Page 45 of Conall's Reign

“Sure it is,” I muttered under my breath as I turned back to the osso buco. The meat was tender, falling off the bone, and the gremolata was ready to sprinkle on top.

By the time Conall returned, wearing a fresh shirt and smelling of aftershave that made my stomach do an unwelcome flip, I had set the table and decorated the cake with delicate swirls of frosting. He put on his suit jacket and paused in the doorway.

“Don’t kill anyone while I’m gone,” he said, a teasing edge to his voice

I waved him away with a spoon. “Go play kingpin. I’ll hold down the fort.”

As the door closed behind him, I exhaled, feeling the tension finally ease from my shoulders. The truth pressed heavily on my chest, but I shoved it down. For now, the past would remain where it belonged — hidden.

?

Me: Conall overheard us in the kitchen talking. He wants to know who I murdered.

Theo: Omg. I’m so sorry. That was careless. I’m not used to you living somewhere with other people who aren’t spelled T-H-E-O.

Me: I threw him off. Our motto in life. Deny. Deny. Deny.

Theo: That’s right, bestie. We’ll ride that train into the sunset.

CHAPTER TWENTY

conall

The conference roomin my building was set up for the meeting, and I took a measured moment to inspect it. The chairs were perfectly aligned around the sleek, modern table—twelve seats, evenly spaced. The pens and notepads were set precisely at each place, just as I had arranged them earlier. Even the scent of fresh coffee and polished leather seemed calibrated to maintain order.

The dim overhead lighting cast shadows across the long table where Maxim, Angelo, Ilias, and Cosimo Oliveto had gathered.

But then there was Paddy. Slouched beside me, he tapped his pen against his notepad in a jagged rhythm—offbeat, erratic. It didn’t match the steady tick of the clock on the wall. I clenched my jaw and focused on the clean edges of the papers before me, but the tapping gnawed at my nerves, digging under my skin like an itch I couldn’t scratch.

“Stop that,” I muttered, snatching the pen from his hand and aligning it parallel to his notepad. The imbalance was corrected, but Paddy just grinned, unrepentant, like he enjoyed unraveling the threads I kept tightly wound.

He had already irritated me incessantly on the way down from the penthouse, asking when dinner would be. Paddy and Brody were overly excited about the prospect of the meal.

“So, Conall,” Maxim’s voice cut through the room like a blade, “what do you have for us that justifies our being here at this ridiculous hour? Your sister is furious, by the way.”

I exhaled sharply, pushing the intrusive thought of rearranging the water bottles on the table out of my head. My hands smoothed over the folder in front of me three times before I opened it. “Let’s start with this.”

I spread a map of the Vanello docks across the table, smoothing out the creases with precision. The corners had to be aligned before I could continue. Only then did I gesture to the red markings. “We’ve been monitoring the docks for two months. My contact detailed the guard shifts, shipment schedules, security measures. It’s tight but not impenetrable.”

My fingers hovered a second too long over one of the red marks, and I quickly withdrew my hand before it became obvious. I hated when people noticed.

“The guards rotate every six hours. They have four main checkpoints, but the weak link is here,” I pointed to the northeast corner. It’s a blind spot between the storage containers, unguarded for a fifteen-minute window during the shift change. O’Rourke had been worth his weight in gold, as the saying goes. The guy was a genius at gathering intel.

“What about the shipments?” Angelo asked, his voice steady yet laced with curiosity.

“They’ve got two main shipments scheduled weekly, Tuesdays and Fridays, usually late evening. Drugs come in with the Friday shipment, guns with the Tuesday one. Women every other Thursday.” My jaw clenched with fury. “We choke their supply chain by hitting both days in consecutive weeks. Target the cargo, destroy it, or free those trafficked, and send a message.”

Paddy leaned forward, his grin widening. “I have a better idea. Let’s steal the cargo instead of destroying it. Nothing says ‘we’re in charge now’ quite like taking their precious stock and selling it back to their rivals.

Maxim’s lips twitched with amusement, yet his eyes remained cold. “It’s not a bad idea, but the logistics might pose a challenge. What’s their security detail like?”

I tapped the folder. “They have a core team of about twenty men at the docks, heavily armed but predictable. O’Rourke’s intel suggests they rely more on intimidation than on strategy. If we hit them fast and hard, they will scatter.”

Cosimo chimed in, his voice low and thoughtful. “Do we have an escape plan? The docks become difficult to navigate once the alarm is raised.”

“We’ll arrange boats at the south pier,” I replied. “Quick extraction, minimal exposure. We can provide men to cover during the retreat.”

Angelo nodded, his expression one of approval. “Good. We need to synchronize this with our other moves against the Vanellos. After that, they will be like a wounded animal—dangerous and unpredictable.”

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