Chapter 16 Siobhan
SIOBHAN
I keep coming back to this one thing. He didn’t have to tell me.
He didn’t have to say anything about not using me, and I would probably have carried on like an idiot with my head in the clouds…
but he didn’t have to say it. Obviously, he heard what Chris said and wanted to address it, but he just made it worse because his actions confirmed my cousin’s words.
But… he didn’t have to say it.
“Rah!” I shout at the wine glass filled to the brim on the counter of my breakfast bar in my kitchen, tucked away from the safety of hot, Irish mafia men in my apartment in Ballsbridge.
Snatching it up, I gulp back a couple of mouthfuls of a crisp Sauvignon Blanc and replace the glass with a shaking hand.
I glance at my phone lying next to me, but it remains obstinately silent.
He hasn’t even tried to call or message.
I take another drink, larger this time, and move to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the street below. The afternoon light slants through the glass, warm and golden, completely at odds with the storm churning inside me.
He broke Chris’s wrist for me.
That’s the part I can’t reconcile with the cold manipulation he couldn’t deny.
The way he moved, so fast, brutal and efficient when Chris pulled that gun.
Most men would have hesitated. Calculated.
Talked their way out. Liam just acted, like the thought of Chris hurting me was so intolerable that consequences didn’t matter.
I press my forehead against the cool glass, watching cars pass below, people going about their normal lives.
None of them are standing in their apartments at three in the afternoon, half-drunk on wine, trying to figure out if the man who kissed them like they were oxygen is their salvation or their destruction.
Probably both.
I drain the rest of my wine, then pour another glass because why the hell not? The gallery’s closed. Chris will have gone straight to my dad’s private physician. Dad will know, and he will call soon to…
I don’t even know. Cut me off? What else can he do?
He can’t kill me; he can’t do anything except take away the one thing that he can.
The money. The dirty money that I have tried to clean up, but I’m failing miserably.
I know it. He knows it. Chris knows it. Liam knows it.
Everyone knows it, and yet I’m brushing it all under the carpet because I wanted this to work.
I gulp back another mouthful of wine, finishing it, and cross back to the kitchen where I pour another glass.
With a trembling hand, I reach for my phone and sift through the apps until I find one I hide from my home screen. A secret bank account that no one knows about except me. Mom’s advice. Always, always, have a safety net.
The numbers on the screen are a comfort.
A significant sum, carefully siphoned over three years, invested and managed with the same carefulness I apply to the gallery.
Never let them have everything, Siobhan.
Always keep a part of yourself they can’t touch.
This account is that part. My escape hatch.
My ticket back to Boston or New York, away from the ancient blood feuds and the men who think they can own me.
But the wine, warming my blood, whispers a different idea.
Escape is what my mother did. She ran. What if I stay? What if I fight? The thought is a spark in the alcohol-fueled haze. Chris thinks he can intimidate me. Michael thinks he can control me with threats and purse strings. Liam O’Neill thinks he can use me as a pawn in his family’s long game.
They’re all wrong.
This money isn’t just an escape hatch. It’s a war chest. It’s leverage. It’s the means to build something so legitimate, so powerful, that it can’t be touched by anyone except me.
A new kind of power surges through me, sharp and clean and utterly intoxicating. It’s the power of my own making.
My phone buzzes in my hand, making me jump and slosh wine on the countertop. I look at the screen, my heart hammering against my ribs.
It’s not Liam.
It’s my father.
The reckoning is here. I take a final, fortifying swallow of wine and answer the call, my words slurring slightly, which makes me wince.
“Siobhan.” His voice is a low rumble, the wheeze more pronounced, strained by rage. “Your cousin is in my study with a shattered wrist. He tells me you had Liam O’Neill waiting for him. That you set him up.”
“Chris is a liar,” I hiss. “He threatened me. Liam intervened.”
“Intervened,” he scoffs, the word dripping with venom. “He broke your cousin’s arm in your office, Siobhan. An O’Neill, in our territory, putting his hands on a Kelly. This is an act of war, and you brought it to our doorstep.”
The wine sings in my veins, a siren song of rebellion. “Technically, Liam was in his own territory,” I say, swaying slightly. “The gallery is in his patch, remember. A bit of a fuck-you to old Connor.”
The silence on the other end is absolute, more terrifying than any shouting. I can picture him in his study, the gears of his sharp mind not yet dulled by the cancer, grinding, reassessing me, his asset, now turned liability. Or maybe, something else entirely.
“You’re drunk,” he says finally, a dismissal.
“I’m clear-headed for the first time in my life,” I counter. “You and Chris and Liam O’Neill… you all think you can move me around your chessboard. But you’ve forgotten something.”
“And what’s that?” he asks, his tone dangerously soft.
“It’s my fucking board.” I end the call, my hand shaking as I set the phone down. The wine glass is empty.
I pour more. I am nowhere near done with this bottle.
My carefully constructed world is crashing down around me, and I can’t deny the truth any longer.
I let out a manic laugh. There is absolutely nothing funny about destroying the one thing that I had here that made sense.
But right now, I couldn’t be clearer on what I have to do.
The gallery is going up in a blaze of glory, and I will be the one striking the match.
I’m going to walk away from this asset and start over.
Build my own business with my own money that no one can touch or use to manipulate me.
I am done being Michael Kelly’s daughter. I am Siobhan with no last name.
I guzzle back the entire glass of wine, slopping it all down my front, but who gives a shit? I pour another one.
A sharp knock on the door makes me jump, and I stare at it for a few seconds, trying to register who it could be. Who got through the front doors of the secure building?
“Siobhan,” Liam’s voice echoes through the door. “I know you’re in there.”
“You don’t know jack,” I mumble, as I stumble toward the door, wine sloshing around the glass. Let him see the mess he’s made of me. Let him see I’m not the composed gallery owner now. I’m just a woman drinking alone in the middle of the day because her life is imploding. “Go away.”
“Not until you open this door.” His voice is calm, steady. The exact opposite of the chaos churning inside me.
Fueled by Sauvignon Blanc and a reckless disregard for consequences, I unlock the deadbolt and pull the door open.
He stands there, filling the frame, looking like he’s been through his own private hell.
His immaculate suit is slightly rumpled.
There are fresh scrapes on his knuckles, a shadow of exhaustion under his eyes, but he’s still devastating.
He takes in my appearance and arches an eyebrow.
The one with the scar running through it. I stare at it, fixated on it.
“You’re drunk,” he states, not as an accusation, but as a simple fact.
“And you’re trespassing. Seems like a nasty habit of yours.”
“We need to talk,” he says, his eyes searching mine.
“No,” I say, shaking my head, and then pausing as the room spins wildly. “We don’t. You said what you needed to say. I said what I needed to say. It’s over.”
“It’s not,” he grits out and takes a step forward, forcing me physically to step back.
“Get out,” I snap. “I don’t want you here.”
“Too fucking bad,” he says. “We need to sober you up and talk. Shit is hitting the—”
I throw the remaining wine in his face before I know what I’m doing.
With my eyes wide, and my mouth open, I take another step back, shocked at my action.
He is, in a word, furious. His blue eyes flash dangerously as the expensive New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc drips down his face, staining his suit and shirt.
For a long, terrifying moment, he doesn’t move.
The wine drips from his jaw, a single drop clinging to the sharp line of his chin before falling to the floor.
His eyes, which were stormy before, are now the dead calm center of a hurricane.
The fury is there, but it’s cold, controlled, and a thousand times more frightening than loud rage would be.
He slowly, deliberately, raises a hand and wipes the wine from his face. He looks at his fingers, damp with the Sauvignon Blanc, then back at me. “Are you done?” he asks, his voice a low, lethal whisper that scrapes against my frayed nerves.
My drunken courage falters. “I told you to go away,” I manage, but the words lack the fire they had moments ago.
“And I told you we need to talk.” He takes a step into the apartment, and I stumble back. He follows, kicking the door closed behind him, sealing us inside together. The space, which felt large and empty a minute ago, is now suffocatingly small with him in it.
He stalks toward me, and I keep backing away until my hips hit the edge of the kitchen counter. Trapped. He plants a hand on either side of me, caging me in. “You’re going to listen to me,” he says, his face inches from mine. “And you’re going to do it now.”
“I am done listening to men who think they know what’s good for me,” I say, regaining some of my courage. “Get the hell out before I call the police.” I turn towards the wine bottle and empty what’s left into the glass.