Chapter 2: The Audition
The wind on the rooftop was a knife, sharp and cold, smelling of the river and distant rust. It whistled through a forest of corroded ventilator ducts and pulled at the edges of a broken skylight, its glass teeth gleaming in the ambient glow of the docks. Alex arrived first, as Ciara would have. She felt the ghost of Derry in her bones, letting the posture settle into her shoulders—a slight slouch that wasn’t hers, a readiness in the hands that came from street brawls, not Krav Maga.
She checked the loose brick near the parapet. The tiny black dot of a micro-camera was still there, transmitting everything back to a safe house in Vauxhall.Her insurance.
Footsteps, light and sure, sounded on the metal staircase. Not the heavy tread of Marcel.One person.
Toni Romano emerged from the stairwell like a piece of the night condensing into human form. She wore a long, dark coat that swayed with her stride. The neon from a warehouse sign below painted her face in brief, blood-red strokes.
“Ciara,” Toni said, her voice carrying easily over the wind. No question. She’d known she’d be here, waiting.
“Toni.” Alex kept her voice flat, a neutral Irish brogue.She nodded, once. The professional’s greeting.
Toni stopped a few feet away, her eyes scanning Alex with an appraisal that felt physical. “You’re punctual. I appreciate that. Saves me from having people be late. It’s a messy business, tardiness.” A small, humorless smile. “You saw the other night. In the alley.”
Alex didn’t deny it. Ciara wouldn’t. “Wanted a look at the merchandise. And the management.”
“And?”
“The merchandise is quality. The management didn’t panic when they sensed a rat in the walls.” Alex held her gaze. “That’s either confident or stupid.”
Toni’s smile gained a fraction of warmth. “It’s informed. I had you checked out. Or, tried to. Your file reads like a poem with half the pages ripped out.Belfast. Some suspected arms trafficking for the Real IRA. A falling out. Then… a ghost.” She stepped closer. The sweet, faint scent of her perfume, something with orange blossom and smoke, cut through the diesel air. “I like ghosts. They’re hard to pin down.”
“Makes them useful,” Alex said.
“Exactly.” Toni turned and walked to a weathered tarpaulin bundle leaning against a chimney stack. She pulled the canvas back. Inside, cradled in foam, was a disassembled sniper rifle. A Blaser R93 Tactical.German. Impossibly precise. Alongside it lay a manila folder.
“This is Viktor Petrov,” Toni said, tapping the folder without opening it. “Russian. Loud, greedy, and he’s been moving into my delivery routes. He’s making a deal tonight. A kilometre east, on that dredger.” She pointed a gloved hand toward the inky river, where a distant shape, dotted with lights, was barely visible through the haze. “He’ll be on the starboard bridge wing at midnight. Showing off for his buyers.”
Alex moved to the rifle. Her fingers, competent and calm, began the assembly. The actions were as familiar as breathing, each click and lock a soothing mantra. The weight of the stock in her hand was a grim comfort. “You want him dead to stop the deal.”
“I want him dead to send a message,” Toni corrected, her voice softer now. “The deal is irrelevant. The message is that from a kilometer away, in the dark, with the river mist, I can reach out and erase him. That message keeps other greedy men awake at night.”
Alex finished assembling the rifle, mounted the night-vision scope, and settled onto her stomach behind the parapet. The concrete was icy, leaching through her clothes.She ignored it. The world narrowed to the circle of the scope. The dredger swayed, a tiny, blurry picture in the haze. She adjusted for wind, for drop, for the slight curvature of the earth. Her breathing slowed. Her heartbeat became a distant, sluggish thud.
Toni crouched beside her, a presence of heat and attention. She wasn’t watching the target. She was watching Alex.
“He’s a bad man, Viktor,” Toni murmured, her voice close to Alex’s ear. “He sells to militias that test their new toys on villages. He has a daughter in Nice he thinks I don’t know about. The world won’t weep.”
Alex knew the dossier. MI6 had one too. Petrov was a monster. That wasn't the point. The point was the pull of the trigger, the act itself, and who she was doing it for. She pushed the thought down, burying it under layers of Ciara’s assumed ruthlessness.
In the scope, a figure stepped onto the dredger’s wing. Big.Bald. Illuminated by a cabin light. Laughing, a glass in his hand.
“Steady, ghost,” Toni whispered.
The crosshairs found the center of his chest. Alex’s finger rested on the trigger. The wind gusted, a moan across the rooftop. She compensated, her muscles singing with fine-tuned control. This was the moment. The silence before the irreversible.
She exhaled, half-way.And fired.
The crack of the shot was immense, a violence that shattered the night’s stillness. The rifle kicked against her shoulder. In the scope, the distant figure jerked, then dropped from view.
A perfect shot.
Silence rushed back in, louder than the shot had been. Alex stayed down, scanning through the scope for movement. Confirmation. Panic on the dredger’s deck. Lights swinging wildly.
Then, a hand came to rest on the back of her neck.Toni’s hand. The touch was firm, warm through the leather of her glove.A possession.
“Beautiful,” Toni breathed, the word full of dark wonder.Alex froze. The touch was an electric shock, a violation and a reward. It threatened to crack the ice she was made of. She couldn’t move, couldn’t pull away without breaking character. Ciara would accept this. Would relish the approval.
Slowly, Alex disassembled the rifle, her movements methodical. Only then did she turn her head. Toni’s face was inches away, her dark eyes reflecting the city’s glow. The predatory smile was back, but it was different now. It was intimate.
“A kilometre in this fog,” Toni said, her thumb moving once, almost imperceptibly, against Alex’s hairline. “That’s not just skill. That’s art.”
“It’s the rifle,” Alex said, her voice tighter than she intended.
“It’s the hand on the rifle.” Toni finally withdrew her touch, standing up. The cold rushed back to Alex’s skin where the glove had been. “The job’s done. Marcel will dispose of the kit. You’ll come with me.”
“Where?”
“To get a drink. To not sit alone in a safe house after a thing like that.” Toni buttoned her coat. “Artists shouldn’t be left to their own thoughts after a masterpiece. They get strange.”
It wasn’t a request. It was an order wrapped in velvet. A test of a different kind.
Alex looked up at her, this woman who traded in death and spoke of connection in the same low, dangerous tone. The camera in the brick was recording this too. Her handlers would see her get up, follow Toni Romano into the night. They’d call it deep cover. They’d praise her commitment.
As she rose, her legs stiff from the cold and the adrenaline crash, Alex knew the truth was simpler and far more dangerous.
She wanted to follow.
The bar was Toni’s, a speakeasy buried beneath a luggage shop in Mayfair, all low leather and old brass. It smelled of polished wood and absinthe. The sudden warmth made Alex’s skin prickle, a shocking contrast to the river’s knife-edge cold. Marcel had taken the rifle case with a silent nod, his eyes avoiding hers, and vanished.
“Two whiskeys,” Toni told the aproned man behind the bar, not looking at him. “The good Irish. Not the stuff in the crystal decanter.”
They took a corner booth, shadowed and deep. The adrenaline was a fading scream in Alex’s veins, leaving a hollow, buzzing quiet. Toni shed her coat, revealing the black sweater from the alley. She rolled up her sleeves, exposing forearms corded with lean muscle and the faint, pale line of an old scar.
The glasses arrived, heavy cut crystal with two fingers of amber liquid.
Toni lifted hers, studying the light through it. “To clean shots.”
“Clean shots,” Alex echoed, the clink of crystal a sharp, final sound. The whiskey was a peat-fire bloom on her tongue, smooth and complex. It steadied her. She was Ciara. Ciara would appreciate a fine drink after a hard night’s work.
“This is good,” Alex said, swirling the glass. “Triple distilled. Smoother.”
“You know your whiskey.” Toni watched her over the rim of her own glass, her eyes dark and unreadable in the low light.
“It’s a national pastime back home. Worse than football.” Alex took another sip, letting the persona settle. “Most whiskeys, the Scots, the Americans, they distill twice. We do it three times in copper pot stills. Takes the roughness out. The impurities.”
She traced a finger on the cool tabletop. “It’s a different philosophy. They want weight, smoke, punch.We want clarity. A clean spirit. Something you can actually taste instead of just feel burning a hole in your chest.”
Toni listened, her head tilted slightly. She had set her glass down, her fingers resting lightly on the stem. She wasn’t just hearing the words; she was absorbing the sound of them. The lilt and cadence of Derry wrapped around the technical details, softening the edges. To Toni, it was a melody. She’d have listened to this woman recite engine specifications or tax law.
“Clarity,” Toni repeated, the word slow in her mouth. “And is that what you are, Ciara? A clean spirit?”
The question hung in the air between them, a trap dressed as curiosity.
Alex met her gaze, allowing a fraction of a smile. “I’m whatever the job requires, Toni. But I prefer working for people who appreciate the difference between a tool and a blunt object.”
Toni’s laugh was a low, genuine sound. It transformed her face, carving lines of amusement around her eyes that made her look younger.Softer.More dangerous. “A philosopher with a sniper rifle. I knew you were interesting.”
She took a long drink, her eyes never leaving Alex’s face. “Tell me more. About the barrels.”
“The casks?” Alex leaned back, the leather creaking. She could do this. This was intelligence gathering, building rapport. It was safe ground. “Irish whiskey has to age in wood for at least three years. Most use old bourbon barrels from America. Gives it vanilla, sweetness. Some use sherry casks. That’s for depth, dried fruit. It’s about patience. Letting the wood talk to the spirit.”
“Patience,” Toni murmured, her thumb stroking the side of her glass. “A rare commodity in my line of work.”
“In mine too.”
Their gazes locked. The bar’s ambient chatter, the clink of bottles, it all receded to a distant hum. The space between them felt charged, thinner. Toni’s attention was a physical weight, warm and unsettling. Alex felt the careful architecture of Ciara McKenna, the fabricated history and the calculated toughness, being examined not for flaws, but for essence.
Toni finally broke the stare, looking down into her whiskey. “I like the sound of it. The process. It’s orderly. There’s a reason for every step. A known outcome.” She glanced up, a wry twist to her mouth. “Not like people.”
“People are messy.”
“They are.” Toni finished her drink. “You’re not, though. Not tonight. That was the cleanest bit of mess I’ve ever commissioned.”
She signalled the barman for two more, then turned her full focus back to Alex. The predatory look from the rooftop was gone, replaced by something more contemplative, more searching. “So, a ghost with a taste for fine Irish whiskey and perfect aim. What does a ghost do when she’s not being useful?”
Alex held up her glass, the new pour catching the light. The mission was to gain trust, to get closer. This was that. This was the job.
So why did her pulse thrum against her ribs like a trapped bird?
“She waits,” Alex said, her voice barely above the music now filtering through hidden speakers. A slow, sad jazz trumpet. “For the next job. For the right reason.”
Toni smiled, a real one that reached her eyes. “Stick with me, Ciara. I’ll give you plenty of reasons.”
The second whiskey arrived. Toni didn’t lift hers immediately. She just watched, listening, as Alex took the first sip.
She just watched, listening, as Alex took the first sip.
The jazz shifted to something slower, a bassline thrumming through the floorboards. The weight of the night, the shot, the closeness in this dark booth—it pressed in on Alex. She needed to break its hold, to reassert control. She swirled the whiskey in her glass, a slow vortex of amber.
“So,” Alex said, her voice cutting through the thick air. “You vet my past, you hand me a rifle, you buy me a drink. What’s the next move?” She looked directly at Toni, a hint of a challenge in her blue eyes. “You gonna make me an offer I can’t refuse?”
Toni’s reaction was instantaneous. A real, full laugh burst from her, bright and unexpected. It softened every sharp line in her face. She leaned back against the leather, shaking her head. “Christ. That film. It’s my fucking favourite. My father hated it. Said it made everyone think we were all opera-loving sociopaths.”
“Are you not?” Alex asked, the corner of her mouth lifting.
“I prefer Leonard Cohen to opera. And I’m only a sociopath on Tuesdays.” Toni’s laughter settled into a warm, private smile. “But the offer… that’s simple. I want you on the payroll. Exclusively. No more freelance ghosting.”
This was the moment. The hook set. Alex felt the tug deep in her gut. “Exclusive is expensive.”
“You’re worth it,” Toni stated, no hesitation. “I saw your work. I see how you are now. Calm. Like the shot didn’t even ripple the water.” Her gaze was analytical again, picking her apart. “Most people, they shake after. They talk too fast. They need… reassurance. You just sat here and explained barrel aging to me.”
Alex shrugged, a practiced, casual gesture. “It’s just a job. The aftermath is just another part of it.”
“That’s what I’m paying for.” Toni finished her second whiskey. “The ‘just a job’ mentality. It’s rarer than this stuff.” She tapped her glass. “So, are you in? Properly?”
This was it. The point of no return for Ciara McKenna. For the mission. Alex let a slow, deliberate smile spread across her face. It felt alien on her own skin, but perfect for Ciara’s. “I’m in. Seems like the management appreciates a clean spirit.”
“Good.” Toni’s eyes held hers, and the air between them changed once more. The professional agreement solidified something else, a circuit closing. “You know, my father did love that film, secretly. He’d deny it to his grave.” A shadow, fleeting and honest, passed over her features. “He quoted it once, when I was maybe fifteen. ‘Never let anyone outside the family know what you’re thinking.’”
She looked away, towards the dimly lit back of the bar. “He was a hard man. That advice kept me alive. It also makes you… lonely.”
The admission was so quiet, so stark, it felt more intrusive than watching her commit murder. Alex’s training screamed to catalogue it, to weaponize this vulnerability. The agent in her saw a golden entry point. The woman in her felt a treacherous pang of recognition.
“Sounds familiar,” Alex said, before she could stop herself. It was Ciara talking, but the truth beneath it, Alex’s truth, leaked through like a seam splitting. The constant calculation, the isolation, the face you never let slip. She covered it by taking a long drink.
Toni turned back, her expression unreadable for a beat. Then she nodded, just once, as if a question had been answered. “Tomorrow. There’s a warehouse in Bermondsey. A dispute with a South London crew. I’ll need you there. Meeting, not a gunfight. Probably.”
“Probably?”
“With these guys, you never know. They have the emotional regulation of toddlers.” Toni stood up, the moment of vulnerability gone, sealed over as if it had never been. She was all business again, but the warmth from her laugh still seemed to linger in the booth’s space. “Marcel will text you the details. Get some sleep, Ciara. You earned it.”
She placed a hand on Alex’s shoulder as she moved past. The touch was brief, firm, proprietary. Then she was walking toward the door, a silhouette against the faint light from the street, and then gone.
Alex sat in the sudden quiet. The bar noises rushed back in. She finished her whiskey, the peat smoke taste now carrying the faint, fading hint of orange blossom. Never let anyone outside the family know what you’re thinking.
The advice echoed. Toni had shared it, a piece of her own father, a glimpse behind the wall.
Alex had just shared a piece of something real in return.
It wasn’t in the debriefing notes. It wasn’t part of Ciara’s legend. It was a crack, hair-thin and deep, in the ice she’d built around herself. She signaled for the check, her mind already racing toward the safe house, the camera feed, the report she’d have to file. She’d detail the shot, the job offer, the bar.
She would not detail the loneliness in Toni’s voice, or how it had mirrored her own. That was a secret she’d have to keep from everyone. Especially from herself.
The cool night air hit her outside, a slap after the bar’s warmth. She turned her collar up, the ghost of Toni’s touch still warm on her shoulder. The crack in the ice didn’t feel cold. It felt like a dangerous, forbidden heat.