Chapter 15 Red in the Devil’s Melody
Chapter fifteen
Red in the Devil’s Melody
Siobhán
The trapdoor groans as Cillian pushes it up from below, and the first thing I see is the soft spill of light from the garage—warm, golden, familiar. The second thing I see is Rouge leaning over the opening, grinning like this is all a grand joke.
“Took your sweet time,” he says, offering me his hand as if I haven’t just crawled through a century-old tunnel with blood drying on my neck. “Thought maybe the two of ye fell in and died.”
I roll my eyes, but my fingers still curl around his because my legs are shaking just enough for me to pretend it’s the ladder’s fault.
“We’re fine,” I say, climbing up into the old stable-turned-garage. It still smells like cedar shavings and engine grease, the same scent that’s always clung to Cillian since we were teenagers sneaking out after curfew.
Rouge dusts dirt off my shoulder, glancing between the two of us with raised brows. “Aye, well—good enough. You look like shite, both of yous. But alive, so that’s something.”
Cillian climbs up behind me, shutting the trapdoor with his boot. His jaw is clenched, his shirt torn, blood smeared across his forearm—but his eyes are sharp. Alert. Dangerous.
He steps closer, steadying me with a hand at the small of my back. “We need to move,” he tells Rouge. “Now.”
Rouge nods, already turning toward the house. “I’ll get the car ready.”
I take one last look at the trapdoor beneath our feet—the secret that saved us a thousand times before tonight—and exhale. The stable smells like home. But tonight, it isn’t safe.
Cillian’s hand slides into mine, warm and certain. “Come on, a stór,” he murmurs.
We cross the threshold into the house together. We slip through the back door into the stable house, and the second it shuts behind us, Cillian moves.
“Pack a bag,” he says—calm, low, but iron underneath. “Just the essentials. We’re not staying.”
His voice is controlled, but the tension around his eyes tells the truth: he’s calculating, worried, on the edge of snapping someone’s neck.
Rouge tosses the car keys from one hand to the other. “Engine’s warm. Ten minutes tops before they figure out we’re not on the grounds.”
“Five,” Cillian corrects without looking at him.
His gaze is locked on me. Gentle. Sharp. Claimed. I nod, because this is not a moment for questions. I know that tone. He only uses it when the wolf in him is pacing too close to the surface.
I rush to the bedroom—the same one I’ve been sleeping in since this whole circus began—yanking open drawers, grabbing what I can: leggings, sweaters, two performance dresses, toiletries, hair ties, sheet music, chargers.
My hands shake only once. Only when I remember the gunshots, the blood, the way he dragged me through the tunnel like losing me wasn’t an option he’d ever allow.
Cillian appears in the doorway just as I zip the bag. He doesn’t speak at first—just looks me over, checking for new injuries, for pain I’m hiding, for any reason to turn back and kill someone.
“You good?” he murmurs.
“I will be.”
He takes the bag from me, brushing his knuckles down my arm in a way that wouldn’t look like anything to anyone else. But to me? It feels like the closest thing to saying he almost lost his mind down there.
“Stay close,” he says, voice softening just an inch. “I’m not letting anything else near you tonight.”
Rouge pokes his head in from the hall. “Lovebirds, clock’s tickin’. Let’s go.”
Cillian shoots him a look that could peel paint.
Rouge smirks and disappears. Cillian places his hand on my back again, guiding me out of the room, through the narrow hall, toward the side door that leads to the waiting SUV.
I don’t look back. He ushers me out the side door and into the night, one hand still firm at my back.
The SUV is already running, engine low and ready, Rouge in the driver’s seat with a smug little grin like he’s been waiting his whole life to yell go, go, go.
The doors slam. Seatbelts click. And then we’re moving.
Rouge swings the wheel hard, taking the narrow dirt road behind the old paddock—so overgrown and forgotten that not even Darragh’s men bother to guard it.
Branches scrape along the windows like fingernails, the path twisting into the trees before spilling us out onto a private lane that only three people in this world know exists.
The further we get from the estate, the easier it is to breathe. Not easy—just easier. The kind of breathing you do when you’ve survived something and haven’t yet processed the fact that you actually lived.
Cillian sits beside me, one knee bouncing, one hand on the grip of the gun holstered at his thigh. But the other hand—his left—rests over mine. Not gripping. Not holding. Just… there. Heavy. Warm. A tether.
“You’re safe,” he murmurs without looking at me.
“I know,” I whisper. But I don’t feel it until he squeezes once. Just once. Enough.
Rouge glances at us in the rearview. “Not a tail in sight,” he says. “And we’re right on schedule. We’ll be in Dublin in an hour tops.”
I nod. I’ve stayed in one of Cillian’s flats before—but not this one.
There are always secrets. Always safehouses tucked between the cracks of the city.
But this one? This is the one he never talks about.
The one under a fake name and a forged deed.
The one he told me once—years ago, in another lifetime—was his dream home for the life he’d never get to live.
A life without blood. Without Darragh. Without the business. A life where he wasn’t born to be the Devil’s heir.
The road straightens. The trees fall away. And then—slowly, like a curtain rising—the glow of Dublin stretches across the horizon.
Warm. Golden. Alive.
My chest tightens, because this city has always loved me in ways no person has managed to without conditions. And hated me in equal measure when given the chance. Tonight, I don’t know which version I’m driving into.
The city is a different creature at this hour.
Dublin at 2 a.m. feels like it’s holding its breath—streetlights flickering over empty sidewalks, pubs gone quiet, taxis prowling like lone wolves hunting the last drunk stragglers.
Neon reflects in puddles from a rain that must’ve passed through minutes before we arrived.
Rouge weaves through traffic lights that are mostly green because the universe is doing us one courtesy tonight. Cillian hasn’t let go of my hand once.
We turn down a narrow side street I’ve never noticed before—wedged between a florist and a bakery that looks closed for the season. The building looks… plain. Boring. A place you’d walk by a hundred times without seeing. Which is exactly the point.
Rouge pulls into the short brick driveway, stops, and rolls down his window toward what looks like a rusty call box. Except he doesn’t press anything on the box. He taps a hidden panel beneath it. A soft chime answers. Then the pavement beneath us rumbles.
“Hold on,” Rouge mutters.
The ground shifts. The entire driveway begins to sink, lowering us smoothly beneath the building like some secret stage trick in a theatre I don’t remember buying a ticket for.
My breath stutters. “Cill…”
“Safe,” he murmurs, thumb brushing my knuckles. “You’ll see.”
The cement walls glide past the windows as we descend one level, then two.
The air grows cooler, darker, until tiny strips of LED lighting flicker on along the walls.
A massive underground garage opens up beneath us—sleek, clean, empty except for two cars I’ve never seen before, a matte-black motorcycle, and shelves of gear that definitely isn’t for camping.
The moment the platform settles, Rouge drives off it. Seconds later, with a soft hydraulic hiss, the driveway above us rises and seals the world out. A perfect hiding place. A perfect lie.
“Home sweet home,” Rouge says, swinging the SUV into a parking spot with a flourish.
Cillian’s hand tightens in mine as he leans close, voice low enough to be a secret all on its own. “Come on, dove,” he murmurs. “Let me show you where we’re sleeping tonight.”
The garage is silent when Rouge kills the engine.
The kind of quiet that feels intentional—engineered—like even the air is part of the security system.
Cillian steps out first, then offers his hand to me.
I take it, because my legs are still a bit unsteady and because he hasn’t let go of me since we left the estate.
Rouge hits a panel on the wall, and a sleek metal elevator door slides open like something out of a billionaire’s fever dream.
“Up we go,” Rouge mutters, stepping in last and hitting a code so fast I don’t catch a single number.
The elevator rises smoothly, no cables, no sound—just a slow glide that almost feels unreal. Then the doors open, and my breath leaves me. The flat is… God. It’s gorgeous.
Floor-to-ceiling windows curve around the living room in a wide arc, giving a panoramic view of Dublin at night.
The city lights shimmer across the river—reflected in dark water like scattered stars.
The furniture is simple—clean lines, warm woods, creams and charcoal tones.
No clutter. No chaos. Just peace and precision.
Cillian’s peace. Cillian’s precision.
He steps out first and reaches back for me, palm warm against mine as he leads me through the space. “Windows are tinted,” he explains quietly. “We see out. No one sees in. Not even with scopes.”
I swallow. “This is… beautiful.”
He looks at me then—not at the flat, not at the view. Me. Like he’s checking to see if I feel safe yet. Like my opinion of this sanctuary matters more than anything he owns.
Rouge whistles, slow and appreciative, as he sets his bag down. “Gonna run the systems,” he says, already scanning his badge at the security panel. “Trip wires, motion sensors, cameras—everything’s clear so far. But I’ll sweep again.”
Cillian nods. Doesn’t look away from me.
“Come on,” he says softly. “You should see the bedroom.”