Page 88 of Crown of Thorns

And the worst part is, I understand it. The worst part is, I see exactly why he's making this decision and I can calculate the cascade of consequences and I know that he's probably right—the Doyles will escalate regardless, so why not escalate first, why not make them understand the cost of even attempting this again.

But the math is wrong because the emotion underneath the math is wrong. He's not being cold about this. He's being hot, and he's wrapping the heat in control, and that's more dangerous than if he'd simply walked in and started screaming.

"You can't make decisions like this," I say. The words are dangerous. I know they're dangerous the second they leave my mouth. "Not now. Not when—"

"When what?" Lorcan turns to face me fully. His shirt is stained. His hands are stained. He looks like he walked through a slaughterhouse and came out the other side still moving. "When what, Dec?"

"When you're compromised."

The silence that follows is the kind of silence that precedes violence. I've lived through that silence before. I've made the same decision I'm making now, and I've walked away from it, and I've never regretted it.

But I've never said the words out loud before. I've never named the thing that's been growing for three weeks—the thing that's been getting worse every day since Renny found out about Padraig, every day since Lorcan brought her into operations, every day since the lie became bigger than the truth.

"You're not fit to lead," I continue. The words keep coming and I don't stop them. "Not like this. A man who makes decisions this far outside his own strategic pattern, that man is compromised. That man is dangerous. Not to enemies. To his own people."

Lorcan's hands uncurl. When he clenches them again, blood drips onto the carpet. Actual, literal, visible drops. The carpet is expensive and pale and now it's marked with evidence of what he's done.

"Leave," he says quietly.

"I'm not—"

"Leave the room, Dec. Before I make a decision I won't walk back."

I could stay. I could push further. I could name the thing that I've been watching grow for three weeks, the thing that looks like love but operates like a wrecking ball. The thing that's been destroying him from the inside since Renny found out about Padraig. The thing that's made him careless and strategic at the same time, vulnerable and dangerous simultaneously.

I could tell him that he's destroying the structure that Padraig built, that he's dismantling twelve years of careful management, that he's going to get men killed because Renny was nearly killed and that's a wound that can't be strategically managed or calculated or controlled.

I could tell him that watching him like this, watching him bleed out his composure and reassemble it every five minutes, is like watching a building collapse and be rebuilt in real time.

But I leave.

I walk out of the safe house and into the Dublin evening, the cold hitting me like a slap, and I leave him with her. I leave the stranger who has blood under his fingernails and fury behind his eyes and I go into the dark because I can't bear to watch him try to maintain the pretense that any of this is going to work, that any of this is sustainable, that love and power can coexist without one consuming the other.

The warehouse on Camden is old. It's been empty for five years, long before Lorcan took over operations, long enough that it doesn't have his fingerprints on it. That's deliberate. When you want to disappear evidence, you use infrastructure that can't be traced back to you.

Cillian and I wait outside. It's November and it's cold and the warehouse walls are stone and no sound comes out of them. That's intentional too. Soundproofing. Lorcan prepared for this moment years ago, before he knew he'd need it, because that's how he thinks. He thinks in contingencies and probabilities and worst-case scenarios.

I don't want to know what happens inside.

The thing is, I do know what happens inside. I've known for twelve years. Lorcan doesn't torture information out of people, that's inefficient. But he does ensure that people understand consequence. He does ensure that people know that moving against the Gallaghers costs more than it gains.

What's different now is that it's not strategic. It's not about sending a message to rivals or solidifying power or demonstrating the cost of transgression. It's about the fact that Renny was nearly killed and Lorcan has blood on his hands and he's going to add more blood because that's the only language his rage understands right now.

I lean against the wall and I don't check my watch. Time moves differently in moments like this. Sometimes a minute feels like an hour. Sometimes an hour compresses into nothing. The warehouse is soundproofed, that was Lorcan's choice years ago, when he was building contingencies for every possible scenario. Soundproofing ensures that what happens inside stays inside. It ensures that no one outside has to hear what's being done to people who move against the Gallaghers.

I'm glad I can't hear it.

Cillian lights a cigarette. The motion is automatic, ritualistic, something to do with his hands because the alternative is to stand here and think about what's happening twelve feet away behind reinforced walls. The smoke drifts in the cold air and I watch it disperse into nothing, watch it become invisible, become part of the atmosphere.

I wonder if that's what Lorcan's rage is doing, dispersing into the air, becoming part of the Dublin evening, infecting everything.

"He's not himself," Cillian says. There's something like fear in his voice.

"No," I agree.

"I've seen him angry. I've seen him cold. I've seen him make decisions that ended with bodies. But I've never seen him like this."

"Grief," I say. It's not a complete answer. It's barely an answer at all. But it's the only name I have for what's happening inside that warehouse. Grief for Padraig, grief for the truth that was hidden, grief for the fact that his wife was nearly killed and he wasn't there to stop it, couldn't stop it, can only stop the next one by making sure there's a cost so high that no one will try again.