Page 100 of The Endless Want

Declan

The first thing I notice when I step into Liam’s temporary war room that morning is the hum. Not of people—no one’s talking yet—but the electronics. Screens running intel feeds. A new encrypted radio base lit in blue. Another set of monitors showing surveillance rotations.

The second thing I notice is that I’m already irritated.

I’m not meant for rooms like this. Not long-term. I can pretend for a while, keep my temper locked down, nod to protocols, but sooner or later, the walls start closing in. Strategy is necessary, sure, but strategy without fists behind it feels like drowning in paperwork.

But I asked for this. Stood in his office with my jaw set and made the case like a man applying for a job in his own family, and he let me sweat before he said yes. So I don’t get to complain about the chair. For Ailish. For the child I’m barely letting myself picture.

He’s leaning over a table covered in maps when I enter, his forearms braced on either side of a marked-up blueprint. Conor stands beside him, scrolling through something on a tablet. A few of Liam’s inner-circle men linger around the perimeter, waiting like they’re afraid to breathe wrong.

Liam doesn’t look up when I arrive, but his voice drops into the room like a blade anyway. “You’re late.”

I grit my teeth. “I’m five minutes late.”

“Five minutes is a lifetime in a war room,” Conor mutters, and for once he’s not being smug—just stating a fact.

I should let it go. I should remember this is for Ailish, for the baby she carries, for all of us trying to hold back a damn tide of Russians who refuse to die out. I should swallow the instinct to throw the closest object across the room and instead breathe.

I drop into the chair opposite Liam. “Let’s get on with it, then.”

He finally looks up. There’s something different in his expression these days—a tiredness that wasn’t there before and shouldn’t be there now. He’s younger than he looks this morning. But he also looks sharper. More dangerous.

It’s what happens when someone comes after the people he claims as his.

“We’re hitting their pipeline at the docks tonight,” Liam says, sliding one of the maps toward me. “You’ll take the east flank with five men. You’re not to break formation.”

I stare at him. “I don’t need formation. I need space to work.”

“No,” he replies. “You need discipline. So you’ll follow orders.” Neither of us says the thing that’s actually in the room, which is a November night, a yard, and Conor bringing ice afterward. Conor doesn’t look up from his tablet. He remembers too. He’s the one who brought the whiskey.

The tension snaps so suddenly my jaw aches. But I lean back, force my muscles to loosen one by one. I asked for this. Liam granted it. If I want to be part of this offensive, I don’t get to dictate every detail.

Even though every cell in my body craves it. “Fine,” I say, though the word tastes like rust.

Liam studies me for a long moment. Then: “Good.”

We go over the plan again. And again. And again. Liam wants precision tonight. A clean strike that rattles the Russians without escalating into an all-out war—yet. They’re expecting retaliation after the bombing on one of our supply hubs, but they won’t expect us to hit two different arms of their distribution network in the same forty-eight hours.

It settles something inside me, even as it stokes an old hunger.

Hours pass. I lose track of them. By the time Liam dismisses us, dusk is sliding in through the windows in strips of amber and violet. The men filter out, their voices low. Conor lingers long enough to toss me a protein bar like I’m his wayward toddler.

“You’ll need it,” he says. “You get feral when you don’t eat.”

I bark a humorless laugh. “I get feral when people talk too much.”

He shrugs. “Still eating it, though.”

I pocket the damn thing. Because he’s right.

The day keeps moving in a near-silent rhythm. Guns checked, then rechecked. Armor laid out. Coms synced. Extraction routes copied to backups. Men briefed again. Liam and I go over the timing once more because we both know timing is what kills.

By the time we move, a storm is curling over the city, thick clouds muting the moon. The docks are slick with earlier rain, the scent of diesel clinging to every surface. My men fan out beside me, disciplined for once. A strange quiet hangs in the air.

And then it shatters.

Everything goes according to plan, which is unusual enough to put me on edge. But the execution is clean—quick takedowns, seizures of cargo, confirmation that yes, the Russians are running precursor chemicals through the city again. We torch the crates and get the hell out before the smoke can announce our presence.