Chapter 16 Green of the Unholy Crown #3
His eyes flash—a flicker of something feral. Good. Let him show his teeth. Siobhán keeps going, voice steady as a metronome.
“She turned you down. Didn’t she? When you… pursued her. Years ago.”
“Watch yourself,” he growls.
Rouge’s hand goes to his gun. I match him.
Siobhán steps closer. “Would you like to know how I figured it out?”
“No one cares what you think you figured out,” Darragh snaps. “You’re delirious. Dramatic. Just like her.”
“There it is,” she whispers. “Just like her.”
Darragh freezes. Siobhán inhales shakily—but her voice remains calm. Controlled. Deadly.
“I never told you this,” she says, “but I did go back to The Velvet Knife. Recently.”
Darragh’s face drains of color.
I glance at her sharply. “Love—”
She squeezes my fingers once. Let me. “I found the booth you always insisted I meet you in,” she says.
“The one you kept so private. And I remembered the first time you brought me there. That night you said would be my ‘rebirth.’ Twenty and stupid enough to think I mattered to you.” Her smile is cold.
“I played my entire set. You applauded like you owned me. And afterward, someone slipped an envelope into my case. No name. Just an initial. M.”
Darragh’s nostrils flare. I feel fire climbing my throat. Siobhán looks between us. Then at the piano. Then at the memory only she can see.
“Inside were photographs,” she continues quietly. “My mother. On this floor. In this room. The curtains behind her. The crest carved into the piano. Her blood pooling under the bench where I used to sit while she taught me scales.”
Rouge mutters a curse. My pulse hits a war drum.
“Someone left a note,” she says. “‘Ask him why.’” She lifts her eyes to Darragh, voice like a knife dipped in honey. “But I asked the wrong man.”
Darragh snarls, “Do not accuse me of—”
“You killed her,” she says simply. “You killed my mother because she threatened to expose you. I did my own research, my own investigation. People talk, Darragh. You don't do a very good job cleaning up.”
His face twists. “She saw nothing.”
“She saw everything,” Siobhán fires back. “She watched you murder that poor old man, all because he said no to selling his shop to you. And she told you she’d go to the Gardaí. That she’d tell Dublin exactly what you are, its bloody Carrion Prince."
“Enough!” He slams his fist onto the piano again. The lid rattles.
But she keeps going. “She was going to let me stay with Cillian,” she whispers. “She told me the night before she died. She said she wasn’t afraid anymore. That she’d tell the truth.” Silence. Sharp as broken glass. Siobhán inhales. “And Malachi delivered the envelope.”
Darragh goes still—truly still—as if she just slit open the part of him he never wanted touched.
“Malachi,” she says, voice level. “Your right hand. Your shadow. Your little errand bitch. He was ‘M.’ He lured me to New York under the guise of helping me find answers. All under your orders.”
Rouge murmurs, “Christ.”
She steps closer to my father, fearless. “You didn’t just kill my mother,” she says. “You orchestrated my escape. My misery. My humiliation. You controlled every step I took—even when I thought I was running.”
Darragh’s eyes burn with hatred. “You stupid girl,” he hisses. “You think you’ve uncovered some grand conspiracy? You think you matter enough for me to—”
“She mattered to me,” I snap.
He rounds on me. “She ruined you!”
“She MADE me.”
“She cost you the Red Hand!”
“She’s worth more than the Red Hand!”
He sneers. “Romantic fool.”
I step forward, voice low, lethal. “You hurt the only two women I ever loved.”
His gaze meets mine. Dark. Dead. Cold. “Then you understand why you can’t keep her.”
I feel Siobhán’s fingers brush my back. My signal. My permission. I nod once. Time to end this.Darragh’s mouth twists into a smile I’ve seen my whole life, the smile right before he breaks something. Or someone.
“You have to understand son,” he murmurs. “You can’t keep her. You can’t lead with her at your side. She’ll be your downfall.”
“No,” I say quietly. “She’s the only thing that ever made me want to rise.”
He scoffs. “You don’t have the stomach for what leadership requires.”
I look at Siobhán. At my siren. My salvation. My ruin. And she gives me the smallest nod—calm, certain, unafraid. My stomach settles into steel.
“You’re right,” I say to him.
Darragh blinks. Just once. Suspicious. “You were never meant to lead,” he says.
I step closer. Slow. Measured. The way he taught me. “No,” I echo. “You weren’t.”
His eyes flash, black with fury. “Watch your tone.”
“No,” I say again, voice dropping into that cold place I only ever visited when I fought for her. “Watch yours. You’re talking to the future of the Red Hand.”
He opens his mouth to snarl something—something cruel, something cutting— But the confession spills instead. “I should’ve killed her mother sooner like I did with yours.”
The world goes absolutely silent. Even Rouge stops breathing. And Siobhán—my fierce, fragile, fire-hearted girl— doesn’t move. Her eyes stay locked on Darragh, steady as a blade.
“Thank you,” I tell him softly, “for telling me everything I needed to know.”
His eyes widen, just a fraction. Then he reaches for his gun. He’s too slow. I’m not the boy he raised. I’m the man he forged in violence. The heir he sharpened like a knife. The son he ruined—and turned into the weapon that will finish him. My gun is drawn before his leaves the holster.
One shot. Clean. Dead center.
Darragh O’Dwyer collapses against my mother’s ruined piano, blood smearing the wood where her hands once danced. His final exhale rattles through the room like a broken note.
Rouge lowers his weapon. “Holy Christ.”
I walk forward. Slow. Deliberate. My father looks up at me, something like disbelief twisting his lips. I crouch beside him.
“Your final word?” I ask calmly.
He chokes. “Bastard.”
I smile. “Good enough.”
His eyes go flat. The last of him leaks out onto the floor. A life. A reign. A legacy—Severed. I stand. The room feels bigger without him. Lighter.
Rouge exhales. “You’re the king now.”
“No,” I say, turning, finding Siobhán watching me with fire instead of fear, with pride instead of pity. “I’m the man who chose her.”
She steps toward me. Not flinching. Not trembling. Not looking away from the body of the man who destroyed her life. She slips her hand into mine.
“Time to build something better,” she whispers.
And I know, everything from this moment forward belongs to us.
1. Fly my dove