Chapter 14 Siobhan #2
For a split second, everything freezes—the gun in Chris’s hand, the stillness of Liam in the doorway, the scream lodged in my throat.
Liam’s expression doesn’t change. He doesn’t flinch.
If anything, a flicker of something that looks like boredom crosses his features, a supreme and terrifying confidence that a gun means nothing to him.
He looks from the barrel of the pistol to my cousin’s face, a slow, deliberate movement that dismisses the weapon entirely.
“You have five seconds to drop that,” Liam says, his voice a low, conversational murmur that’s somehow more menacing than a shout. “And four of them are gone.”
“This is my family’s business,” Chris spits. He’s trying to assert dominance, but Liam’s presence sucks all the power out of the room.
“She is my business,” Liam counters, and his eyes lock with mine. The possessiveness in that statement sends a shiver down my spine that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with a dark, coiling pleasure. “And you are in my way.”
Before Chris can react, before I can even process the words, Liam moves. It’s not a lunge or a rush, but a fluid, impossibly fast motion. One moment, he’s in the doorway, the next, he’s on Chris, his hand clamping around my cousin’s wrist with a sickening crack of bone.
Chris grunts. The gun clatters against the polished floor, forgotten. Liam twists, slamming my cousin, Michael’s second-in-command, face-first into the wall beside my desk. The impact shudders through the room, knocking a small sculpture to the floor, making me jump.
“I believe this is where our conversation ends,” Liam says, his voice a low growl against Chris’s ear. He yanks Chris’s good arm behind his back, forcing him into a position of complete submission. “You will never lay a hand on her again. Understood?”
My cousin, usually the tough guy, the one who will shoot you between the eyes and walk away, hesitates.
It’s all Liam needs to increase the pressure on his broken arm, and Chris’s inherited authority evaporates, revealing he’s nothing but a boy playing at being a gangster in the face of the real thing.
And I’m letting it happen. The man I kissed last night dismantles my family with brutal efficiency.
My throat tightens as something feral uncurls inside me.
It’s a dark satisfaction at watching Chris fold, at seeing Liam’s violence, at hearing him claim me so plainly.
I should be horrified. Instead, I’m holding my breath, waiting for more.
Liam shoves Chris toward the door. “Get out. And tell Michael if he sends his errand boy to threaten Siobhan again, I’ll send him back in smaller pieces.”
Chris stumbles out of my office, clutching his shattered wrist, his eyes wild with a mixture of terror and hate. He doesn’t look back.
The silence he leaves behind is deafening. Liam turns to face me, completely in control. “What was that really about?” he asks.
“He delivered a message from Michael. The usual threats disguised as family concern.” It pours from my lips as if lying to him isn’t even an option.
“What did he threaten you with?”
“Nothing I can’t handle. He reminded me of my obligations; of where my loyalty should lie.
” I turn away from him, looking out the window at the Dublin street below, trying to find some equilibrium.
Some distance. “He’s right, you know. Last night was reckless.
Stupid. Everyone saw us. Everyone’s talking about it.
Michael’s already planning his retaliation.
You being here now, hurting Chris… Fuck, Liam.
” The desperation seeps into my voice, and he hears it.
“You expect me to just stand there and let him hurt you?”
I turn back to face him. “You don’t understand what you’re asking me to risk.”
“Then explain it to me.” Liam moves closer. “Tell me what you’re so afraid of.”
“Everything.” The word comes out raw. Honest. “The gallery. My independence. The life I’ve built is separate from Michael. He’ll take it all away if I keep—if we—“
“If you keep kissing me? If we keep doing what we both want to do?”
“Yes.”
He reaches out, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. The gesture is gentle, intimate, and it makes my breath catch. Makes me remember the way those same fingers felt tangled in my hair last night, holding me close while he kissed me senseless.
“Siobhan,” he says quietly. “Your father doesn’t own you. Neither does your cousin. You get to decide what you want. Who you want.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It is exactly that simple.” His hand slides to my jaw, tilting my face up to his. “The question is: what do you want?”
I need to tell him that I want my gallery more than I want his hands on my skin, his mouth on mine, his body pressed against me in the dark.
But I don’t.
Because it would be a lie.
His thumb traces my lower lip, and I feel the touch everywhere.
“I’ve spent my whole life doing the sensible thing.
Playing by my father’s rules. Building the family business.
Being the good O’Neill heir.” His eyes meet mine, dark and intense.
“I’m tired of sensible, Siobhan. I want you. I will have you.”
“Don’t I get a say in this?”
His gaze bores into mine, and he crowds my space. I step back until I hit the wall behind me. Big mistake.
“No.”
The simple one syllable makes me gulp.
“Let me make this perfectly clear. I don’t give a damn about Michael Kelly. Or the blood feud. Or any of the ancient history between our families. I care about the way you kissed me last night like you were drowning and I was air.”
“Liam—”
“I’m not using you, Siobhan,” he clips out, suddenly, stepping back, avoiding my gaze, which tells me he is lying, and it shatters something inside me that I didn’t even know could be broken.
“No?” I choke back a bitter laugh. “Who are you trying to convince?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. He turns his head, just slightly, enough that I see the hard line of his jaw clench. It’s an admission more damning than any confession. The cold, brutal truth lands in my gut like a punch. Of course he’s using me. He’s an O’Neill. It’s what they do. It’s what we do.
The honesty that flared in his eyes on the terrace is gone, replaced by the granite mask of the O’Neill heir. He’s been caught, and the mafia man inside him doesn’t like being cornered.
“It’s not that simple,” he grits out, the words a poor defense.
“Isn’t it?” I shove against his chest, needing space, needing to breathe air that isn’t saturated with him and his lies.
He doesn’t budge. “My father wants me under his thumb; you want me under yours. It’s the same fucking game, just a different player.
You’re using me to get to him, to my family’s business. ”
The truth settles between us, ugly and cold. The kiss, the intensity, the way he claimed me wasn’t passion. It was strategy. I feel like the biggest idiot in the city.
“You’re wrong,” he says, but there’s no conviction in his voice. He’s just saying the words he thinks he’s supposed to.
“Am I?” I look at the broken sculpture on the floor, then at the gun Chris dropped, which is still lying on the floor. “You come in here, break my cousin’s arm, and tell me you’re not using me for some fucking power play? Get out of my gallery, Liam.”
My voice cracks on his name. I hate the weakness in it, hate the way it reveals just how much this hurts.
He finally steps back, the heat of his body leaving a cold void where it had been. His eyes are glacial, all traces of the man from last night erased. “This isn’t over, Siobhan.”
“Yes,” I say, my voice colder now, mimicking his. “It is.”