Chapter 15 Cillian
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CILLIAN
Her words echo in my head as I cross the campus. The trust is a fragile thing, a shard of glass she’s handed me, expecting me to crush it. I won’t. I don’t give a fuck what is hiding under her sink. It’s hers, and I’ll take it back to her.
Entering the building and taking the stairs slowly, listening for signs of trouble, I reach her floor and pull out the lock picks.
It takes me two seconds to break in. Her flat is even more of a shithole than I remembered.
Last night was about taking her, showing her who she belongs to, not checking out her digs and pretending it doesn’t matter.
The air is stale, and the furniture looks like it was salvaged from a skip.
This is where she lives, and I’d bet whatever is under her sink, this is how she has always lived.
It needles at me. She’s a Gannon, a queen, and she’s been living in fucking dumps like this.
That tells me two things. Either she refuses handouts, even when it’s family, or her family are a bunch of total fucks.
I’m guessing it’s the first one. The Gannons look after their own.
She might be illegitimate, she might be a woman making waves using their name to do it, but they wouldn’t turn their back on her.
She is as stubborn as she is beautiful. She thinks she landed in a palace at Axl’s townhouse.
She did, but she hasn’t seen the place where I grew up.
I’m sure Axl’s family home rivals it, but the twenty-bedroom castle on the west coast of Ireland is hard to dismiss.
I shudder when I think about the wealth and privilege I grew up with, while she lived hand-to-mouth, fighting for scraps.
Deep in my gut, I know she will never have to fight again.
I will fight for her. Every damn day, no matter who comes for her, they will find me instead.
She is a fragile, porcelain doll that doesn’t deserve to be treated so callously by this world.
I find her bags, mostly still packed, in the middle of the room.
I grab up the laundry and shove it in one of the emptier bags.
There’s nothing personal, no photos, no trinkets.
Just the bare essentials for survival. It’s the kit of a soldier, not a twenty-one-year-old girl whose legacy is worth in its millions.
She is an enigma that intrigues me more than anything ever has.
She is a challenge, a survivor, a firecat with her red hair, blue eyes and a will of iron.
Not to mention a pussy that would make a grown man forget his own name.
Turning to the grimy kitchenette, I crouch beside the sink and open the cupboard doors.
I reach behind the pipes and find what I’m looking for. It’s a thick brown envelope, folded over. Without snooping, I shove the envelope into my jacket and finish packing. I gather her life into two duffel bags and sling them over my shoulder. It’s not enough. It’s nothing.
But it’s all hers. And now, she is mine. She is ours. We will give her everything she could’ve ever wished for.
I close the door to her old life, the click of the lock a final, satisfying sound. She’s not coming back here. I’ll burn the place to the ground myself before I let her.
The journey back across is quiet. The mist wraps around me, muffling the world. St. Bart’s is a ghost town now, the police raid having scattered the rats. For now. Tomorrow will bring a new dawn and business as usual.
I let myself into Axl’s townhouse, the heavy oak door swinging shut with a quiet thud. Ciar and Axl are in the study, their voices a low murmur of strategy and retribution. I ignore them. My purpose is singular.
I take the stairs two at a time, my steps silent on the thick carpet. I don’t knock on her door. I just push it open and step inside.
She’s sitting on the edge of the four-poster bed, looking like she hasn’t moved since I left. She looks small, swallowed by the opulence of the room. Her face is pale beneath the darkening bruise. Her eyes, wide and wary, snap to mine.
I drop the bags on the floor. They land with a soft thud that feels too loud in the silent room. I pull the envelope from my jacket and hold it out to her.
She just stares at it, then at me, her expression unreadable. I take a step closer and place it on the bedside table.
Her gaze follows my hand, then flicks back to my face. The fight isn’t in her eyes right now. Just a deep, bone-weary exhaustion that makes me want to kill the world for putting it there. “Did you look inside?” It’s an accusation.
“No need to. It’s your business, not mine.”
Her eyes flash as if she can’t tell if I’m telling the truth or not. She snatches it up. “Thanks.”
She rises and moves across the room to the en-suite. I want to stay to help her, to make her comfortable, to make her feel safe, but she slams the door shut, and the lock clicking into place is a statement.
I could take the door off its hinges without breaking a sweat. I don’t. I hear the hiss of the shower starting and turn to walk out of the room, closing the door behind me with a quiet click.
Ciar is waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. “She okay?”
“She will be,” I say carefully.
He nods. “We’re moving in,” he states. “Go back and get your shit. We aren’t leaving her alone with only Axl for protection.”
“Hey,” Axl snaps from the lounge that sits off the entrance hall. “I can hear you.”
I give Ciar a nod. It’s the right call. The only call. Leaving her here, even with Axl, feels like leaving a flank exposed. My own place is a sterile box, a place to sleep, not a home. It holds nothing for me. This house, with her in it, suddenly feels like a fortress I need to man the walls of.
The image of her, pale and bruised, swallowed by that big room, is burned into my mind. The world has been trying to break her since the day she was born. It failed. But it left cracks I can see even when she’s spitting fire and defiance.
“I’ll be back,” I say, turning towards the front door.
“Be quick. I’ll go after you,” Ciar says.
I nod. I trust them with my girl. They won’t let her get hurt in my absence.
Thoughts of fucking her swirl in my mind as I leave the townhouse and stride purposefully to my house a little further away.
It’s a one-bedroom bungalow that could fit inside the boot room of my family castle.
But it’s practical; just a place to exist, not to live.
Clean, sparse, everything in its place. It takes less than five minutes to throw what I need into a bag.
Clothes, toiletries, and a few extra blades I keep stashed under the floorboards.
I think of her in that massive room at Axl’s, probably feeling just as out of place as I do in my own fucking skin most of the time. The difference is, she has a fire in her that could burn a place like this to the ground. My fire is a cold thing, banked deep, used only when necessary.
I sling the bag over my shoulder, lock the door behind me, and head back to Axl’s.
We’re building a fortress around her, and the three of us are the fucking walls.
She can beat against us all she wants. We won’t crack.
We won’t ever let anything get to her again.
The walk back feels shorter, my strides longer, eager to get back to her.
A new kind of purpose settles in my gut, heavy and absolute.
Protect the queen. That’s the new rule. It’s the only rule that matters.