“Is this what you want?” I whisper.
Her eyes meet mine—green and shattered. “You have to.”
I swallow hard, my throat burning. “I can’t, Siobhán. Don’t you see? You were never the sin I needed to wash away. You were theonlyfucking thing that made me human.”
I stare at the knife on the floor. I pick it up. Slow. Deliberate. Like I’ve done a thousand times before with a thousand other blades. But never like this.Never with her.
Her breath catches. I step closer. And then I press the blade under her chin. Her whole body shudders.
“Cillian—” she whispers. My name from her lips has always sounded like a goddamn prayer and a curse all at once. “Please…”
I say nothing. My hand is steady, but everything inside me is screaming. Warring. Splintering down the middle.
She looks up at me with tear-filled eyes. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was him.”
“And what did you think would happen?” My voice is low. Shaking with rage I’m trying so fucking hard to keep caged. “What did you think, Siobhán? Handing over that code? Did you think it was a fuckinggame?”
She swallows, blinking hard. “I didn’t think! All I could think about was my mother and then… I–”
“You gave himmy fucking code!”
Her face crumples. “Then do it.” Her hand lifts to mine. Guides the knife harder against her own throat. “Kill me, Cillian.”
“Don’t.” My voice cracks like a fault line.
“Please.” Her words tumble out, frantic, soaked in sobs and snot and heartbreak. “Do it. You have to. I betrayed you. I betrayed an O’Dwyer. The Red Hand won’t spare me. Your father won’t. Your men won’t.So do it yourself.Don’t let anyone else have the honour. Let it beyou.”
She’s shaking so hard I can feel it in my bones. She slips into Irish then — the language of our childhood, of ghost stories and stolen kisses in the garden hedge. “Déan é. Marbh mé. Ná lig dom maireachtáil.”3
I can’t fucking breathe.
“Don’t you dare,” I whisper.
Her eyes widen. “You think you can protect me?”
“No,” I say, voice cracking open. “I think I already failed.”
She sobs harder. I lower the knife. And then I pull her into me — one arm tight around her spine, the other still holding the blade loose in my hand — because I can’t let go, and I can’t let her go, and I sure as fuck can’t kill her. Not now. Not when I finally understand what she meant to do. Not when I finally understand how badly she’s alreadypunished herself.
I nod once and look at her—red-rimmed eyes, trembling hands, the ghost of everything we once were caught between us. “I changed the passcode,” I say quietly. “The day you left.”
Her brows knit. “What?”
“It isn’t your birthday anymore.” My throat works around the words. “It’s the day you walked out. The day I lost you. I couldn’t stand typing your date again and again while you were gone.”
She stares at me like the floor’s been ripped out from under her. Then her face folds and the sob hits, sharp and ugly. “God, Cill.” She presses both hands to her mouth. “I’m sorry. I’m so fuckingsorry—for everything. For running. For believing the worst of you. For New York. For him. For this.”
I shake my head and pull her in, my voice rough. “You don’t apologize for surviving, dove.”
Her shoulders quake against me. “You should hate me.”
“I did,” I whisper, and she stills. “Every night. Every morning. Until I realized I deserved it. I hid the truth from you. About your mother. About what my father did. About everything.”
Her sob turns small and broken. She buries her face in my neck. “I thought you killed her.”
“I know.” My voice fractures. “And I’ll never forgive myself for letting you believe it.”
We stand like that—her shaking, me holding on—while the sun creeps through the frost-bitten glass, painting the floor gold. For the first time in five years, it feels like confession. And forgiveness.
