Chapter 16 Green of the Unholy Crown #2
Siobhán leans her head against the window. Snow gathers in soft, scattered constellations along the glass, melting into dark trails as the city lights blur past. She looks tired. Too tired. And I hate myself for dragging her into a life that takes more than it ever gives.
Rouge drives, eyes sharp on the road, jaw clenched. He knows what’s coming. He knows what I’m about to do. I rest my hand on Siobhán’s thigh, grounding her. Grounding me.
“You did beautifully,” I murmur.
Her eyes flick toward me, soft but shadowed. “They were sweet. I… needed that.”
I squeeze once. “Good.”
Then she studies me. Too closely. “You’re quiet.”
“So are you.”
She huffs. “I’m allowed to be. You’re not.”
Rouge snorts. “She’s got you there, Captain.”
I roll my eyes, but the smile never fully comes. “Just… thinking.”
“About?” she asks, gaze cutting right through me.
I could lie. Should lie. But I won’t.
“My father.”
Her breath stutters—just slightly. “Cillian—”
“I’ll handle it.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No.” My voice is firm before I can soften it. “Absolutely not.”
She opens her mouth to argue, but Rouge beats her to it. “He’s right, duchess. You stay out of sight until we know what we’re walking into. The man’s a snake, and snakes bite when cornered.”
Siobhán glares daggers at him. “And you think I don’t know that?”
“I think you want to punch the snake in the face,” Rouge says, “and that’s not the strategy today.”
She turns back to the window, but her pulse—visible at her throat—is quick, furious.
I trace my thumb across her knee. “You’ll hear everything. You’ll see everything. But only when I tell you.”
She hesitates. Then a small, reluctant nod. It kills me—but it’s enough. The snow’s heavier now, swirling between the iron gates as they open. The estate looms like a ghost—cold stone, dark windows, old secrets carved into every brick.
Siobhán’s breath fogs the glass. “I hate this place now,” she whispers.
“So do I,” I admit.
Rouge slows the car and pulls into the back courtyard, near an old servants’ entrance where the shadows hide us.
I turn to her. “You stay here until I call you. When I say eitilt mo chol 1you come.”
Her eyes widen—because she knows exactly what it means that I chose that saying.
“You promise?” she whispers.
“I promise.”
Rouge nods toward the manor. “Let’s end this,” he mutters.
I step out of the car. Cold air slashes my lungs. My father waits inside. My legacy. My war. My choice. I glance back through the window—Siobhán framed in falling snow, defiance etched into every line of her beautiful face.
“For her,” I say under my breath.
Then I walk toward the manor.
The manor feels different when I’m not a boy in it. Smaller. Colder. Like the walls finally stopped pretending to love me.
Rouge walks at my side, steps silent, hand near his weapon.
Not drawn—yet. But close. Always close. We move down the familiar corridor, past portraits of dead men with colder eyes than mine.
Past the alcove where Siobhán once hid from my father’s temper.
Past the stairwell where I once listened to him break my mother’s heart in two.
Each step tightens something in my chest. A coil. A fuse.
Rouge murmurs, “He’s in the old music room.”
Of course he is. The bastard always liked the irony of using beauty to cloak rot. We reach the door. That room used to be my mother’s sanctuary. Her first piano. Her sunlit corner window. Her place to breathe when Darragh’s reign grew too loud.
Now the door is cracked open, a thin slice of dim light across the hall floor.
I push it wider. My father stands at the far end of the room, back to us, hands clasped behind him as though he’s admiring the piano he destroyed years ago— the one Siobhán once played on as a child, the one whose keys still bear faint scratches where she carved her initials next to mine.
Darragh doesn’t turn. He doesn’t greet us. He methodically turns to face us. Slowly. Elegantly. Like a man preparing to carve a roast instead of gut his own son. His eyes flick to Rouge, assessing, dismissing—then land on me with something like satisfaction.
“There he is,” he murmurs. “Ireland’s prodigal fool.”
I brace. Rouge shifts his weight, ready. Darragh steps closer, hands still folded behind his back like a professor ready to lecture.
“I know where you were last night,” he says. “You think I don’t have eyes in my own house? You think I didn’t notice when you dragged that girl into my crypt like she belonged there?”
My jaw ticks. He smiles.
“She has always been dangerous. You refused to see it as a boy, and you refuse to see it now.” He waves a hand at the ruined piano. “A siren, Cillian. An enchantress. Men lose empires over women like her.”
Rouge scoffs under his breath. Darragh ignores him.
“And now—now you chase her like some lovesick idiot while she drags blood and chaos behind her.
The married conductor scandal? The city STILL talks about it.
I had to clean up your little playthings' reputation more times than I can count, and for what? So she could embarrass us again?” He laughs, cold and cruel.
“Sleeping with a married man? Pathetic. Reckless. And you want to give her our name?”
My fists clench. Rouge inches subtly between us.
Darragh leans in, voice dropping. “You think the Red Hand will follow you if you choose her? You think they’ll kneel to a man led around by a siren’s cunt?”
A slow exhale escapes me through my nose. Not a word. Not yet. He mistakes the silence for agreement— of course he does— and smiles like a man who already believes he’s won.
“To gain control,” he continues, tone smooth as lacquer, “you must cut out the infection. Remove her. Remove the problem. Then, and only then, will the Red Hand accept you.” His gaze sharpens, black and bottomless. “You know what must be done, son.”
I say nothing. Because my mind is no longer listening to him— it’s already gone to her. To the future I want. To the family I’ll have. To the woman waiting for my signal outside. And to the line I know I’m about to cross.
Darragh steps closer, and the temperature in the room drops with him. “You always were weak where she was concerned,” he snaps, the veneer of calm cracking. “A boy with no spine and no sense, letting a girl with a broken pedigree drag you around by the heart.”
My teeth grind. Rouge stiffens. Darragh catches it—and smiles.
“Oh, don’t bristle. You know what she came from. That drunk brute she called a father? I saved her from him. I paid for her schooling, her instruments, her bloody gowns. I took in her mother when no one else would. And this—this is the thanks I get?”
He gestures broadly, like the air itself offends him. “The Kellehers repay loyalty with betrayal. Always have. Always will.”
My vision pulses red. “Careful,” I say quietly.
“Careful?” He laughs, acidic. “I am DONE being careful with that family. She was a timid little thing when I brought her into this home. Ungrateful. Slipping notes into your pockets, begging you to run away with her—until I carved discipline into her.”
Rouge takes a sharp breath. I don’t move.
“And look at her now,” Darragh continues. “The city’s precious princess. Dublin’s Darling Daughter.” He spits the title like poison. “Walking red carpets, adored by thousands, playing pianos like she invented them. The fucking Duchess of Dublin.” He sneers. “It makes me sick.”
My jaw cracks from clenching. “You’re talking about her like she’s filth.”
“She IS filth,” he snaps. “Polished filth. A whore with a wounded past and a voice sweet enough to trick even you into forgetting where she came from.”
“She came from me,” I snarl. “From this home. From our care.”
“From MY care,” he hisses. “And she repays it by ruining my name in the press, running off to New York to disgrace herself with married men, and now—NOW—coming back here to fracture the Red Hand from the inside.”
“She didn’t fracture anything. You did.”
He slams a fist onto the piano lid so hard the sound ricochets through my bones. “She will destroy you!”
“No,” I say, stepping forward, voice low, lethal. “You’re the only one who ever tried.”
Darragh’s eyes flare, black and murderous. “If you stay with her, you throw away everything. Your future. Your legacy. Your family.”
“My family,” I say, “is out in that hallway.”
A full beat. A silence sharp enough to bleed on. Then I lift my chin and give the signal. “Eitilt mo chol.”
Rouge doesn’t move. But behind us—Footsteps.
Soft. Familiar. I turn just as Siobhán steps into the room, framed by the doorway, chin high, eyes blazing.
Darragh goes still. Like he’s just seen the ghost he thought he’d buried.
Siobhán steps into the room like she owns it.
Like the girl he tried to break has resurrected herself into something terrifying and divine.
Darragh’s jaw tightens. “You shouldn’t be here.”
She tilts her head, all soft innocence. Coy. Deadly. “No?” she asks gently. “Why not, Darragh?”
Her voice is sweet. But her eyes are razors.
He scoffs. “You’ve caused enough destruction without barging into matters you don’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand plenty,” she says, gliding closer. “More than you want me to.”
I move to stand between them, but she brushes her fingers along my arm—a silent let me handle him.
Fine. I’ll let her speak. But I’m ready to slit this man’s throat if he steps wrong.
Darragh narrows his eyes. “Still the same little siren. Think charming words will save you?”
“No,” she murmurs. “Truth will.”
He laughs in her face, and something inside me fractures. But she doesn’t flinch. She looks at the broken piano. The scratches in the wood. The bloodstain long hidden beneath a fresh coat of polish. Then she lifts her chin.
“I used to think you hated me because I distracted your son,” she says softly. “But that wasn’t it, was it?”
Darragh stiffens.
“You hated my mother first.”