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A beat passes. I look away. “Aye…”

“Right.” He picks up his pen. “She's fine.”

“That's your takeaway?”

“What do you want me to say? You didn't assault her. You set a boundary, she tested it, you enforced it, and apparently the two of you are fine.” He shrugs. “The ribs, I'll grant you. The foot had nothing to do with you. Torin, you came out of Mountjoy weeks ago. You're not going to be steady for a while yet. That doesn't make you a danger to her.”

“I threw a man halfway across a room for coming up behind me.”

He shrugs. “He came up behind you.”

“I thought she was an intruder, but I should’ve been smarter.”

“And you checked her ribs and got her ice.” He looks at me. “What exactly are you afraid of?”

I don't answer. I’m not sure what I’m saying.

“Right,” he says. “The Boston Irish.” He pulls out a series of maps and spreads them across the desk. “This is where we found her. At one point, the Irish had a base of operations nearby.” He traces a route near the Boston waterfront. “A mile from Logan, which means they had the option to move her at any time. Shannon was working for her own family, which means the O'Briens either run this or they're paying somebody who does.”

“Have you been in touch with our contacts in Boston?”

“Of course. They say they don't know anything.”

“So they're lying.”

“I'd assume.”

“What else?”

“Not enough.” His jaw tightens. “They've had an axe to grind with our family for years. We know they have operations in both Boston and Ireland. We know they were organized enough to plant an impostor and hold a woman for weeks without a leak.” He shakes his head. “Beyond that, we're working with fragments.”

Something in me tightens. “When I went to prison, Da knew every location. Every name. He had a working profile on every man who'd ever looked sideways at this family. And you’re telling me⁠—”

“Watch it, Torin.” His tone is a reminder that he’s the head of our family, but I hold my ground.

“I'm not wrong.”

“No.” He meets my eyes. “You're not. But if you'd like to take this desk, it's yours.”

The silence between us is the kind that could go either way. I look at him. He looks at me. Something shifts in his expression before he leans back. “The Espositos,” he says, changing direction. “We've been operating on the assumption that they may be compromised. That someone inside the family knew what was being planned and let it happen.”

“Aye.”

“If they're clean,” he says carefully, “it changes the picture. She doesn't need to stay here on our terms. Her brothers could come for her, and we’d get the reward for her rescue. She goes home, back to New York, and resumes her life. We work the Boston problem from our side without involving her. And so do they.”

I say nothing.

Seamus watches me.

“There are only three options here, Seamus. The Espositos are innocent and will thank us for saving her. They’re innocent and will want to feckin’ murder us for taking her and not notifying them. Or,” I say with a sigh, “they’re not innocent. They’re all complicit.”

“Right. And which of those is true, and what she’ll do about it, remains to be seen. Keep in mind, O’Brien’s a family, not the whole of it. There are four or five old names. The girl’s an O’Brien.”

“So we work up from her.”

“Aye. We work up from her.”

I don't respond.