Chapter two
Green-Eyed Vengeance
Cillian
Shedoesn’tknowI’mhere. Not yet.
She thinks she’s alone—just her, the piano, and whatever ghosts she brought back with her. She doesn’t know about the suite’s original design. The mirrored wall near the corner fireplace isn’t just decorative.
It’s glass. One way.Mine.
A relic from the days when the O’Dwyers ran more than real estate. This penthouse used to be a safehouse. A place where deals were made. Hostages kept. People watched without ever knowing they were prey.
And tonight, my prey plays the piano.
She’s barely changed. Hair longer. Eyes harder. Mouth sharper in the corners – like she’s bitten back every goddamn word she’s never been able to say. But the way she plays?
My dove.
Time hasn’t changed her delicate fingers at all. Shebleedsinto the piano. Long, gorgeous fingers gliding across the ivory keys. She’s not just playing a song – she’s speaking a language only she understands. And maybe, once upon a time I knew it too. Back when we were reckless. Raw. In love. Before everything we were, got swallowed by what I had to become.
She sits like an exiled queen, upon her throne, slender neck tilted back as the last few notes fade. The firelight licks at her skin, casting it in golds and shadows.
God, she’s beautiful.
God, I hate her.
God, I want her.
A breath catches in my throat as she shifts forward on the bench then freezes.She sees it. The envelope. Good girl. Go on, open it my dove.
She plucks it from the bench, fingers delicate but deliberate. She breaks the seal. Green eyes scan the card. Red lips part. But notin shock, not in fear. It’s something else. Recognition possibly. A memory.
She doesn’t speak. Just folds the note, sets it on top of the piano like it weighs more than it should, and stares out at the city through the windows.
I stay hidden, I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I let her sit there with it. Let herfeelit. Let her remember.
Play for me one last time.
It was never a request. It was a warning. And she’s smart enough to know that.
Five Years Ago: The night she left me bleeding.
Itwasn’tsupposedtogo down like that. I had a plan. For once in my life, I had a fucking plan.
I was going to walk her out through the side exit of The Velvet Knife before anyone noticed. I had a car waiting. Bags packed.A new identity ready. A burner phone. A new flat in Barcelona. I had every detail covered.
Except for the part where she didn’t trust me anymore. She stormed into the back office like thunder wrapped in silk, eyes wide, clutching a file folder so tight the paper had curled at the edges. Her hands were shaking.
“Is it true?” she snapped, slamming the folder onto the desk between us. “Is this what your father’s been hiding? What you’ve been hiding?”
I didn’t move. Not because I was guilty— But because I didn’t know which truth she was holding. And that was the problem. There were too many.
She opened the folder. Pages fanned out—black and white surveillance photos, wire transfer records, a single sheet listing her mother’s name under a column marked ‘Disappeared’.
“I found these in the bottom of my mother’s piano bench,” she said. “After she died. Hidden beneath the felt lining. They lead back to your father. To a man named Doyle. And to you.”
“I never touched her, Siobhán,” I said quietly.
