Page 157 of Unhinged

Rafail clears his throat. “The Irish will retaliate,” he says. “Tonight, we killed one of their own. The Undertaker is going to come for us.”

His words land like stones.

“I’m not sure we can stop a war.”

Zoya pales. “A war?” she whispers.

Rafail nods, grim.

“This is how it works. We killed one of theirs. Doesn’t matter the reason. To them, there is no good reason.”

“And they killed one of us,” she says, her voice shaking. “Mariah…”

She breaks into a fresh sob. I wrap my arms around her. I'm crying, too, and I didn’t even know her. But I saw Vadka kneeling on the floor, holding her shattered body. I heard the sound that left his throat. That kind of grief doesn't need translation. My heart broke right along with his.

“What can stop absolute bloodshed?” Zoya asks. Her eyes are shining, furious and lost.

Rafail shakes his head. “I don’t know. I don’t fucking know.” He pulls out his phone. “I’ll call McCarthy myself. They’ll know he’s gone within the hour.”

A throat clears in the corner of the room.

Every head turns toward the shadowed edge of the space where an old hand rests on the cane’s handle, gnarled and steady.

“I have a few things to say,” Grandfather rasps. His voice is frayed with age, but it carries. “Just a few things.”

Rafail stiffens, arms crossed over his chest. Zoya lifts her chin, staring her grandfather down. Matvei’s arm wraps around my shoulders.

“Tonight,” Grandfather says softly, “we grieve the loss of one of our own. I did not know Mariah, but as the wife of one of my boys, I grieve her with the rest of you.”

He pauses and lets the silence settle before continuing.

“And yes, Cillian taking Anissa was an act of war. No one can deny that. The alliance is broken. Or maybe it was never formed to begin with.”

He glances at us, eyes sharper than they should be for a man his age. “But there’s something you young ones don’t understand yet.”

He smiles, not unkindly, and taps his temple. “In the old days, before technology did all our thinking for us, we studied the old ways.”

He looks to Rafail. “You’d be wise to get on the phone with The Undertaker. Immediately. Calm the storm before it hits. And you’d be wise to recall the ancient rule carved into the McCarthy family tree.”

“What rule?” Rafail asks, his voice hoarse.

Grandfather looks at him like he’s already disappointed. “Your family took one of theirs. They killed an innocent. With no provocation. Under Irish law, that triggers a six-month moratorium on open war.”

He looks at me next, eyes impossibly clear. “If The Undertaker is the man I think he is, he’s his father’s son. That boy would slit his own wrist before defying Irish law.”

Then his eyes flick back to Matvei. “You have six months, son. You know exactly what to do.”

And to Rafail: “You do too.”

Matvei nods. A six-month truce.

Grandfather looks to Zoya. Something passes between them, silent but heavy. Something I don’t understand yet.

Then Matvei turns to me and takes my hands in his.

“In front of my family,” he says, voice low but certain. “In front of all of us—while we’re grieving, while we’re broken—I want to take the first step in something right. You promised me, Anissa, that we’d break the chain. Start fresh.”

He swallows. “So I’m asking now. Will you marry me? Help me rebuild my family?”

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