“But you knew,” she whispered.
And she was right. I did. I tried to tell her everything. About the deal gone wrong. The payoff that wasn’t mine to stop. How Ibegged my father to spare her family. How he smiled like I was a boy asking to keep a stray dog. But she wasn’t hearing me. Not anymore.
“You think a plane ticket fixes this?” she hissed. “You think Barcelona fixes blood?”
“I think I fix it,” I growled. “Because I’m the only one who can keep you alive right now.”
That’s when she slapped me. And that’s when I bled. She didn’t look back when she walked out. Didn’t see the way my hands curled around the edge of the desk until it cracked beneath my grip. Didn’t hear me tear apart the room after she was gone. Didn’t see me beg the doorman not to let her get into that cab.
And I didn’t chase her. Because I thought she’d come back. But she didn’t.
Sheleftmebleeding—andI let her. I told myself it was safer that way. That if I loved her, I’d let her walk. Let her rage. Let her believe the worst of me if it meant she’d be far from here. Far from him. Far from what this life does to anything soft and sacred.
But I’ve never stopped hearing the sound of that door slamming behind her. Not once. The anger I buried after she left? It didn’t fade. It fermented. Hardened. Got sharper with time. I fed it. Let it keep me alive while the rest of me rotted.
She made a choice. She turned her back. And I bled for it in more ways than one. I took beatings I didn’t block. Made deals I didn’t want. Became the son my father wanted, instead of the man she could love. All because I thought she was gone for good. But she’s not. She’s back. And I need to know why. It’s not just the gala. It’s not nostalgia. It’s not the paycheck. It’s something else.
I can see it in the way she holds herself like a loaded weapon. I can feel it in the way my father asks about her with that pointed stillness he only uses when he’s hunting. She’s back on O’Dwyer soil for a reason—and I need to find it before my father does. Because if she’s here for vengeance, she’ll get herself killed. And if she’s not? Then I need to know why the hell my heart still hurts when she breathes.
By the time I leave the suite, her music still echoes in my head like a bruise that won’t stop throbbing. I step into the private corridor and close the hidden panel behind me, locking the glass with a turn of the embedded key. No one else knows about that mirror.Not even my father.
The main hall is already being transformed for the gala. The old ballroom hasn’t seen this much polish since Darragh buried a British banker under the floorboards and called it peacekeeping. Now it’s garlands and chandeliers, champagne flutes and spotlights. All for charity, of course. But nothing theRed Hand does is charity. Everything has a price. And tonight’s performance? It’s bait.
“She’s trouble.” Darragh’s voice snakes around the edge of the room before I see him. I don’t turn. I just let the words settle. “She always was,” he adds, walking up beside me. “Pretty face, nasty little lineage. Still playing that piano like it’s a throne.”
“She hasn’t done anything—yet.”
“She exists. That’s enough.”
His voice is flat. Calculated. A blade sheathed in velvet. I glance at the men hanging garlands by the bar. Two of them aren’t staff. They’re soldiers. Watching. Listening. Waiting. The Red Hand doesn’t just protect—it hunts.
“She came back too easy,” Darragh says. “No negotiation. No rider. No security request. You know what that means?”
“She wants something,” I say quietly.
“Exactly.” He looks at me, eyes cold as river stone. “Find out what it is before she decides to take it.”
He claps me once on the shoulder, like a father would. But he squeezes too hard, like a threat. As he walks away, I glance up toward the mezzanine where the private balconies overlook the ballroom.
I can almost see her there in my mind—wearing her signature silky tight dress, lips painted like sin, eyes already dissecting the room like a chessboard. She’ll play. She’ll perform. But she didn’t come back for the applause. And if I don’t get ahead of her, I’ll lose her again.Or worse.
