Page 7 of His Reluctant Bride

I move through the first floor, making notes.

The family chapel is already gutted—altar gone, pews stacked and tagged for auction, the tabernacle pried open like a jewelry box and left in pieces on the tiled steps.

Two men in Crowley colors are surveying the dimensions, measuring for new locks and steel-shuttered windows.

One glances up as I enter, recognizes me, and goes back to his notepad without a word.

Good.

I've no patience for awe.

Next, the wine cellar, accessed through a reinforced door that once required a retinal scan.

Now it's propped open, and inside I find a dozen crates of French reds already stacked to the side, while the center of the room is being hollowed out for a vault.

The blueprints are on the table, annotated in my brother's hand.

The vault will serve as both panic room and weapons cache.

A practical solution, and a poetic one.

If you're going to entomb your enemy's inheritance, might as well do it with their favorite vintage watching.

Upstairs, the second-floor poker room is mid-renovation.

The green baize is still on the table, but the walls have been stripped to bare brick and the windows sandblasted to opacity.

A woman in a boiler suit is mounting fiber optics along the ceiling.

When I enter, she stiffens, then relaxes when she recognizes me.

"You want the smart glass demo?" she asks, voice rough as road gravel.

"Later," I say. "Has the network been isolated?"

"By midnight. No backdoors, all feeds direct to your line."

"Good. Keep the original wiring intact. I might want to listen in on the old phones."

She gives a short nod and returns to her cables.

Efficiency.

It's rare to see a Donnelly hire take orders with thatmuch grace.

Maybe she's one of ours, or maybe she's just tired of betting on the losing side.

I take the main staircase up to the top floor.

There's a smell of scorched paper and something chemical, familiar from my time in the Balkans.

The office is untouched—mahogany desk, green glass lamps, ashtrays lined up in a firing squad.

Here, at least, the Donnelly mythos persists.

I circle the desk, running my finger along the wood, noting the hidden panels and spring-loaded drawers.

Every Donnelly boss since the Troubles has worked from this spot, and every one of them thought he was the final word in the room.