Chapter 13 Liam
LIAM
I haven’t slept.
Four AM found me in the gym, beating the heavy bag until my knuckles split and bled through the tape.
Five AM, a cold shower that did fuck-all to cool the fire under my skin.
Six AM, coffee and spreadsheets I couldn’t focus on because every time I blinked, I saw her, felt her with her back arched against the stone balustrade, lips parted, eyes dark with the same need burning through me.
Now it’s nearly eight, and I’m standing in my bathroom watching blood seep through a fresh bandage on my right hand, wondering when I became the kind of man who loses control.
The answer stares back at me in the mirror: the moment Siobhan Kelly set foot back on Irish soil, and the girl I was raised to despise had turned into a woman I wanted to fuck more than anything.
My phone buzzes on the marble counter. Connor.
Breakfast. Main house. 8:30. Don’t be late.
I rewrap my hand with efficient movements, pull on a fresh shirt, and try to assemble the armor I usually wear so easily. Cold control. Calculated detachment. The O’Neill heir who doesn’t feel anything he doesn’t choose to feel.
Except I can still taste her. Champagne and fury and something that’s branded itself into my fucking DNA. I can still feel the silk of her dress under my palms, the sharp intake of her breath when I bit down on her neck, the way my name spilled from her lips, which made my cock rock-hard.
Christ.
I’m compromised. Completely, irreversibly compromised.
And the worst part is, I don’t fucking care.
The drive to the house is full of reflection and introspection that I could do without. This meeting, any meeting, with Connor needs my full focus, and all I can think about is crawling up her body, before I bury my cock inside her so deep, she will feel me for weeks.
Pulling through the gates onto the driveway, I glance out over the estate.
The house sprawls across five acres of manicured grounds.
Stone and security and old money that Connor’s dragged into the twenty-first century through blood and strategy.
I grew up here, learned to shoot in the woods beyond the east lawn, buried my mother in the family plot near the chapel she never attended.
Now it feels like walking into enemy territory.
Bridget meets me at the door, our housekeeper for the past twenty years, one of the few people Connor trusts completely. She takes in my appearance with a knowing look—the fresh bandages, the shadows under my eyes, the tension in my shoulders.
“Rough night?” she asks in her soft Cork accent.
“Something like that.” I accept the coffee she offers, black and strong enough to strip paint. “He’s in the breakfast room?”
“Where else?” She pats my arm with maternal concern that feels out of place in this house of violence and calculation. “There’s bacon and eggs if you’re hungry.”
I’m not. Haven’t been able to stomach food since I walked away from Siobhan on that terrace, leaving her looking like I’d wrecked her and put her back together wrong.
I follow Bridget down the hall, through rooms full of art Connor bought because it’s valuable, not because he gives a damn about beauty. Everything in this house is a tactical choice. Including me.
Connor sits at the head of the table in the breakfast room, morning light streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the gardens.
He’s reading the Irish Times, bifocals perched on his nose, looking every bit the distinguished businessman and nothing like the criminal who’s orchestrated murders from this very table.
“Liam.” He doesn’t look up from the paper. “You look like shite.”
“Good morning to you, too.” I take the seat to his right, setting my coffee down with more force than necessary.
“Late night?”
“The gala ran long.”
“Mm.” He turns a page, deliberately casual. “And how was it? Productive?”
Here we go. I take a long drink of coffee, buying time to construct the lie. “The usual. Glad-handing, fundraising theater, politicians pretending they care about sick children.”
“And Siobhan Kelly?”
My hand tightens on the mug. “What about her?”
“Did you speak with her?” Connor finally looks at me over his bifocals, pale eyes assessing. He knows something. The question is, how much?
“Briefly.” The lie comes easier than it should. “She was occupied with donors most of the evening.”
“Briefly.” He sets the paper down, giving me his full attention now. “Judge Brennan said you two seemed quite engaged in conversation.”
Fuck. Of course Brennan reported back. Loyal O’Neill dog that he is. If only he knew the levels of betrayal and backstabbing.
“We spoke for perhaps five minutes about the gallery’s involvement in the event.” I meet Connor’s gaze steadily, years of practice keeping my expression neutral. “Nothing substantive.”
“And yet you disappeared from the ballroom for nearly fifteen minutes.” Not a question. A statement of fact. “As did she. Separately, according to Brennan, but with suspicious timing.”
The coffee turns bitter in my mouth. “I needed air. The room was stifling.”
“Air.” Connor leans back in his chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin—his thinking pose, the one that precedes strategic decisions or violent ones. “Tell me, Liam. Are you fucking Michael Kelly’s daughter?”
The blunt question hits like a fist. I force myself to remain still, unbothered. “No.”
“Planning to?”
Yes. God yes. Every part of me that isn’t rational wants exactly that—to strip that black dress off her, taste every inch of skin I was denied on the terrace, hear her say my name when she comes apart beneath me.
“I’m doing exactly what you asked,” I reply instead, voice cold. “Building a connection. Establishing trust. Seduction takes time.”
“Does it?” Connor’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re getting distracted by a pretty face. Do I need to reinstate Sean, Liam? He is eager to make up for his mistakes. He won’t fight an arranged marriage with that girl to get her under our control.”
Anger flares, hot and immediate. Like fucking hell. “You told me to get close to her. To exploit the attraction. That’s what I’m doing.”
“I told you to seduce her for tactical advantage. Not to develop actual feelings for her.” He stands, moving to the window with his hands clasped behind his back. “There’s a difference, Liam. One serves our interests. The other makes you a liability.”
“I don’t have feelings for her.” The lie tastes like ash. “She’s a means to an end. A way to gather intelligence on Kelly’s operation and undermine their family cohesion.”
“Is she?” Connor turns back to face me. “Then why did you look at her last night like you wanted to burn the world down for her?”
Christ. He was spying on us?
“I was playing a role,” I say through gritted teeth. “Obsessed suitor. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“I wanted controlled manipulation. Not whatever the hell I witnessed last night.” He moves closer, and I resist the urge to stand, to meet him on equal physical ground. “You’re losing objectivity, which makes you useless to me.”
“I’m not—”
“Michael Kelly is dying.” The statement cuts through my protest like a blade. “Six months, maybe less. Pancreatic cancer, stage four. He’s kept it quiet, but our sources confirmed it last week.”
The information shifts everything. Dying men make desperate choices, destructive ones. “And Chris?”
“Is positioning for takeover, as you suspected.” Connor picks up his coffee with steady hands. “But he’s facing resistance from the old guard. They don’t trust him—too volatile, too obvious, too much of Michael’s violence without the intelligence to wield it properly.”
“So the organization is fracturing.”
“Precisely.” Connor’s smile is sharp now, predatory.
“Which is why Siobhan is so valuable. Do you get it now? Why this cannot be compromised by your dick? She’s respected, educated, legitimate.
The fronts she runs are profitable and clean.
If Chris moves to consolidate power after Michael dies, he’ll need her cooperation or elimination. ”
My blood runs cold. “Elimination.”
“She’s a threat to his authority by virtue of existence.
The daughter Michael actually respects, the child who proved she didn’t need crime to succeed.
” Connor waves a hand dismissively. “Chris won’t tolerate that kind of comparison.
He’ll either force her into line or remove her entirely. Both are bad for us.”
The thought of Chris Kelly putting his hands on Siobhan, of anyone hurting her, sends rage through me so intense I have to grip the edge of the table to stay seated.
“So, what’s the play?” I ask, voice carefully neutral despite the violence simmering beneath.
“Continue cultivating her. Deepen the attachment—hers and yours. When Michael dies and Chris makes his move, she’ll need protection. An alliance. Someone who can offer her a way out of the Kelly organization before her cousin destroys her.”
“You want me to save her, so she’ll defect to us, assets and all.” My tone is bitter even though I try to disguise it. If this were anyone else, any other woman in Ireland, the world, I wouldn’t give a flying fuck.
But not with her.
“I want you to make her dependent on you so we can leverage her assets and information when the Kelly empire implodes.” Connor takes a deliberate sip of coffee.
“If she develops actual feelings for you in the process, even better. Emotional attachment makes people more considerate of a marriage.” His lips curl up in disgust at the thought of a Kelly sharing his table at Christmas dinner, but he is making his move perfectly clear.
This happens, and it’s either me or Sean.
Disgust churns in my gut, though whether it’s directed at Connor or myself, I can’t quite tell. Because part of me—the part that’s been raised to think like this, to see people as chess pieces and emotions as weapons—recognizes the brilliance of the strategy.
And another part, the part that kissed Siobhan Kelly last night like she was oxygen and I was drowning, wants to put my fist through the window.
“What if she won’t defect?” I ask. “Loyalty to family runs deep with the Kellys.”
“Then we use her anyway and discard her when she’s no longer useful.” Connor’s tone suggests he’s discussing produce, not a woman’s life. “But I don’t think it’ll come to that. Will it?” His gaze bores into mine. “Make her choose you over Chris. Over family. Over everything.”
The manipulation is elegant, effective, exactly the kind of long-game strategy that’s kept Connor at the top of Dublin’s underworld for three decades.
It’s also everything I despise about this life.
“I’ll handle Siobhan Kelly. My way.”
“Your way, so long as it serves O’Neill interests.” Connor stands, breakfast concluded, strategy session over. “I don’t care what you have to do, but she will be an asset to us by the time Michael dies, or you’ll answer for the failure. Understood?”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
“Good.” He moves toward the door, then pauses. “Oh, and Liam? Emotion makes you weak. Weakness gets you killed.”
He leaves, footsteps echoing down the hall, leaving me alone with my coffee and the wreckage of my conscience.
Plus side? I no longer have to hide my attraction to her.
Downside? She is going to fucking hate me even more than family loyalty dictates when she finds out Connor’s orders, and well she should.