My hands go still. The words don’t land right away—don’t make sense until I touch the pouch myself and feel the weight inside. I open it, slow, careful. The gold catches the light like a heartbeat, familiar and aching.
“I thought it was lost,” I whisper.
“It was,” he says quietly. “She sold it to pay for your first piano. My mother bought it back the same day. She gave it to me.”
I turn in my chair to look at him fully. “Why?”
Cillian’s eyes soften, that dangerous blue fading into something almost gentle. “Said I’d know when to give it to you.”
Rouge exhales a low whistle. “Bloody hell, that’s sentimental even for you.”
“Shut up,” Cillian mutters, but there’s no bite to it.
He takes the locket from my hands, thumb brushing over the engraving before he fastens the chain around my neck himself. His touch is steady, reverent—like he’s anchoring both of us in the past and the present at once.
When the clasp clicks, it’s louder than it should be. Final. Binding.
I stare at our reflection. “You kept this all these years?”
“I keep what’s mine.” His voice is quiet. Not possessive—just certain.
Rouge groans dramatically. “Alright, before I start crying or vomiting, can we move this love story along? Curtain’s in ten.”
Cillian ignores him. His eyes stay locked on mine. “Ready, dove?”
I nod, fingers closing around the locket. “Now I am.”
The smaller ballroom hums with low conversation and expensive laughter. It’s not the grand hall tonight—no velvet curtains or orchestral staging. Just a gilded room with too much perfume in the air and too many secrets pretending to be sophistication.
Darragh’spersonalcircle fills the space—politicians, financiers, criminals dressed like royalty. Their wives glitter in jewels that could fund small wars; their mistresses wear smiles sharp enough to cut. Every head turns the moment the doors open.
Cillian takes my hand as we step inside. Rouge follows just behind, posture loose but eyes alert—like a man counting exits. The three of us move as one, a deliberate procession through the whispers.
I can feel the weight of it all—their curiosity, their judgment, the quiet hunger that clings to these people. They don’t see a musician; they see spectacle. Proof that Darragh O’Dwyer still owns everything that glitters.
Rouge leans close enough for only me to hear. “Smile, duchess. They smell fear faster than blood.”
I do. A small, perfect smile. The kind I learned in conservatories and boardrooms and funerals.
Cillian’s hand presses lightly against the small of my back, grounding me as we approach the piano. I can feel the tension in him, the way he’s holding himself back from violence just to get me through this moment clean.
Darragh rises from his seat near the front—his grin wide, his applause lazy and theatrical. “Ah, our little prodigy has arrived,” he drawls. “My friends, tonight you’ll hear a sound you thought Dublin lost long ago.”
Polite laughter ripples through the crowd. My stomach turns, but I keep my smile fixed.
Rouge mutters, “He loves his own voice, doesn’t he?”
“Almost as much as he loves pretending he’s not terrified of her,” Cillian murmurs back.
They escort me the final few steps to the bench. The air feels thick, almost electric. Rouge takes position by the door. Cillian stays close—too close—his shadow stretching over the piano. I lower myself into the seat, smoothing my dress. My fingers hover above the keys but don’t touch them yet. The room holds its breath.
Then I begin. Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G Minor. Thunder dressed in velvet.
The first chords crash through the room, deep and resonant, filling the small ballroom until the walls themselves seem to tremble. The sound vibrates through my bones, up my arms, into the hollow of my throat. My foot presses the pedal — the vibration thrums under my heel like a heartbeat that belongs to someone else.
Every note demands control, strength, devotion. And I give it everything.
The polished ivory is cool beneath my fingers, but my hands are burning. The repetition, the force — it’s physical, almost violent. Each arpeggio feels like a blade slicing through silk. I can feel the sweat gather at the base of my spine, the slight tremor of exhaustion pushing against perfection. But I don’t falter.
