Chapter 4 Violence of Wanting Her
Chapter four
Violence of Wanting Her
Finnian
Róisín Malloy does not disappear after she leaves my office. She moves through the house all day like a storm held just behind glass—felt, not heard. The staff clock it, so do the lads. By afternoon, everyone knows better than to cross her path without reason.
Good. Let her pace. Let her simmer. She always was more dangerous once the fire went quiet.
I spend the day doing what I always do—meetings, calls, men arguing over territory and money like the world isn’t about to tilt on its axis. I don’t mention her name. I don’t have to. It hangs in the room anyway. By the time evening comes, the house is ready.
Dinner is laid. Lamps lit. Fires burning low. The estate settles into that heavy, watchful calm it gets at night, when everything inside it remembers who runs it. That’s when I go to her.
I knock once and open the door without waiting.
Róisín is already dressed. Of course she is.
A silk dress, dark and fitted, clinging to her like she chose it with violence in mind.
No bandages showing. No softness offered.
Her hair is down around her shoulders, loose and wild, the kind of look she uses when she wants to remind a man exactly how badly he could fuck up if he underestimates her.
She turns slowly when I enter, eyes sharp, mouth set. “Well,” she says. “Took you long enough.”
I shut the door behind me. Lean back against it, arms crossing. I look at her properly this time—head to toe, no hurry. “You heal fast,” I say.
“I don’t have a choice,” Róisín replies. “Seems men keep deciding things for me.”
I snort. “You’ve never been easy to decide for.”
She steps closer, just enough to test the space. “Why are you here, Finn?”
“Dinner.”
She laughs softly. Bitter. “That wasn’t an invitation.”
“No,” I say. “It wasn’t.”
Her eyes flick to the door, then back to me. Always measuring exits. Always planning damage. “You think I’m going to sit at your table like a good girl?” Róisín asks.
I push off the door and take one step forward. Not close enough to touch, close enough to matter. “I think you’re going to walk down those stairs beside me,” I say, voice low, rougher now. “And you’re going to let the house see you standing on your feet.”
Her jaw tightens. “I am not your wife.”
“Not tonight,” I agree. “But you’re still my problem.”
That lands. I see it in her eyes—the flare of anger, the spark of something hotter underneath. She smooths the skirt of her dress with deliberate care. Composes herself. Lady Malloy, armoured in silk.
“Where are we eating?” she asks.
“Downstairs,” I answer. “Like adults.” I open the door and step aside—not politely, not gently. Expectant. “Come on, Róisín,” I add. “Don’t make a show of it.”
She holds my gaze for a long beat. Then she walks past me, close enough that her shoulder brushes my chest. Róisín walks with purpose, the silk of her dress whispering as she walks.
The hem skims her calves, longer than what she wore this afternoon, the colour deep and wine-dark under the chandelier light. Proper. Expensive. Chosen to be seen.
She’s wearing heels. Not towering ones—nothing impractical—but elegant, sharp, the kind that click softly against stone and announce confidence without begging for attention. Shoes a lady wears when she expects to be watched and refuses to shrink under it.
The staff clock it immediately. Eyes lower. Spines straighten. The room adjusts around her.
Róisín doesn’t rush. She crosses the dining room like she owns the floor beneath her feet, silk fitted close through the waist and hips, neckline modest but unmistakably feminine. A Malloy woman, dressed for negotiation or war—same thing, really.
She reaches the far end of the table and pulls the chair back.
“Sit there,” I say.
The click of her heel stills. She turns, slow and deliberate, one brow lifting. “I don’t think so.”
I cross the room and stop at my chair, the head of the table where everyone expects me to be. I hook two fingers into the back of the chair beside mine and draw it out.
“You’ll sit here,” I say.
Her gaze drops to the chair, then lifts back to my face. Calculating. Measuring the cost of a scene. “This is ridiculous,” she says.
“It’s intentional.”
“This is about control.”
“Aye,” I reply evenly. “That’s the point.”
Her mouth tightens. For a moment, I think she’ll refuse just to spite me—force my hand in front of the house, make me prove I mean it. Instead, Róisín Malloy walks back across the room, heels clicking with sharp, contained fury, and sits beside me with deliberate care.
She crosses her ankles neatly beneath the table.
Smooths the skirt of her dress. Chin lifted.
Lady Malloy, seated exactly where she’s been told.
The staff move again, quiet as ghosts. I take my seat beside her, close enough that the warmth of her thigh presses faintly against mine, close enough that every shift of her body will be noticed.
Dinner hasn’t been served yet. And already, the knives feel inadequate.
The chairs at the table begin to fill. My men take their places one by one, quiet and deliberate, spreading out along the length of the table like they’re instinctively forming a perimeter. No one speaks. No one reaches for anything. Every eye tracks Róisín without appearing to.
She doesn’t acknowledge them. Róisín keeps her gaze forward, ankles crossed, hands resting lightly on her lap like she’s at a charity gala instead of the heart of an enemy house.
The silk of her dress catches the light when she shifts, dark and rich and entirely too composed for a woman who was bleeding on my floor twelve hours ago.
Then my father arrives. Cormac O’Callaghan takes the seat opposite me without ceremony, the head of the table claimed the way it always has been—by expectation, not force. He doesn’t look at me first.
He looks at her and I feel Róisín go still. Not frozen. Braced.
“You’ve recovered quickly,” my father says.
Róisín turns her head slowly and fixes him with a look sharpened by years of hatred she never bothered to soften. “Don’t speak to me like you care,” she replies flatly.
A few of the lads shift. Someone inhales sharply and thinks better of it.
My father studies her, unbothered. Curious. “You’re here as an olive branch.”
Róisín laughs. Short. Vicious. “I’m here because you and my da decided my body was cheaper than war.”
Silence drops hard across the table.
“You ruined my family,” she continues, voice steady as a blade. “You gutted us, took our ground, and called it necessity. And now you sit there pretending this”—she gestures between us without looking at me—“is peace.”
My father doesn’t deny it. He never does. “History is written by those who survive,” he says calmly.
Róisín’s fingers twitch. I move before the twitch becomes a throw. Quietly, without breaking eye contact with my father, I reach across the table and slide the knives from Róisín’s place setting. One. Two. Three. Smooth. Unhurried. Metal whispers against linen.
Her head snaps toward me. “Are you serious?” she hisses.
“You throw blades,” I murmur. “And you’re angry.”
“I was raised angry,” she snaps. “And I don’t miss.”
“I know,” I say evenly.
I stack the knives beside my own plate, well out of her reach.
A courtesy. A precaution. The house pretends not to notice, but every man here understands exactly why I did it.
Róisín leans back in her chair, silk stretching across her ribs, eyes bright with the kind of violence that doesn’t burn out quickly.
“So this is the plan,” she says to my father. “I sit here like a good little truce while you pat yourselves on the back.”
“A month,” my father replies. “Then your family and ours decide next steps.”
She smiles then and it is not pleasant.
“You’d better hope I decide to stay seated,” Róisín says. “Because I grew up with the Thorns of Belfast. And we weren’t taught mercy.”
I feel it then—the coil of inevitability tightening in my chest. I rest my forearm on the table, close enough that my elbow brushes hers, grounding without soothing.
The moment snaps. Not because anyone speaks.
Because the doors open. Plates arrive quietly, carried by staff who have learned how to move through danger without acknowledging it.
Linen brushes skin. China settles. The careful choreography of dinner slides between us like a blade sheathed at the last second.
Róisín doesn’t move. Doesn’t thank anyone.
Doesn’t look down. She keeps her eyes on my father, jaw tight, fury leashed by force alone.
If the food smells good, she gives no sign.
If the moment has passed, it hasn’t for her.
My father inclines his head once, satisfied the storm has been contained—for now.
“Shall we,” he says.
No one answers him. I pick up my fork and knife deliberately, giving the room permission to breathe again.
Chairs shift. A few of the lads follow suit, metal touching porcelain in cautious unison.
Róisín finally looks down at her plate. Then back up at me.
Her expression is sharp, accusing, incandescent with everything she hasn’t said yet.
She hasn’t forgiven. She hasn’t forgotten.
She’s simply been interrupted. I lean back in my chair just enough to meet her eyes.
“Eat,” I murmur, low enough that only she hears. “You’ll need the strength.”
Her mouth curves into something dangerous. “For what?” she asks.
I glance at the knives stacked beside my plate. At the way her fingers flex, empty. “For later,” I reply.
Róisín looks at the plate again. Then she sighs. Soft. Deliberate. Entirely put on. She straightens in her chair and turns to me with a look so sweet it’s offensive. Lashes lowered. Voice gentled just enough to be insulting.
“Finn,” she says pleasantly, like she’s asking for the salt. “Would you mind terribly explaining how you expect me to eat this?”
A few heads lift. Just a fraction. I don’t bite.