Chapter 12 #2
Her words dissolve into sobs before she can finish. I move before I can stop myself, hands finding her face, her hair, her trembling shoulders. She collapses against me, crying like she’s breaking apart.
“I’m sorry,” she chokes. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
I hold her tighter. I should push her away, but I can’t. Not her. Never her.
She presses her face into my chest, voice shaking. “You have to kill me.”
“Stop it,” I growl, but it sounds broken.
“You do,” she whispers. “I betrayed you.”
Her tears soak through my shirt. I rest my chin on her hair, breathing her in like it’s the last time. “No, dove,” I whisper against her temple. “You just trusted the wrong devil.”
Her sobs tear through me like shrapnel. I can feel them shaking her whole body against mine. Then she pushes back, eyes wild and shining with tears.
“Do it,” she gasps. “Just—just fucking do it, Cillian. End it.”
“Stop.” My voice comes out rough, too soft for the hell in me.
She shoves against my chest, frantic. “You have to! I betrayed you! You’re supposed to—”
Before I can stop her, she reaches for my pocket. “Siobhán—”
The knife flashes in her shaking hand, the same one I always carry—black handle, worn smooth from years of use. She presses the blade against her throat, trembling.
“A stór,” I breathe, stepping forward, hands up like I’m taming a frightened animal. “Don’t.”
Tears spill down her cheeks. “You won’t do it. So I’ll do it for you.”
“Christ, no—” I catch her wrist, the blade nicking her skin as I pull it away. The sight of that tiny drop of blood undoes me. I wrench the knife from her hand and toss it to the floor, but she’s still sobbing, broken sounds that gut me worse than any wound.
“I never stopped loving you,” she cries. “Even when I thought you killed her. Even when I left. I never—”
“A Cholm, éist liom.2” My voice cracks. “I wanted to tell you everything. I tried. But he’d have killed you if I did. I had to hide. I had to keep you away from all this filth—my father’s filth.”
She shakes her head, tears streaming. “You think that matters now? He has everything. The code, the files—everything. I gave him what he needed. And now your father can finally have me out of your life, permanently.”
I drop to my knees in front of her, grabbing her face between my hands. “You didn’t know. You were a child when they started this war. We both were.”
She looks down at the knife still lying on the floor between us, whispering through her tears, “Then finish it.”
I pick it up slowly, the metal cold against my palm. Her breath catches when I lift it. The tip grazes her skin—light, careful. Her pulse flutters like a terrified bird against the blade.
“Is this what you want?” I whisper.
Her eyes meet mine—green and shattered. “You have to.”
I swallow hard, my throat burning. “I can’t, Siobhán. Don’t you see? You were never the sin I needed to wash away. You were the only fucking thing that made me human.”
I stare at the knife on the floor. I pick it up. Slow. Deliberate. Like I’ve done a thousand times before with a thousand other blades. But never like this. Never with her.
Her breath catches. I step closer. And then I press the blade under her chin. Her whole body shudders.
“Cillian—” she whispers. My name from her lips has always sounded like a goddamn prayer and a curse all at once. “Please…”
I say nothing. My hand is steady, but everything inside me is screaming. Warring. Splintering down the middle.
She looks up at me with tear-filled eyes. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was him.”
“And what did you think would happen?” My voice is low. Shaking with rage I’m trying so fucking hard to keep caged. “What did you think, Siobhán? Handing over that code? Did you think it was a fucking game?”
She swallows, blinking hard. “I didn’t think! All I could think about was my mother and then… I–”
“You gave him my fucking code!”
Her face crumples. “Then do it.” Her hand lifts to mine. Guides the knife harder against her own throat. “Kill me, Cillian.”
“Don’t.” My voice cracks like a fault line.
“Please.” Her words tumble out, frantic, soaked in sobs and snot and heartbreak. “Do it. You have to. I betrayed you. I betrayed an O’Dwyer. The Red Hand won’t spare me. Your father won’t. Your men won’t. So do it yourself. Don’t let anyone else have the honour. Let it be you.”
She’s shaking so hard I can feel it in my bones. She slips into Irish then — the language of our childhood, of ghost stories and stolen kisses in the garden hedge. “Déan é. Marbh mé. Ná lig dom maireachtáil.”3
I can’t fucking breathe.
“Don’t you dare,” I whisper.
Her eyes widen. “You think you can protect me?”
“No,” I say, voice cracking open. “I think I already failed.”
She sobs harder. I lower the knife. And then I pull her into me — one arm tight around her spine, the other still holding the blade loose in my hand — because I can’t let go, and I can’t let her go, and I sure as fuck can’t kill her.
Not now. Not when I finally understand what she meant to do.
Not when I finally understand how badly she’s already punished herself.
I nod once and look at her—red-rimmed eyes, trembling hands, the ghost of everything we once were caught between us. “I changed the passcode,” I say quietly. “The day you left.”
Her brows knit. “What?”
“It isn’t your birthday anymore.” My throat works around the words. “It’s the day you walked out. The day I lost you. I couldn’t stand typing your date again and again while you were gone.”
She stares at me like the floor’s been ripped out from under her. Then her face folds and the sob hits, sharp and ugly. “God, Cill.” She presses both hands to her mouth. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry—for everything. For running. For believing the worst of you. For New York. For him. For this.”
I shake my head and pull her in, my voice rough. “You don’t apologize for surviving, dove.”
Her shoulders quake against me. “You should hate me.”
“I did,” I whisper, and she stills. “Every night. Every morning. Until I realized I deserved it. I hid the truth from you. About your mother. About what my father did. About everything.”
Her sob turns small and broken. She buries her face in my neck. “I thought you killed her.”
“I know.” My voice fractures. “And I’ll never forgive myself for letting you believe it.”
We stand like that—her shaking, me holding on—while the sun creeps through the frost-bitten glass, painting the floor gold. For the first time in five years, it feels like confession. And forgiveness.
Her breath comes out in broken, panicked bursts, and I can feel it against my chest. “Malachi’s going to kill me,” she whispers. “I gave him the wrong passcode. He knows I’m here—with you.”
Everything in me stills.
I cup her face, force her to look at me. Her pupils are wide, wild with fear, tears clinging to her lashes. “Hey. Look at me.”
She shakes her head, trembling. “He knows. You don’t understand—he knows where I am, and what I did, and he’s not going to stop—”
“Don’t worry about it, dove.” My voice is low, calm. It has to be. “I’ll take care of it.”
Her hands clutch my shirt like she’s drowning. “You can’t keep protecting me.”
“Yes, I can.” I brush my thumb along her jaw. “You have a concert tomorrow. You’re going to play. The world’s going to watch you burn in red and gold again, and no one’s going to touch you. Not while I’m still breathing.”
Her lower lip trembles. “You don’t understand—”
“I do.” I press my forehead to hers. “I know you’re scared. I know you’re angry. I know you think this is all your fault, but it’s not. It’s mine. I should’ve told you the truth years ago.”
She sobs again, shaking her head, fingers tightening around my wrist. “I hate that I still love you.”
I smile against her hair, broken and small. “Good. Then we’re even.”
She lets out a choked laugh that turns into another cry, collapsing against me. I hold her, rocking slightly, murmuring soft Irish under my breath until her breathing steadies.
“Come on,” I whisper, finally. “Let’s go back to bed, darling.”
I lead her down the hall, our fingers tangled, her steps unsteady. The house is silent but alive—the old wood creaks, the storm outside claws at the windows, the faint scent of whiskey and smoke still lingers in the air.
We lie down. Her head finds my chest like it always has. My hand slides up her spine, tracing the rhythm of her breath until it matches mine. She’s still crying, but softer now. Quieter.
“Sleep,” I murmur. “I’ll handle Malachi.”
Her eyes flutter closed. “Promise?”
“Promise.”
I press a kiss to her hair and stare at the ceiling until dawn, knowing exactly what I’ll have to do to keep it.
1. Baby, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I did.
2. Dove, listen to me.
3. Do it. Kill me. Don’t let me live.