable. Not welcome. A tightening behind my ribs that I haven't felt in years, and I don't like it. I note it, set it aside, move on.
Except I don't move on. Not from her.
She’s everything I haven’t been able to stop of for years.
"I agree," I say. "And I know exactly who."
The room holds its breath. Elena's chin lifts another fraction. Alexandros Drakos's hand tightens around his glass.
"Her," I say. "Siobhan O'Brien."
The silence doesn't break. Itdetonates.
Elena doesn't move. Her composure is a marvel—not a crack, not a flinch. But something behind her eyes goes still. The waya lake freezes: surface perfect, everything underneath a wild, unknown storm. Alexandros's knuckles whiten on his tumbler. The insult is enormous and everyone in this room feels its weight. An Irish outsider chosen over a Greek family ally. A girl from Southie instead of the woman who was raised, groomed,promisedfor this seat.
Elena smiles. Gracious. Appropriate.
It doesn't reach her eyes. But I'm the only one looking closely enough to notice, and I store it in the part of my brain that never stops tracking threats.
Across the room, Cormac is on his feet. Declan's hand moves toward his hip. Finn hasn't changed expression, which makes him the most dangerous person in the room right now. And Ronan—the youngest O'Brien, tucked in the corner—has stopped sketching. He's watching his sister. They all are.
A phone crackles cutting through the noise a few moments later. It’s the secured line. Padraig O'Brien's voice, ragged from a prison payphone but carrying the kind of authority that doesn't need volume.
"Smart match. The girl has spine. She'll do it."
Siobhan's jaw tightens. I watch the rage flash across her face—fast, controlled, and swallowed. It’s all from being decided for. She's had a lifetime of it. I can see it in the way her body absorbs the blow without staggering.
But she doesn't fold. Doesn't argue with her father's ghost-voice on the line. Doesn't look to her brothers for rescue.
She looks atme.
Green-blue eyes. Steady. The kind of steady that takes years to build and seconds to test. She's testing me right now, measuring whether I'm the chess player or the man. Whether this is strategy or something else.
It's both. That's what makes it dangerous.
"I'll do it," she says, and the room goes quiet for the second time. "On my terms." She holds my gaze. "I want a meeting. Just us. Before I agree to anything."
My mouth curves. Not a smile—something more dangerous. Something that lives in the space between respect and hunger.
"Agreed."
The room exhales. Cormac's hand drops from Declan's arm. Finn nods, once, to himself. The alliance is forming—imperfect, volatile, held together by threat and desperation. Exactly how the real ones start.
I watch Siobhan leave, flanked by brothers who look like they'd kill me on principle if she gave the word. She doesn't give it. She walks out with her spine straight and her shoulders back and she doesn't look over her shoulder once.
Disciplined.
I'll need her to be.
Behind me, Elena rises from her seat. She crosses to me, touches my arm—light, familiar, the way she's touched me a hundred times since we were children.
"Congratulations, Nico." Her tone is warm and genuine. It’s the perfect response from a woman who just had her future rearranged in front of everyone she knows. "She seems...remarkable."
"She is."
Elena squeezes my arm. "Then I'm happy for you. Truly."
She walks away, composed and graceful. Alexandros follows, his face carved from stone.