Chapter 2 #2
I heard movement, sheets rustling, then a feminine moan. "Give me a minute," he muttered, followed by, "Just a few minutes, princess," then a door closing. "What happened?"
I laid out the situation—the distribution losses, the security breach. Ronan listened without interruption.
"Could be the O'Malleys regrouping," he finally said.
"Connor's sons are dead or not worth a single thought. There's only the daughter left, and she was kept away from the business."
"Don't knock that possibility. Word is Connor protected his girl, Aoife, but that doesn't mean he kept her in the dark."
I considered this. The intelligence we had on Aoife O'Malley was limited—Swiss boarding schools, advanced history of art and business degrees, charity functions.
She definitely had brains and discipline but there was nothing to suggest she was involved in her family's operations—even though I couldn't guess who'd have replaced the late Connor.
Yet, I hesitated at dismissing her. Something about her dossier had always struck me as too perfect, too carefully curated. And come to think of it, there'd been an awful lot of quiet on the O'Malley front lately.
The possibility it could be her intrigued me.
Aoife O'Malley.
I salivated at the thought.
"You have authority to handle this however necessary," Ronan continued. "Just stay alert and vigilant. Cressida's finally settling into London life. I don't want complications pulling us back to Ashford or even Ireland right now."
"How is she?" I asked, surprising myself.
"She's..." Ronan paused. "She's playing a solo with the philharmonic next month. We're travelling to Paris after that for another engagement." Was that pride in his tone?
I had never understood what Ronan saw in Cressida Ashford.
She had seemed so fragile, so unsuited to our world.
Yet, she had survived the hunt, survived the MacGregor twins, survived her family's abuse.
Undoubtedly there was steel beneath that delicate exterior.
Unlike her sister Beatrice, whose darkness had been evident from the first moment I'd seen her, yet, she was more fragile than a sandcastle.
"I'll handle it," I promised. This was my chance to prove that Ronan's trust was well-placed—that leaving me in charge had been his wisest decision.
"I know you will." A pause. "And Alexander—watch your back. If this is the O'Malleys, it's personal for them. Then again I suppose it's always personal. Hire more men as needed."
Ronan ended the call, leaving me with the growing suspicion that we had missed something important after the O'Malley estate takedown, and Beatrice's marriage.
And then a second, more unsettling thought: part of me hoped it was Aoife O'Malley behind this.
Part of me wanted to meet the woman who could possibly have orchestrated such a subtle yet targeted attack on my domain.
The woman I'd been dreaming of for two long years…
Night had fallen by the time I finished reviewing the reports. I poured a double shot of whisky and stood by the window, watching shadows stretch across the lawn.
My reflection stared back at me, dark eyes and features that had earned me comparisons to men in Renaissance paintings—a twisted irony considering those same features had marked me as different.
Too refined for a servant's son, too striking to blend into the background as I was meant to.
I'd learnt to use my appearance as a tool, my controlled movements and expressions becoming a canvas that revealed only what I wanted others to see.
"Will that be all for tonight, sir?" asked the night attendant. Willis had been given some time off and Ronan had hired more adequate help around here.
"Yes, Thomas. Lock up on your way out."
I waited until his footsteps faded before moving to the desk. The bottom drawer unlocked with a key I kept on my person at all times. Inside was a steel lockbox containing items too sensitive for digital storage.
Amongst them, an elaborate mask—the one I'd worn during the hunt.
Creamy flesh broken by several lashes of my whip.
The glint of a blade.
Blood trickling down shapely thighs.
Moans and screams stretching well into the night.
Pain and pleasure…
I lifted the mask, turning it over in my hands. A raven. Ronan had chosen it for fun, but Beatrice had seen it as something mythic and intriguing. The mask of her captor, her tormentor, the man who'd drawn out her darkest desires.
I hadn't meant to get so deeply into the role that night.
The hunt was supposed to be a mere demonstration of power—a punishment for the woman Ronan thought deserved to suffer.
But when I'd caught Beatrice, something had shifted.
I'd seen past her carefully cultivated society persona into the raw need beneath it all.
For that brief time with her wrists bound, under my mercy, her breath hot against my neck, I'd let my control slip.
I'd shown her the real me—the one who found beauty and release in dominance.
The one who understood that true power came not from making someone scream, but from making them beg for more even as you broke them.
And she had responded not with fear or disgust, but with hunger. Total surrender, despite the insanity I sometimes glimpsed in her eyes.
That was what truly disturbed me. For a lifetime, I'd been neither fully accepted nor completely rejected. Always straddling two worlds, belonging to neither. And yet, in that moment with Beatrice, I'd been seen. Recognised for exactly what I was.
It was intoxicating. Dangerous.
I set the mask aside and locked it away. Beatrice O'Brien was not my concern. The security breach was. My position, everything I'd fought for, depended on maintaining control—of the estate, the business, and most importantly, of myself.
I moved to the computer, pulling up the surveillance system. Was someone playing a game?
My phone chimed with a message from Coyne: Team found something. Meet me same place.
I grabbed my coat, my mind already racing. Whatever game was being played, I'd find the player. And when I did, they'd learn what happened to those who threatened what was mine.
As I stepped outside, the night air carried the scent of coming rain. I cast one last glance outside the window at the lawn and garden that featured a maze from this angle, its shadowy pathways reminiscent of the tangled situation I now faced.
Something was coming. I could feel it in my bones, with the same instinct that had kept me alive all these years on the knife's edge between servant and master, outsider and family, controlled and controlling.
Let it come. I'd been fighting for my place in this world since birth.
And I had never lost a battle I couldn't afford to lose.