Chapter 9
Chapter nine
Requiem in Red
Siobhán
Iwake to silence. Not peace—silence. The kind that hums against my skin, thick with everything unsaid. The door is still locked. Of course it is. Cillian O’Dwyer always did love control.
Yesterday burns behind my eyelids like a fever dream—the press of his mouth, the sound he made when I kissed him back, the taste of tea and want on his tongue. I would’ve gone all the way. If he hadn’t stopped. He walked away. Locked the door. Left me shaking and furious and stupidly wanting.
Now morning light cuts through the curtains, soft and accusing. My heart feels wrong in my chest—like it’s remembering something it shouldn’t. I shouldn’t still want him. I shouldn’t still ache from a kiss that didn’t even end the way I wanted it to. But I do.
I pull the blanket tighter around me, staring out the frosted window. I’m supposed to play tonight—another gala, another O’Dwyer performance. This one inside the manor itself. His father’s home. His family’s empire.
And I can’t keep staying here. Not in this place. Not in our place.
Because this isn’t just a house—it’s the stable.
The one we dreamed of as kids. The one we swore we’d turn into something beautiful when we were grown.
He actually did it. Turned our childish sketches into a home straight out of my imagination—warm light, polished wood, a baby grand by the window. My dream, wrapped in his devotion.
It should feel like safety. Instead, it feels like a trap. He built me my fantasy… and now I’m living inside it. But that’s not why I came back to Dublin. I didn’t return for him. Or the music. Or the ghosts of what we used to be.
I came for the truth. For the secrets buried beneath this family’s marble floors. For the lies that killed my mother. Somewhere inside that manor, someone knows what really happened. And I’ll find it—no matter what it costs.
Because I’m not here to fall for the Dublin Devil again. I’m here to burn him alive with the truth he’s been hiding.
A soft knock breaks the silence. I don’t answer. Another knock, a beat longer this time.
Then his voice—rough, low, careful. “Siobhán.”
I stay sitting on the edge of the bed, robe wrapped tight around me. I hear the key turn. The door clicks open, but he doesn’t come in right away.
“Brought you breakfast.”
He waits. Like he knows better than to test my mood too soon.
Eventually, I look up—and there he is in the doorway, holding a tray like he’s some kind of gentleman instead of the man who locked me in a bedroom after kissing me senseless.
The tray holds coffee, a croissant, and what looks like scrambled eggs with smoked salmon. Fancy. Too fancy for an apology.
“You think eggs are going to fix yesterday?” I ask, voice dry.
His mouth twitches. “Didn’t think it’d hurt.
” He steps in and sets the tray on the window ledge, not daring to come closer.
Smart man. “You’ve got a performance tonight.
At the manor,” he says. “The planner wants to go over the setlist, lighting, all that.” He pauses, something flickering in his eyes.
“I’ve got business upstairs, but I’ll take you up with me. Just be ready in twenty.”
“Twenty minutes to pretend none of this happened?”
“No,” he says quietly. “Twenty minutes to remember why it can’t happen again.”
Then he’s gone. Door wide open this time.
And I just sit there—hungry, furious, and nowhere near ready to walk back into the O’Dwyer Manor with his taste still on my lips.
I dress quickly, trading my silk nightie for a cream sweater dress and low boots.
The tea sits untouched on the tray, already cold. Just like his words.
When I step into the living room, he’s waiting by the door. No tie, but a jacket slung over one shoulder like he owns the world and the storm that comes with it. We don’t speak. The silence is louder than yesterday's kiss, stretching between us like a pulled wire.
The manor looms ahead, draped in morning mist, elegant and indifferent. We take the gravel path together, boots crunching, hands not touching. Halfway up, Rouge comes bounding down the hill like a border collie with secrets.
“There she is! Sleeping Beauty finally emerged,” he crows, falling into step beside me. “You know, I expected frostbite on your behalf. Devil doesn’t usually play jailor—but I guess you bring out the worst in him, sweetheart.”
“Rouge,” Cillian warns, voice low.
“Oh, don’t start with me,” he waves him off. “I’m invested. Emotionally. Also I need her to sign a program for my mum. She cried watching your performance the other night at the hotel, you know that? Absolute wreck. Full tissues and everything.”
I glance sideways, lips twitching. “Tell her I said thank you.”
“Oh, I will. She thinks you're the reincarnation of some 18th-century siren who died tragically young. Probably drowned in a fountain. Or killed a duke. Or both.”
Cillian exhales, but it’s not quite a laugh.
Rouge, unfazed, continues, “You’re up in the gold room today. Planner’s been tearing her hair out trying to set the stage lighting to ‘ethereal heartbreak’ or whatever the hell you embody. Also, you look pale. Are you eating? Blink twice if you're being poisoned.”
“Rouge,” Cillian growls again, jaw tight.
“What?” Rouge raises both brows. “If you lock a woman in a bedroom, you lose the right to silence.”
I keep walking, silent still—but not for long. Because tonight, I have to play a piano solo in the home of the man I once loved—and maybe still do. And if I fall apart on those keys? At least no one will hear me over the sound of applause.
The carved double doors of the manor open with a sigh, and the opulence inside is immediate—gold leaf trim, polished floors, chandeliers that mock gravity.
Rouge whistles low. “Christ, the gauntlet’s been thrown. I feel underdressed and emotionally unprepared.”
Cillian doesn’t answer. He leads us through the main foyer, nods to a housekeeper who vanishes into another hall, then stops abruptly at the base of the grand staircase.
“Go ahead, Rouge. Upstairs. You know the way.”
Rouge lifts a brow. “And leave you two alone in the hallway? Scandalous.”
“Go,” Cillian says, voice steel under silk.
With a dramatic sigh and an exaggerated wink in my direction, Rouge ascends the stairs, boots echoing until they disappear into plush silence. Then it’s just us. He takes my hand, just for a moment, thumb brushing my knuckles like he’s grounding himself. Then he lets go.
“I’ll be nearby, but I’ve business to tend to. Don’t wander, Dove.” My name in his mouth is a warning and a vow. “I mean it.”
“I heard you the first time,” I say quietly, chin lifting.
Something flickers in his expression. Then he steps closer. No preamble. No tease. He kisses me—hard, sure, and over far too fast. Just enough to make me lean forward when he pulls away. Just enough to leave me gasping for more.
“Break a leg,” he murmurs, then turns and walks down the corridor like he didn’t just shake my entire foundation with one kiss.
I watch him go, lips tingling, heart pounding like I’m already sitting at the piano.
And then I open the door to the gold room…
and step back into a house filled with ghosts.
The gold room is sunlight and silence, but I barely get five minutes of peace before the other door bursts open and the planner arrives like a hurricane in designer heels.
“Oh, thank God you’re here!” she exclaims, juggling a clipboard, tablet, and at least three color-coded binders.
“We’re running behind. The stage crew is still adjusting the risers, the lighting tech needs confirmation on your spotlight angles, and the orchestra is wondering if you’ll be bringing your own metronome again—because, I mean, of course you would, but it’s not listed and—”
She doesn’t breathe. She monologues.
I blink at her. “Good morning?”
“Oh. Yes. Sorry. Morning. We’re already behind on run-through and the gala performance is tonight, and the O’Dwyers are very particular about—well. Everything. You know.”
She laughs nervously and plops into the nearest chair, spreading out the chaos of her clipboard like a war map. I sip my tea and nod through the assault of questions and micro-decisions—until the phrase “gold sequin backup gowns” nearly sends me into orbit.
“I’m going to excuse myself for a moment,” I say, already standing.
“But—wait! We haven’t even discussed—”
“Just a moment,” I repeat, already at the door.
The halls are quieter than I remember, but the house still hums beneath the surface—like it’s watching.
I know this place better than I should. My fingers trail along the polished banister of the back stairwell, feet carrying me instinctively down a different corridor.
Past the conservatory, past the locked study with its secrets. Left at the tapestry of St. Brigid.
I pause at the familiar oak double doors. The music room. I push them open. It’s exactly the same. Velvet curtains, gold-gilt molding, that same grand piano catching the light like a secret. My chest tightens. This room holds echoes.
Cillian at eighteen, wild and devastatingly beautiful, playing Rachmaninoff like he was casting a spell. Me in the corner, too young and too in love to realize what it meant that he never looked at anyone else while he played. We were just kids. Stupid. Reckless. And so, so doomed.
I step inside. Let the door drift shut behind me. The silence here is thick with ghosts. And I... don’t want to leave just yet.
I move slowly, fingers brushing the old wallpaper, my steps soft on the worn carpet.
Everything smells like polished wood and ghost notes.
The piano waits in the corner. Our piano.
The velvet dustcover peels back under my touch, smooth and familiar, like a secret never fully told.
I pull it free, fold it once, and drape it over the bench before lowering the fallboard.