Chapter 23 #2
Rain slicks the path. My boots slide once on moss, and Aidan catches my elbow before I can swear properly.
Nobody talks for the first half of the walk. The campus feels abandoned in a way that makes every window look occupied. I keep expecting a shot. A movement. Something. Nothing comes.
That is worse.
The chapel sits where it always has, old and severe and smug about surviving everyone who has ever walked into it. The doors are shut. The stained glass along the sides is too high and too narrow to be useful to anyone except God.
“This was too easy,” Aidan mutters.
“Positions,” I say quietly, silently agreeing but choosing not to acknowledge it.
Declan moves first, circling wide towards the yew hedge and the stone angel that has lost its face. Cormac takes the side wall, behind some shrubs, close enough to hit the door in two seconds. Aidan stays nearest to me.
“Last chance to tell me this is a stupid idea,” I murmur.
“It’s a stupid idea,” he says at once. “Still doing it.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
He catches my chin for a second, forcing my eyes to his. “If it goes wrong, you scream. We come through the door. No heroics.”
I hold his stare. “No heroics,” I repeat, because he needs to hear me say it.
His thumb brushes my jaw once, then he lets me go.
I turn before any of them can stop me and head for the chapel doors with the gun out and tucked close to my thigh, the grenade heavy in my pocket. Every step feels too loud on the wet stone. Every nerve in me is lit.
I push the door open and slip inside.
The chapel is colder than before. Quieter too, but not empty.
It still holds the morning in it. Blood scrubbed from stone.
Ghosts left behind anyway. The long table is gone.
The chairs, too. Only the high altar space, the benches shoved back, the pale light through stained glass, and me in the middle of it like bait wrapped in a family name.
I shut the door and then hear the scrape of boots on stone.
“I knew it,” a male voice says. “I knew you would come here. It’s like I have an insight into your mind.”
I freeze for a second, then turn as a man steps into view. “Brendan Murphy, I presume.”
He smiles as if we are at a donor dinner rather than a killing ground.
“Sharp girl,” he says.
He is in a dark suit with a dark coat over the top. He carries himself like the room belongs to him, like every room does. His eyes settle on the gun in my hand and then come back to my face without a flicker.
“I expected theatrics,” he says. “You’ve exceeded them.”
“I killed your son this morning. You came anyway. That feels personal.”
A faint change around his eyes. Not grief. Not even anger. Just acknowledgement.
“Ronan made poor decisions.”
“So did you. You raised him.”
He gives a soft breath that might be a laugh. “Cillian’s daughter. Yes. I can hear him in that.”
My skin goes cold at my father’s name.
“You don’t get to say his name.”
“I get to say whatever I like in my own institution.”
“It isn’t yours anymore. It’s mine.”
He takes another step into the chapel. Not close enough to lunge. Not far enough back to run. He is measuring distance the way I am.
“So, this is the part where you monologue?” I ask. “Or do old men in expensive coats skip straight to attempted murder now?”
His mouth shifts by a fraction. “You think age diminishes appetite. It usually sharpens it.”
“I’m not here to discuss your appetites.”
“No. You’re here because you wanted to draw me out.” He glances once around the chapel, taking in the cleared space, the silence, the closed doors. “You always were your father’s daughter in the ugliest and prettiest ways.”
I shudder. “Say that again, and I’ll put a bullet in your throat.”
He stops. Not from fear. From interest.
“That temper,” he says softly. “He should never have left you unmanaged.”
My finger tightens on the trigger. “He didn’t leave me anything.”
“His death handed you everything.”
The words cut because they are aimed to. Because he knows exactly what to prod. I keep my face flat.
“You came alone,” I say.
“So did you.”
“Did I?”
A hint of approval flashes in his eyes. “No. Of course not. But we are alone in here.”
“For now. Take another step closer, and I will end you.”
“Why haven’t you already?”
I’m not admitting that he is too far away for me to be certain that I’ll not miss. I’ll get one chance. I have to make it count. “You look like you have something to say. So, say it.”
He studies me for a beat, then inclines his head like I’ve offered him a civil platform.
“Your father understood institutions,” he says. “That was always his strongest quality. Not brutality. Not loyalty. Architecture. He knew where power nested and how to cut it out without bringing the whole house down around himself.”
“My father is none of your business.”
“He has been my business for years. So have you. I’ve studied you. Inside and out.” His gaze rakes over me in a way where I’m suddenly on the back foot. It’s not a murderous gaze. It’s arousal.
“Eww,” I spit out. “You’re a fucking creep.”
“Am I? You are a thrice-blessed heir, Dervla. What do you think our child would be?”
I resist the urge to throw up. “You are fucking deluded if you think—”
His smile deepens in a way that makes my skin crawl. “Strong wording for a girl whose bloodline exists because powerful people made practical unions.”
I lift the gun a fraction higher. “You are making a very convincing case for dying in a chapel.”
“You misunderstand me.” He takes another measured step. “This is not lust without purpose. It is a legacy. Your grandfather understood that. Cillian certainly did. Breeding matters. Blood matters. You think these families hold because of sentiment?”
I want to shoot him just for the word breeding.
Instead, I keep him talking because my pulse is too fast, and he is still not close enough for a clean certainty.
“You really came in here to pitch eugenics at me?” I ask. “That’s your winning move?”
“You came in here to kill me,” he replies. “At least I’m honest about my intentions.”
My stomach turns, but anger cuts through it fast and bright. “Honest? You infested a university. You put killers into staff positions. You had Whitmore murdered. Your son walked in armed this morning.”
“Whitmore was inconvenient. Ronan was ambitious. Sons can be disappointing.” His gaze drops to the gun again, then returns to my face. “But you. You are not disappointing.”
That does it.
I fire.