Page 4 of The Endless Want

I scoff.

We sit in silence for a while, the buzz of conversation around us filling the gaps. The bar smells of citrus and gin and burnt sugar.

Then Mackenzie says quietly, “You still dream about him?”

The question lands too easily. I should laugh it off, change the subject, but something about her tone makes lying impossible. “Sometimes.”

“What kind of dreams?” At least she has the wherewithal not to make it sound dirty. If it was just that, well, I can handle dirty. This is something more.

“The kind that feel real until I wake up.” I swirl what’s left of my drink, watching the liquid catch the light. “Then I spend the rest of the day pretending they didn’t happen.”

Mackenzie nods like she understands. “Closure’s a myth, huh?”

“Yeah. Especially in our world.”

She reaches over, squeezing my wrist. “Just don’t let him see you bleed.”

I manage a smile. “You make it sound like he’d enjoy it.”

“He would.”

We both laugh, but it’s hollow.

The drive home is quiet except for the rain beginning to fall. I pull into my building’s underground lot and cut the engine, sitting in the dark for a long moment.

My phone buzzes. A message from Liam:

Liam; Good work tonight. The Italians are pleased.

No thank you. No how are you? Just business as usual.

I type back Copy that and toss the phone aside.

When I finally make it upstairs, the apartment feels colder than usual. Too clean, too empty. I pour myself another drink and lean against the counter, letting the silence stretch. For a second I almost wish Declan would barge in just to break it.

Then I shake the thought away.

The whiskey doesn’t help. It never does, but I keep drinking anyway because silence is worse.

I move to the window, glass in hand, watching the rain thread down the glass like static. Across the street, a bakery sign blinks CLOSED in angry red letters, then dies completely. The city always looks half-broken after midnight.

I tell myself I should sleep. Tomorrow there’s another logistics briefing with the Italians, another round of polite arguments about shipment schedules and “cost efficiency.”

My least favorite kind of war—one fought with spreadsheets instead of guns.

But instead of sleeping, I find myself pulling an old file from my desk drawer: South Wharf Security Review. Declan’s signature scrawled across the bottom.

My throat tightens at the sight of it. That was the last project we worked on before everything went to hell—before Liam’s coup, before Declan started looking at me like I’d stabbed him in the back.

I trace the ink with my thumb, stupidly gentle, then slam the folder shut. “Get over it, Ailish,” I mutter.

The knock at my door startles me hard enough that I spill whiskey on the counter.

It’s not Declan. Of course it’s not. It’s never Declan.

When I open the door, a delivery kid stands there, dripping wet and holding a brown envelope. “For Miss Keane,” he says. No return address. Paid in cash.

I sign for it, tip him, close the door, and tear it open. Inside is a single sheet of paper—security schematics for the new club in Southie, annotated in Declan’s handwriting. He’s made corrections, improvements, little arrows with notes like ‘Check alley cam angles—blind spot here.’