My chest tightens. Rage and grief tangle together until I can’t tell them apart. “You had no right.”
He steps closer and holds it out—not offering. Presenting. “If you’re going to scream at me all week,” he says calmly, “at least stay in tune.”
I don’t move.
He tilts his head. “Go on.”
“You don’t get to use that,” I snap. “You don’t get to touch it. That’s mine.”
A corner of his mouth lifts. “Everything in this house is mine.”
He places the violin on the desk between us. Gently. Reverently. Like he knows exactly what it cost me to leave it behind. “Play,” he says.
“No.”
His eyes harden. “Róisín.”
The way he says my name—low, controlled—lands like a command pressed into my spine. I step forward before I canstop myself. My fingers tremble when they touch the wood. Fury surges hot and fast, flooding every vein.
I don’t tune it properly. I don’t breathe. I play. The sound that rips from the strings isn’t pretty. It’s sharp. Violent. Notes dragged too hard, bow biting deep, melody fractured and furious. Every stroke is accusation. Every scrape a wound reopened.
I pour everything into it—betrayal, rage, the echo of blood on stone floors and hands that won’t let go. The room vibrates with it. I don’t look at him at first. I don’t need to. I feel it.
The shift in the air. The way his presence tightens, thickens. When I finally glance up, he’s leaning back against the desk, jaw clenched, eyes dark and fixed on me like I’m something feral and holy all at once.
His breathing has changed. Slow. Heavy. Deliberate. His hand grips the edge of the desk hard enough that the wood creaks.
I drag the bow across the strings one last time, deliberately rough, letting the note die ugly and unresolved. I lower the violin. Silence crashes down. His gaze flicks to my mouth. My throat. The way my hands are shaking.
“That’s it?” he asks, voice rougher now.
I meet his eyes. “You wanted noise.”
Something hungry flashes across his face—gone as quick as it came. “Careful,” he says quietly. “You keep playin’ like that and you’ll forget who’s in control.”
My pulse hammers. I set the violin down between us, carefully this time. “I haven’t forgotten a thing,” I say.
He smiles. And the way he looks at me now tells me I’ve just started something neither of us can stop. He doesn’t move at first. Just watches me like he’s weighing how much damage I can do with six inches of wood and horsehair.
“That mouth of yours gets you into trouble.”
I laugh, sharp and humorless. “Funny. I was thinking the same about yours.”
He steps closer. One slow step. Then another. The space between us tightens until the air feels thin, brittle, like it might shatter if either of us breathes wrong.
“You play like that on purpose?” he asks. “Like you’re daring me to lose control?”
I tilt my chin up, refusing to give him the satisfaction of looking away. “You don’t have control,” I say. “You just pretend you do.”
Something dark flickers behind his eyes—approval or anger, I can’t tell which. He reaches out before I can stop him, fingersbrushing the inside of my wrist where my pulse is jumping like it’s trying to escape.
“Still shaking,” he murmurs. “Every time you lie.”
I jerk my hand back, but not fast enough. His thumb lingers, dragging just enough to make my skin prickle.
“Don’t touch me,” I snap.
“Then don’t play for me like that,” he shoots back, stepping in fully now. We’re chest to chest, my violin forgotten between us, his presence overwhelming—heat, leather, something metallic underneath.
