Chapter 26 Siobhan
SIOBHAN
The echo of the shot is mine as much as his. I didn’t pull the trigger, but this is my first kill. My choice. My war. It doesn’t horrify me. It clarifies things. Chris lies at my feet, a problem solved, the smugness wiped from his face forever by a single, perfect bullet.
Liam doesn’t look away from his work. He just stands over the body, the gun still held steady, his expression as unreadable as a stone. He is the violence I’m not yet capable of wielding myself, the brutal answer to a question I was only just learning to ask.
“Siobhan.”
Declan’s voice comes down a tunnel that I hadn’t even seen. He and his men are moving in complete darkness, moving into the light of the fallen flashlight. Four beams suddenly cut through the darkness, illuminating Liam and me standing over Chris’s body.
Liam moves his gun to point at Declan’s head without flinching.
The older man doesn’t even acknowledge him. His eyes are on me. “Don’t make me do this,” he says.
“There is nothing to do. We got your traitor.” I gesture to Chris lying dead between us. “He was taking photos when you arrived. Check his phone.”
Declan blinks. It’s the only sign of the man underneath the enforcer.
Liam doesn’t move. He doesn’t utter a word. This is between my father’s men and me. He knows it. He knows I have to do this my way.
Declan holds my gaze for a few more seconds and then gestures with his gun to Chris’s body. Two men move forward, search him, and use his face to unlock the phone when they find it.
A nod from one man confirms my story—up to a point. Now it’s up to me to push this in the direction I want it to go.
“Find out who he was working with and inform them their asset has been neutralized,” I state.
“I don’t take orders from you,” Declan says. “I work for your father.”
“My father is compromised. We both know that. That is enough to trigger an election, and I have declared myself the winner. If you want to take that up with the man who will kill on my say-so, be my guest.”
“That would be me,” Liam says with a savage smile.
Declan takes a moment to think it over. He knows I’m right about Dad. With Chris gone and me declaring myself the head of this family, he has one choice.
He lowers his weapon. “As you wish, Ms. Kelly.”
The words hang in the air, heavy and final. A cold, sharp satisfaction cuts through me. I didn’t inherit this power. I just seized it in a forgotten utility corridor, over the body of my cousin, while my father lies in a coma. It’s what needed to be done. It was what a leader would do.
I don’t let the moment pass. I can’t afford to.
I look at Declan, then at his men, their faces grim in the harsh light.
“Get rid of him,” I say, my voice as cold and steady as the concrete floor.
I nod toward Chris’s body. “Clean this up. Secure this tunnel and the gallery above. Whatever my father was doing down here, it’s over. ”
I feel Liam’s gaze boring into me. I’ve lied about any knowledge of this tunnel system’s purpose, and I’ve declared that it’s being shut down. Two moves that are either going to be make or break for me in the next two minutes.
Declan’s gaze narrows, the loyalty he just pledged already being tested. “Over?” he repeats, the single word a challenge. “Your father spent a decade planning this. It’s the Kelly legacy.”
“My father is in a hospital bed,” I counter, my voice echoing slightly in the corridor. “His legacy, right now, is a sniper aiming for his daughter and a traitor in his own ranks. This plan is compromised. Chris was feeding information to someone. Find out who.”
“And then what?” Declan challenges.
“Then you let me handle it. Any more doubts? Any more questions?”
The silence is a weapon, and I wield it, letting it hang in the air until it becomes unbearable.
Declan’s men shift their weight, their eyes flicking between their boss, me, and the silent O’Neill killer at my side.
Liam is my leverage, my ace, the brutal truth of what happens to those who oppose me now.
Finally, Declan’s shoulders slump in a barely perceptible gesture of defeat. He gives a sharp, curt nod. “No, Ms. Kelly. Any information we find will be brought directly to you.”
The transfer of power is complete. Not with a handshake or an oath, but here, in this forgotten corridor, with my cousin’s blood cooling on the concrete.
“Good.” I pick up the gun that Chris liberated from me when he hauled me out of the shaft and turn away from them, from the body, from the mess. I can’t look at Chris. If I do, the girl my mother tried to save might surface, and I can’t afford her weakness.
“How do I get out of here? I need to go to the hospital.”
It’s not a request. It’s the next move on a board I now control. I’m no longer the grieving daughter rushing to a bedside. I am the heir, coming to survey my kingdom.
Declan gestures down another corridor, one I hadn’t seen, hidden behind a mess of pipes. “This way. It comes out in the garage of the adjacent building.”
A clean exit. My father thought of everything except betrayal from within his own blood.
I follow him without a word. The air changes as we walk, the damp chill of the tunnel giving way to the dry, exhaust-tinged air of the garage.
Liam is a half-step behind me. He doesn’t speak, but I feel his approval like a brand.
We are a unit now, bound by blood and violence, and his silence is more potent than any declaration.
Declan’s men part for me as we emerge. I am no longer just Michael Kelly’s daughter. I am the woman who stood over her cousin’s body and gave the order to dispose of it. In this world, that’s the new head of the family.
Declan leads us to a blacked-out Range Rover. “I’ll drive you,” he says. It’s a statement, not an offer.
“Fine.” I slide into the back, Liam getting in beside me.
The door closes with a heavy, final thud, sealing us in.
I know what I have to do after I’ve seen dad, had a shower, had food, probably talked to the police and a hundred other things.
It settles like a cold stone in the pit of my stomach, but I know.
The Range Rover pulls out of the garage, its tires silent on the smooth concrete. Declan doesn’t speak. Liam is a solid wall of muscle and heat beside me, his presence a silent endorsement of the blood we just spilled.
My hands are steady in my lap. I should be shaking. I should be horrified. A part of me, the ghost of the woman who curated art and drank wine in her sunlit apartment, is screaming. I lock her in a box and shove her into the deepest part of my mind. She has no place here anymore.
I glance at Liam. His profile is cut from granite in the passing streetlights. He doesn’t look at me, but I feel his awareness, his focus. He killed for me. Not for his family, not for a deal, but for me. The knowledge is a dangerous, intoxicating thing.
The chilling calculus of what comes next runs through me.
Chris was a symptom, not the disease. He was taking orders.
I told Declan to find out who, but I already know.
It has to be Connor O’Neill. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
Liam is his son. His heir. His most lethal weapon. A weapon that now answers to me.
The car slows as we approach the floodlit entrance of St. Vincent’s.
The car pulls to a smooth stop at the curb. For a moment, no one moves. The world outside is a flurry of activity with paramedics, visitors, the low thrum of a place that never sleeps. Inside this car, there is only the weight of what we’ve done and what I must do next.
Declan turns from the driver’s seat, his face a mask of professional deference. “They have him in the ICU. Third floor. I’ll clear a path.”
“No,” I say, my voice cutting through the quiet. “You’ll wait here. Liam comes with me.”
It’s another test. I’m claiming an O’Neill as my personal guard to accompany me to see my father. Declan’s eyes flicker to Liam, then back to me. He sees the challenge, understands the statement I’m making. He gives a single, curt nod and turns back to face the front.
Liam opens the door, and the cold night air hits me, a slap of reality.
I step out of the car, and Liam is at my side, a shadow of ink and muscle, his presence a silent declaration of war against anyone who would question my new reign.
Every eye in this city that matters will be on me now, watching to see if I will break.
They don’t know I’m already shattered, and this cold, hard woman is all that’s left.
The automatic doors of the hospital hiss open, a sterile sigh welcoming us into a world of antiseptic smells and hushed, anxious voices.
Every step up to the elevator is a performance.
I keep my back straight, my expression carefully neutral.
My grief is a distant thing, a tool I can pick up and use when I need to, not an emotion that controls me.
Not anymore. This isn’t a daughter’s vigil.
It’s a show of strength. It’s an announcement.
We reach the double doors of the ICU. Through the small glass windows, I see my father, the man whose secrets and betrayals set all of this in motion.
I take a breath, the cold, recycled air filling my lungs.
This is it. The end of Siobhan Kelly, gallery owner.
The beginning of something else. The door buzzes and I push the door open, stepping inside.
To my surprise, he is awake and looking quite chipper for a man supposedly on his deathbed. I gulp as my blood runs colder. I look over my shoulder at Liam, but he is too busy talking to a nurse, probably explaining who I am.
“Siobhan,” Dad says. “Good of you to show.”
“Dad. What the fuck is going on?”
“The greatest performance of a lifetime, I’d say. Did you get him?”
“Get who?” I ask calmly, pulling up a chair to perch on at his side.
“Get who,” he repeats with an eyeroll. “That fucking traitor who called himself a Kelly, that’s who.”
I’m not playing this game. He has to say, because I’m not. I don’t know what the fuck is going on, and I’m not about to throw myself into a pile of manure big enough to drown me.
The silence stretches. Michael stares at me expectantly, and I stare back.
Eventually, and probably for the first time ever, he breaks. “Chris. Your cousin. He ordered a hit out on you, you know. He was betraying us to Connor O’Neill.”
“I’m aware.”
“So, what did you do about it?”
“Liam killed him.”
“Chris or Connor?” he asks as if he truly doesn’t know.
I snort and press my lips together. “Chris,” I say with an eyeroll. “Connor is… mine to deal with.”
“You took the crown.”
“I had to. You are dying.”
“Dying, but not dead yet. I needed to see what Chris was up to. I knew something was off.”
“So, you planned an elaborate collapse and hospital stay to out him?” It’s un-fucking-believable. But it has Michael Kelly written all over it.
“The administrator owed me a favor,” he says as if that makes it all right then.
“He sent a sniper after me,” I hiss, suddenly getting pissed off.
“I know. If Liam hadn’t killed him, I would’ve.”
“From your deathbed?”
He ignores me, rather pointedly. “This is the end for me, Siobhan. I’m retiring, taking a long convalescence on the west coast until the cancer removes me from this earth.”
Tears prick my eyes, suddenly. “Dad…”
He shakes his head. “As far as everyone will know, even Declan, I will die here tonight after you’ve left. Better make it a good farewell, girl.”
The words are a final, brutal gift. My throat closes around a sob I refuse to let escape. The carefully constructed queen, forged in a basement over a dead body, cracks. For a fleeting second, I am just a daughter losing her father.
He sees it. A flicker of something—pity, maybe even love—crosses his features before it’s gone, replaced by the calculating coldness that kept him alive for so long.
“Don’t trust anyone,” he rasps, his eyes flicking to Liam, who has moved to stand silently in the doorway. “Not even him. He’s an O’Neill.”
The tears burn, but they don’t fall. “I will deal with Connor. Leave Liam out of it.”
“What do you plan to do?”
“Make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
He smiles slowly. “That’s my girl. Go now. I’ll have word sent after I’m gone.”
I sniff, the tears already falling. “Daddy,” I sob and fling myself on him.
He grunts and grips me tightly. “You make me proud, girl.”
“I’m a woman,” I berate him through a sobbing laugh.
“Yes,” he says. “A strong, capable woman, worthy of the legacy I’ve built. Do your fucking worst, Siobhan, because it’ll be the best thing this city has ever seen.”
I pull back, my hands still gripping the thin fabric of his hospital gown, and nod. His legacy. It’s a coronation and a death sentence all in one. I wipe my face with the back of my hand, leaving a wet streak on my skin.
“I won’t let you down,” I whisper, the words a vow made of iron and grief.
He squeezes my hand one last time, a weak but firm pressure that says everything he can’t. His eyes, the same green as mine, hold a lifetime of secrets, violence, and a fierce, twisted love. Then he closes them, a king abdicating his throne. The performance is over.
I stand, my legs feeling strangely steady.
“You’re wrong about one thing, Dad. I can and do trust him.
” I turn without looking back, because if I do, I will break again, and I don’t have time for that.
Liam is still in the doorway, his expression is unreadable, but his eyes follow me, asking a question I don’t have an answer for yet.
I walk past him, my shoulder brushing his arm.
The contact is a jolt of heat in the sterile cold.
I don’t stop. I just keep walking, out of the ICU, away from the man who made me, toward the war he left me to win.
The automatic doors hiss open, and I step out into the hallway, leaving my father, my childhood, and the last vestiges of my fear behind me in that room.
Declan is waiting. He sees my face and knows.
The king is dead. Long live the fucking queen.