Page 120 of The Endless Want

I can’t look at him.

“She’s coming back,” he says.

“You don’t know that.”

His voice hardens. “I do. Because I won’t let this become another grave we visit in silence.”

My chest tightens painfully. Memories of funerals, gunshots, hospital rooms, the hollow ache of loss—it all collides against me at once. Liam places his hand on the table, just close enough that I can see it steady.

“You told me once you were ready to bleed for her,” he says. “This is where you prove it. Not with rage. With discipline.”

I force myself to meet his eyes. “I’m going after her. No matter what the Russians want.”

“And you’ll have an army behind you.” He exhales slowly. “But you cannot lose your mind. Not now. You lose it now, and they win before we even find her.”

I swallow hard. “I know.”

“Say it again.”

“I. Know.”

His nod is small, but real.

Then Nadia says, “I have something,” and the moment shatters.

She holds up her phone. A man’s voice on the other end speaks fast Russian. Her expression changes—first flattening into concentration, then twisting slightly into disgust.

She ends the call. “They know she’s Irish-adjacent. They know she’s connected to Liam. But now⁠—”

She looks at me.

“—they know she’s connected to you.”

My stomach drops.

“That’s why they took her,” she continues. “Not because she’s Liam’s adviser. Because she’s yours.”

The realization hits like a sledgehammer. The Russians have been watching me more closely than I realized. They’ve seen how I move around her. How I look at her. How I react when anyone else gets too close.

“They think she’s your weakness,” Nadia finishes. “And they are right.”

Liam doesn’t flinch. He just nods once. “Then we use that. They think Declan will come running. They think we’ll panic. Good. Let them.”

He looks at me again—sharp, determined, unblinking.

“We’re going to tear their pipeline apart piece by piece,” he says. “We’re going to hit every warehouse, every safehouse, every rat hole they crawl into. We’re going to make them regret breathing in her direction.”

He stands.

“Gear up. All of you.”

Chairs scrape. Weapons are collected. Plans are formed before the map even settles on the table.

I remain seated one more second, letting the reality settle inside me like metal cooling in a forge. Ailish is somewhere in this city—terrified, hurting, maybe trying to stay calm for the small life growing inside her. She’s counting on us.

Counting on me.

I stand slowly.