Chapter 4
Chapter four
Dylan
The darkness is complete.
Not just dark like my bedroom at night with the curtains drawn. Not even dark like hiding under blankets as a child. This is darkness so absolute it feels like it’s pressing against my skin, filling my lungs, seeping into my bones.
If I could move my hand, I wouldn’t be able to see it in front of my face. I can’t see anything at all.
The silence is just as oppressive. No hum of machinery, no distant traffic, no sound at all except my own breathing and the thundering of my heart in my ears.
I know what this is. I’ve been here before, in a different room but the same kind of hell. Locked in the coat cupboard under the stairs while Declan told our parents I was sulking.
So I do what I did then.
I sing.
“Danny Boy, oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling...” My voice cracks on the first line, but I push through. It’s what Aunt Moira used to sing to me when I first moved in with her and used to wake up screaming from nightmares about monsters in dark places.
The sound of my own voice is startling in the absolute silence, but it’s something. It’s proof that I’m still here, still alive, still me. It is creating something out of the nothing. And something, any something, keeps the endless void at bay.
When I finish that song, I start another. “Molly Malone” this time, then “The Wild Rover,” working my way through every Irish ballad I can remember. My voice gets stronger with each song, more confident. The darkness can’t touch the melodies, can’t steal the words that Aunt Moira gave me.
When I run out of songs, I switch to recipes.
“Irish soda bread,” I say aloud, my voice echoing slightly in the small space. “Four cups plain flour, one teaspoon baking soda, one teaspoon salt, fourteen ounces buttermilk. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl, make a well in the center...”
The familiar ritual soothes me. These are the building blocks of my life, the foundation of everything I’ve built since escaping my family’s world. Each recipe is a small act of rebellion against the violence and fear I was born into.
“...knead lightly on a floured surface, just until the dough comes together. Too much kneading will make it tough. Score a deep cross on top, down to the base of the loaf...”
I can almost smell the bread baking, can almost feel the warmth of my kitchen around me. For a moment, I’m not tied to a chair in a torture room. I’m home, safe, where the worst thing that can happen is burning a batch of scones.
But the fantasy doesn’t last long. The reality of my situation creeps back in, cold and terrifying.
How long have I been in here? It feels like hours, but it could be minutes. Time has no meaning in this place. My torturer knew exactly what he was doing when he put me here. He knows about the darkness, about what it does to people.
He knows about fear.
I try to focus on something else, anything else. Think about the bakery. Think about Sean and Teagan and how worried they must be. Think about Mrs. Murphy’s anniversary cake sitting half-finished in the fridge.
But my mind keeps drifting back to Declan. To how much I hate him for putting me in this position. If he hadn’t stolen that bloody tiara, if he’d just stayed in his small corner of organized crime where he belonged, I’d be at home right now. Safe. Free.
What the fuck has he been up to since the last time I saw him was three years ago? Nothing good, that’s for sure.
A shiver runs over me as I think about Declan’s visit. I can still remember every detail of that night, even though I’ve tried so hard to forget.
I’d been closing up the bakery, when the door chimed. I looked up from wiping down the counter to see my twin brother standing in my shop, and for a moment I thought I was hallucinating.
He looked terrible. Thinner than I remembered, with dark circles under his eyes and a cut on his cheek that was still bleeding. His clothes were expensive but dirty, like he’d been sleeping rough.
“Hello, brother,” he’d said with that same charming smile that had gotten him out of trouble our entire lives. “Miss me?”
I should have called the police right then. Should have told him to get out and never come back. Instead, I’d stood there like an idiot and asked if he was hurt.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” he’d said, but I could see the fear underneath the bravado.
Declan is many things, but he’s never been good at hiding fear from me. We are twins, after all. I can read him better than anyone.
“What do you want, Declan?”
“Can’t I visit my beloved twin? See how you’re doing with your little hobby here?” He’d gestured around the bakery with mock interest, but his eyes kept darting to the windows, watching for something.
“It’s not a hobby. It’s my life.” I’d been proud of the steadiness in my voice, even though seeing him again had made me feel like I was ten years old and cowering in a cupboard.
He’d laughed at that. “Your life? Sweet Jesus, Dylan, look at yourself. You’re hiding in London making cupcakes while real men are out there making real money.”
“At least I’m not running from whoever gave you that cut.”
His smile had faltered then, and I’d seen something desperate flicker in his eyes. “I need money, Dylan. A lot of it. I’m in some serious trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“The kind that gets you killed if you don’t pay up.” He’d moved closer to the counter, and I’d caught a whiff of fear-sweat. “I crossed the wrong people. They want their money, plus interest, plus compensation for the inconvenience.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred thousand.”
The number had hit me like a slap. Two hundred thousand pounds might as well have been twenty million for all the hope I had of raising it.
“I don’t have that kind of money, Declan. This is a small bakery, not a bank.”
“But you have some money, right? Whatever you can spare. I’m your brother, Dylan. Your twin. That has to count for something.”
And like an idiot, like the same na?ve little boy who’d believed every lie he’d ever told me, I’d opened the till and given him everything. One thousand and thirty-seven pounds from the day’s takings, plus the two thousand I’d been saving for new equipment.
He’d taken it without even saying thank you. Just counted the notes with practiced efficiency and tucked them into his jacket.
“This won’t be enough,” he’d said.
“It’s all I have.”
“What about the shop? You could sell it, start fresh somewhere else.”
The casual way he’d suggested destroying everything I’d built had made my blood boil. “Absolutely not.”
“Come on, Dylan. It’s just a bakery. You could open another one anywhere.”
“Get out.”
“Dylan…”
“Get out of my shop. Get out of my life. I never want to see you again.”
He’d looked genuinely hurt for a moment, like he couldn’t understand why I was being so unreasonable. Then the mask had slipped back into place, and he’d given me that same cold smile I remembered from childhood.
“You always were selfish,” he’d said. “Too good for your own family. Too soft for the real world.”
And then he’d walked out, taking my money and leaving nothing but the lingering scent of pungent cologne and the familiar ache of disappointment.
I’d hoped that would be the end of it. That he’d take my money and disappear forever, maybe even find a way to go straight. Instead, he’s apparently graduated to stealing French Crown Jewels.
And now I’m the one paying the price for his ambition.
“Bastard,” I whisper into the darkness. “Selfish, cruel bastard.”
My voice sounds strange in the silence, smaller than it should. I clear my throat and try again.
“Lemon drizzle cake,” I say firmly. “One hundred and seventy-five grams butter, one hundred and seventy-five grams caster sugar, three large eggs...”
But even the comfort of familiar recipes can’t entirely block out the growing awareness of my own body that my captor was counting on.
I can hear my heart beating, can feel the blood rushing through my veins.
My breathing sounds too loud in the silence, and I’m becoming hyperaware of every small sensation.
The zip ties cutting into my wrists. The hard metal of the chair digging into my back. The way my legs are going numb from sitting in the same position for so long.
I try to shift, to find a more comfortable position, but there isn’t one. The chair was designed for maximum discomfort. My captor is a professional.
How much longer? How long before he decides I’ve been broken enough and comes to check on me?
I start singing again, louder this time. “She Moved Through the Fair” in a voice that echoes off the concrete walls. Then “The Parting Glass,” which makes my throat tight with unshed tears.
I’m not going to cry. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me so defeated.
Even if that’s exactly what I am.
I’m in the middle of reciting my special recipe for brown bread when I hear it. The soft scrape of metal against metal. The bolt being drawn back.
Light floods in as the door opens, so bright after the absolute darkness that it feels like knives in my eyes. I squeeze them shut, tears streaming down my face.
Heavy footsteps cross the small space. Hands grip the back of my chair, and suddenly I’m moving again, being dragged out of that horrible little room and back into the main torture dungeon.
The light is almost as much of a torment as the darkness was. Even with my eyes closed, it’s overwhelming. I can feel it pressing against my eyelids, making my head pound.
When I finally manage to open them, my captor is standing directly in front of me. His dark eyes study my face with clinical interest. Smoldering and intense. Peering into my very soul and brushing against it.
Strong fingers grip my chin, tilting my head up so he can examine me even more closely. His thumb brushes across my cheek, wiping away tears I didn’t realize I’d shed.
“Talking in there, were you?” he says softly. “Most people don’t last an hour before they’re screaming to get out.”
I try to speak, but my throat is raw from singing and reciting in the darkness. All that comes out is a croak.
He releases my chin and steps back, his expression shifting from clinical interest to something that might be disappointment.
“You’re stronger than you look,” he says. “Most people break completely in that room. The darkness strips away all their defenses, leaves them begging to confess to anything just to make it stop.”
He walks around my chair again, and I can feel him studying me from every angle.
“An innocent person wouldn’t be able to handle that,” he says conversationally. “They would break down completely. They’d confess to crimes they didn’t commit just to make the fear stop. But you... you took that like a professional.”
Something cold settles in my stomach. “What are you saying?”
He stops in front of me again, and when he speaks, his voice is flat and certain.
“I’m saying that only someone with extensive experience in the violent world of crime would be able to maintain their composure like that.”
“No, that’s not…”
“Only someone like Declan O’Shea.”
The words hit me like a punch to the gut. After everything I’ve been through, after singing myself hoarse and reciting every recipe I know, just to stay sane, he’s more convinced than ever that I’m my brother.
“You’re wrong,” I whisper. “You’re so wrong.”
But I can see in his eyes that he doesn’t believe me. My survival in that horrible room has somehow become proof of my guilt.
And surprisingly, he looks incredibly disappointed by this. As if refusing to believe me, is hurting him even more than it’s hurting me. As if he wanted to trust me, and my failure to prove myself has destroyed all his hopes and dreams.
“We’ll see,” he says quietly. “We’ll see exactly how wrong I am.”
And with that terrifying promise, he turns and walks away, leaving me tied to the chair with the growing certainty that I’ve just made everything infinitely worse for myself.