Chapter seventeen
The Red Crescendo
Siobhán
Dublinfeels…muted.Likesomeone’s turned the city’s volume dial all the way down—the pubs quieter, the air softer, even the wind gentler as it curls through the streets. Christmas Eve usually glitters here. Tonight, it feels like it’s wrapped in black lace.
The aftermath of Darragh O’Dwyer’s “death” has blanketed the city in a strange, reverent hush. Flags at half-mast. Candles set on doorstep shrines. People whispering his name with grief or fear or both.
Only three of us know the truth. And I sit beneath the soft glow of the concert hall’s lights, hands folded in my lap, listening to the hush of hundreds of people taking their seats, believing I’m about to lead them in a memorial.
Rouge stands against the wall near the back. Cillian sits in the front row, hands clasped, gaze fixed on me like I’m the only light left in this dim world. I should feel guilty.I don’t.
This performance was supposed to be a small, festive Christmas Eve recital— a simple tradition I’ve done for years. But with Darragh’s passing, it shifted overnight into something somber, something sacred. A mourning dressed in red and gold.
I walk to the piano as the room falls completely silent, every footstep echoing under the vaulted ceilings. When I sit, the bench feels colder than usual, or maybe that’s something inside me.
My fingers hover over the keys. Dublin holds its breath. And for a moment… so do I. I clear my throat softly, leaning toward the microphone as the last few murmurs settle.
“I thought,” I say with a small, breathy laugh, “that maybe we could start with something brighter. Something that always made him smile. Joy to the World was… well, somehow it was Darragh’s favorite.”
A ripple of gentle laughter moves through the audience.
“He begged me to play it every Christmas Eve. So tonight… we’ll begin there.”
I give them a warm smile I don’t feel, then place my hands on the keys. The first chord rings out, bright, triumphant, golden, and the room exhales with it. My fingers move with practicedease, widening the melody into something grander, fuller than the simple carol it usually is. A symphonic thing. A cathedral of sound. It’s almost funny, really, playingJoyon the night we buried a lie.
My left hand runs down the lower register, steady and strong, while my right hand lifts the melody into shimmering light. A trick I learned years ago—play beauty with one hand, and truth with the other. Rouge leans against the back wall, expression unreadable to anyone else. But I know him. I see the little tell—the way he drums his thumb along his bicep. He’s replaying that night. The body. The stagecraft. The violence wrapped in precision.
Rouge made it look like Malachi pulled the trigger. Then turned the gun on himself. I hit a bright cascade of notes, almost laughing at the synchronicity.
How Rouge pulled that off?I don’t think Iwantto know. I don’t need to. The city will mourn the story they were given. A betrayal turned tragedy. A clean ending tied with a bow.
My fingers arc into the next verse—bolder this time, swelling through the hall. The crowd sits straighter. Some close their eyes. They’re hearing Christmas. I’m hearing the truth.
Cillian watches from the front row, face carved in shadow and reverence. He knows exactly what I’m thinking, what I’m burying beneath each crescendo, what ghosts I’m playing out of the air.
His father died by his hand. Malachi died by Rouge’s.And me?I’m playing Joy to the World like it’s an elegy. The final notes rise and fall, a soft glittering echo through the high-ceilinged hall. When silence settles, it’s the reverent kind, the kind that belongs in churches, or confessions, or after someone tells a beautiful lie.
I bow my head as the applause begins—slow, swelling, grateful. And I think: Let them mourn him. Let them believe it.
Because the only truth that matters tonight is the one sitting in the front row with blood still beneath his nails and love carved into every line of his face. AndIknow the truth. And I’m the only one who ever needed to.
The applause washes over me—warm, tidal, grateful. A hundred strangers rising to their feet, honoring a man who doesn’t deserve a single candle lit in his name. I stand from the piano, give a soft bow, and the lights dim to signal the end.
Cillian’s already moving before the crowd fully settles. Rouge peels off toward one of the side exits—handling the press, the whispers, the logistics—while Cillian takes my hand with a gentleness that doesn’t match the storm in his eyes. We slip out a back corridor, down the stairs, through the service door into the cold December night.
Snow’s drifting quietly. The whole world feels paused. But inside me? Inside him? Nothing is still.
The ride back to the stable-house is silent in thatchargedway, like we’re both pretending to breathe normally when neither ofus is fooling the other. By the time the house comes into view—warm light glowing through the frosted windows, smoke curling from the chimney—my pulse is a metronome gone mad.
Cillian parks. Turns off the engine. Doesn’t move. Neither do I. We just… sit there, breath fogging the cold air, the weight of the death, the lies, the music, the future pressing in on all sides.
Finally, he says my name. Soft. Devout. “Siobhán.”
It breaks something in me. I climb out of the car, boots crunching in the snow, and before I even reach the porch he’s behind me—coat still on, breath warm against my neck as he unlocks the door. The moment the latch clicks, something snaps.
He pushes the door shut behind us and cages me against it with his hands planted above my head. Not rough. Not gentle. Just…needed.My breath stutters. His forehead drops against mine.
