Themanorfeelsdifferentwhen I’m not a boy in it. Smaller. Colder. Like the walls finally stopped pretending to love me.
Rouge walks at my side, steps silent, hand near his weapon. Not drawn—yet. But close. Always close. We move down the familiar corridor, past portraits of dead men with colder eyes than mine. Past the alcove where Siobhán once hid from my father’s temper. Past the stairwell where I once listened to him break my mother’s heart in two.
Each step tightens something in my chest. A coil. A fuse.
Rouge murmurs, “He’s in the old music room.”
Of course he is.The bastard always liked the irony of using beauty to cloak rot. We reach the door. That room used to be my mother’s sanctuary. Her first piano. Her sunlit corner window. Her place to breathe when Darragh’s reign grew too loud.
Now the door is cracked open, a thin slice of dim light across the hall floor. I push it wider. My father stands at the far end of the room, back to us, hands clasped behind him as though he’s admiring the piano he destroyed years ago— the one Siobhán once played on as a child, the one whose keys still bear faint scratches where she carved her initials next to mine.
Darragh doesn’t turn. He doesn’t greet us. He methodically turns to face us. Slowly. Elegantly. Like a man preparing to carve a roast instead of gut his own son. His eyes flick to Rouge, assessing, dismissing—then land on me with something like satisfaction.
“There he is,” he murmurs. “Ireland’s prodigal fool.”
I brace. Rouge shifts his weight, ready. Darragh steps closer, hands still folded behind his back like a professor ready to lecture.
“I know where you were last night,” he says. “You think I don’t have eyes in my own house? You think I didn’t notice when you dragged thatgirlinto my crypt like she belonged there?”
My jaw ticks. He smiles.
“She has always been dangerous. You refused to see it as a boy, and you refuse to see it now.” He waves a hand at the ruined piano. “A siren, Cillian. An enchantress. Men lose empires over women like her.”
Rouge scoffs under his breath. Darragh ignores him.
“And now—now you chase her like some lovesick idiot while she drags blood and chaos behind her. The married conductor scandal? The city STILL talks about it. I had to clean up your little playthings' reputation more times than I can count, and for what? So she could embarrass us again?” He laughs, cold and cruel. “Sleeping with a married man? Pathetic. Reckless. And you want to give her our name?”
My fists clench. Rouge inches subtly between us.
Darragh leans in, voice dropping. “You think the Red Hand will follow you if you choose her? You think they’ll kneel to a man led around by a siren’s cunt?”
A slow exhale escapes me through my nose. Not a word. Not yet. He mistakes the silence for agreement— of course he does— and smiles like a man who already believes he’s won.
“To gain control,” he continues, tone smooth as lacquer, “you must cut out the infection. Remove her. Remove the problem. Then, and only then, will the Red Hand accept you.” His gaze sharpens, black and bottomless. “You know what must be done, son.”
I say nothing. Because my mind is no longer listening to him— it’s already gone to her. To the future I want. To the family I’ll have. To the woman waiting for my signal outside. And to the line I know I’m about to cross.
Darragh steps closer, and the temperature in the room drops with him. “You always were weak where she was concerned,” hesnaps, the veneer of calm cracking. “A boy with no spine and no sense, letting a girl with a broken pedigree drag you around by the heart.”
My teeth grind. Rouge stiffens. Darragh catches it—and smiles.
“Oh, don’t bristle. You know what she came from. That drunk brute she called a father?Isaved her from him.Ipaid for her schooling, her instruments, her bloody gowns. I took in her mother when no one else would. And this—this is the thanks I get?”
He gestures broadly, like the air itself offends him. “The Kellehers repay loyalty with betrayal. Always have. Always will.”
My vision pulses red. “Careful,” I say quietly.
“Careful?” He laughs, acidic. “I am DONE being careful with that family. She was a timid little thing when I brought her into this home. Ungrateful. Slipping notes into your pockets, begging you to run away with her—untilIcarved discipline into her.”
Rouge takes a sharp breath. I don’t move.
“And look at her now,” Darragh continues. “The city’s precious princess.Dublin’s Darling Daughter.” He spits the title like poison. “Walking red carpets, adored by thousands, playing pianos like she invented them. The fuckingDuchess of Dublin.” He sneers. “It makes me sick.”
My jaw cracks from clenching. “You’re talking about her like she’s filth.”
“She IS filth,” he snaps. “Polished filth. A whore with a wounded past and a voice sweet enough to trick even you into forgetting where she came from.”
“She came fromme,” I snarl. “From this home. From our care.”
