Chapter 8 Callum
CALLUM
Idon’t remember moving, not fully.
One moment I’m staring at the girl who I just had a gun to her head, the next my legs are walking on instinct.
I get outside the room and slam the door behind me, the noise making Tommy’s head snap toward me. I lean against the wall and rub my chin.
Holy fuck. Cormac Donoghue's daughter.
I need a moment. There are a million things running through my mind. I have to think clearly and I couldn’t do that in the same room as her.
Matei Ionescu just delivered me either the greatest gift imaginable or a damn Trojan horse, and I can't tell which.
She doesn’t seem dangerous, but maybe that makes her the single most dangerous thing in this house right now.
But the fear in her eyes, the way she leaned into the gun, no one leans into a gun aimed at their skull unless the terror inside them is bigger than death.
She literally asked me to pull the trigger, that wasn't an act. I've seen enough liars to know the difference.
She's scared. Broken. Terrified.
And if Cormac is really her father, why would he kill her?
What father would murder his own daughter?
The question sits heavy in my chest. I think of my own father, the way he looked at me the day he told me I was ready when the time came. The pride in his eyes, knowing the legacy would pass from one generation to the next.
Would he ever even raise a hand to Keira? Harm any of his children?
No. Never.
But with what little I know about Cormac, it seems he'd be one to do that and more.
He's the man who orchestrated my father's murder. Who's trying to dismantle this family, shit, he's even branded his own daughter like cattle, all for some twisted ritualistic crap.
If she is telling the truth, and I have no reason to believe she is yet, then my answer is simple, she knows too much. And from the looks of her, she fought pretty damn hard to get away.
Or this could all be an act.
Dammit!
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out, the screen lighting up with Declan's name.
I should answer it and tell him what’s sitting tied to a chair in our basement.
But I don’t. I let it go dark again.
I’ll tell him later, when I understand what the fuck this is.
Right now, I need the truth.
My father always taught me you need to learn the enemy better than they know themselves, and right now we are not even one hundred percent sure why Cormac is after us.
That's what I need to find out first.
I turn and look at the closed door, with her on the other side of it.
Maybe she can tell me. She has to know why Cormac is even after us in the first place. Like absolutely knows. Not the theories we've pieced together from old files and rumors, but the actual truth.
The file Octavian and Keira brought me sits in my office upstairs. Donoghue Massacre, but that doesn't mean anything to us yet. There has to be more.
I push off the wall and head back inside.
She's exactly how I first saw her, head down, shoulders hunched. She doesn't look up when I enter, doesn't flinch at the sound of the door closing behind me.
I cross the room, grab the chair I kicked earlier, and drag it back across the floor. She winces at the sound but still doesn't lift her head.
I sit.
For a long while, neither of us speaks.
I study her. The torn robe. The bruises and cuts across her skin. The blood dried on her knees and feet. The brand on her forearm, that damned letter.
"That M," I say finally, pointing to her arm. "Why?"
She lifts her head slowly, like it takes all her strength. "My father has all the women branded. Ordered by the Morrígan, he says."
"He really believes all that fucking nonsense?" I ask.
She stares at me. “You have no idea.”
I lean forward, "Do you?"
She hesitates, not with fear but with memory. I see her eyes move from side to side, thinking.
Then she shrugs slightly. “Not until after my mother died, I guess. And…”
She trails off, staring at something over my shoulder. Something I can't see.
I wait, but she doesn't finish the sentence.
She shakes her head, eyes watery, and looks at me.
"Are you going to kill me?" she asks.
I don't answer, because I don't know what the hell I'm going to do yet.
Every instinct says yes, because she’s connected to the man who murdered my father. Because she carries the mark that scarred my sister, and she might be the key to everything or the trap that kills us.
And because the look in her eyes, the one that says please let it end, makes something in my chest twist in a way I don’t have language for.
But it's too soon, there are too many moving parts, so I give her nothing.
Her face crumples slightly, like she was hoping for a different response, or maybe hoping for confirmation. I can't tell.
“Do you know why Cormac is after my family?” I ask.
This is the test. My first one.
I need to see if her explanation lines up with what little I’ve pieced together, what Octavian pulled from his hacker European intel networks.
If she lies, I’ll know and be closer to making a decision about her fate.
“Yes,” she nods, without hesitation.
"Good," I say, leaning back in the chair. "Let’s start there.”