Chapter 7 – The Rising
Chapter 7 – The Rising The warehouse hummed with tension as Salty paced, boots thudding against the concrete. Sarah sat at an old folding table, scribbling names on a cracked tablet screen. Around them, small groups of men and women spoke in hushed voices, their eyes flicking to Salty with reverence and fear. Word had spread overnight. Dock workers. Ex-army veterans. Disillusioned youths from Tallaght and Ballymun. Truckers forced out by AI fleets. Nurses who’d seen too many trafficked girls come into A&E with bruises and empty eyes. By dawn, over a thousand had gathered , crammed into the warehouse and spilling out into the docklands’ crumbling roads. Salty stood up on a rusted forklift to address them. The morning sun glinted off the steel beams overhead, casting harsh lines across his lined, powerful face. “Brothers and sisters,” he began, his deep voice rolling across the silent crowd. “For too long, we’ve let men like Connor Devane – The Snake – sell this country’s ...