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“The Tallons are taking the piss,” Lorcan says, ending a call without saying goodbye. “They run the docks, not the whole south.”

“They run enough to slow us down.”

“What are we going to do about it?”

I sign the delivery sheet a driver pushes into my hand and pass it back without looking at him. “Right now, it’s our reality. But it won’t be for long.”

Lorcan exhales smoke through his nose and looks toward the closed gate, where two of our men check an arriving van before allowing it into the yard. “We should put our own men in the docks.”

“They run the dock.”

“Well, what about our fucking shipments, Fionn? We’ll lose customers if this continues.”

“It’s Tallon cranes, their crews, their customs officer in their pocket, and their police contact waiting to shred any complaints.”

I button my coat against the wind and watch a lorry reverse into bay three.

“We push into the docks right now and start a war with the Tallons, Crowe swoops in,” I remind him. “We have other options.”

Twenty years old, and he’s still as impatient as he was as a teenager.

Our father kept him close after his mother turned up dead on the heath between us and the Tallons. It left him with too much anger and nowhere useful to put it. St. Killians could only teach him so much.

“I’m sick of waiting,” he groans.

“Your yapping is giving me a headache.”

His mouth curves. “You love my company.”

“I tolerate it for family morale.”

“Jesus, that’s almost affectionate coming from you.”

“Don’t get carried away.”

He draws smoke into his lungs and breathes it out as he speaks. “It’s freezing, Fionn. How long are we standing here like two spare dicks?”

“Sometimes it’s like bring-your-kid-to-work with you, Lor.” I run my hand over my jaw. “Power sits in the quiet nights too. We’re building intel.”

Lorcan’s eyes slide to me when a truck rolls in. “You think Crowe’s men have got inside our network?”

“Crowe wants us all guessing. He’s trying to use chaos and confusion to his advantage.”

“So, what you’re saying is we wait him out.”

“Clever boy,” I laugh. “You got there in the end.”

Crowe doesn’t need to hit the port with guns to cause damage. A missing manifest, delayed cargo, a bribed foreman, a rumor placed in the right ear, and suddenly Harrington men look weak while Tallon men look incompetent or complicit.

Lorcan flicks ash onto the wet ground. “I’ve heard they're going to hit the port.”

“They’re trying to weaken it first,” I point out. “Get us fighting amongst ourselves, and then they’ll clean up the mess. But we’ll be ready and waiting.”

His jaw works as he looks past me to the trucks, the drivers, the men going about their business.

“We’ve got chatter from the east side saying Crowe’s been buying up dock crews,” he says. “Our containers were held for inspection after they cleared the prelim check. And then there’s a Tallon foreman who suddenly can’t answer his phone. I bet the Tallons are talking with the Crowes.”

“You think they’d willingly hand over fifty percent of their business? For what?”