Chapter 5
Dervla
Istare at the closed door for a full second after they leave.
Then I lock it.
It is unnecessary. Stupid, maybe. Three armed and unhinged men are effectively guarding the inside of this house. Still, the click gives me something solid. Something mine.
The room is too quiet without them in it.
Tea steams on the tray by the desk. Sandwiches sit there untouched, absurdly normal.
I sit on the edge of the bed and stare at my phone.
Then I call Alanna.
It rings once.
“Dervla.”
No greeting. No surprise. No concern. Of course not.
“You knew,” I say.
“About what?” she asks.
“Maeve Doyle,” I say bitterly.
“Yes, of course, I knew about her. Vile woman.”
I huff out a breath, “I mean, did you know she killed Dad?” I grit out.
“Maeve has wanted a place at the table her entire life,” she says.
“She was born with enough Callaghan blood to be dangerous and not enough legitimacy to be protected by it. Men like your grandfather create monsters and call them mistakes. Their mistakes do not disappear just because you’d like them to. ”
“I asked you flat out if you knew, you lied. You said to me earlier, before I left Séamus’, that when I find out who killed my father, make them pay…” I trail off. “You utter bitch.”
“Words matter.”
“Okay, fine. Séamus said men whose names I’m better off not knowing.”
“One can only assume he meant in a general sense.”
“Alanna! Does he know?”
“Yes. He is hunting her as we speak.”
“So every fucker knew except me. Again.”
“I understand you feel hard done by,” she says. “But I know you, Dervla. If I had handed you the information, it would’ve been a letdown for you. You’d have felt nothing. Finding that information out on your own empowers you.”
I blink rapidly as I assess her words for some kind of meaning.
I want to yell at her for being wrong.
She’s not.
It’s like someone giving you the answers to the Sunday crossword. A hollow triumph.
“This doesn’t mean I forgive you for not telling me.”
“No, but it means you will. You see my words are correct.”
“Don’t sound so fucking smug about it.”
“I’m rarely smug,” she says, which is such an obvious lie I nearly laugh.
Instead, I stand and start pacing because if I stay still, I might put my fist through the wall. Or cry. Or both, and I am tired of feeling like this. Empowers. That is exactly the right word, and she knew it. I need to be empowered because right now, I’m so fucking over feeling.
Feelings are overrated.
That saying has never rung true more than it does right now.
“What are you thinking?” she asks after a few moments.
“That you’re right. That I’m over being treated like an accessory. You want me as an heir? Séamus wants me as an heir, then I start acting like one, because until I do, you are all going to coddle me to death and I. Am. Over. It.”
“Oh, bravo, dear,” she says, genuinely pleased.
“Bravo, all right. Right. Fine. Since we’re apparently doing honesty now, tell me everything you actually know. Not the curated version. Not the grandmotherly crime edition. Everything.”
“I know Maeve was always going to become a problem. I know your father kept her away with power, distance, and watchfulness. I know none of that was ever going to satisfy a woman who believed she had been cheated of a life that should have been hers. She aligned herself with some unsavoury type who ran amok some years ago. I needn’t say more. ”
“Jesus,” I mutter.
“No, wasn’t him.”
I roll my eyes. “So what now? Roisin and Gallagher are parked outside my house waiting for her to kill her.”
“Oh, jolly good. I always did appreciate Kevin’s efficiency.”
“Kevin?” I snort. “Kevin?”
“Kevin Gallagher, yes,” Alanna says, as if she hasn’t just made my godfather sound like a man who does the parish accounts and not targeted murder. “Did Whitmore not tell you that part too?”
“No, he was too busy being sinister and helpful at me.”
“A difficult balance. He enjoys it.”
I scrub a hand over my face. “I’m hanging up on you in a minute.”
“Before you do, listen carefully.”
Something in her tone cuts through the static in my head. I stop pacing.
“If Maeve reaches you first, she will not come with a gun in her hand,” Alanna says. “She will come with a wound, a story, and your father’s face arranged in words. She learned a long time ago that pity opens doors faster than force.”
“Yes, I’ve already been informed.”
“In this family, everything useful is also a flaw when pushed far enough.” A beat.
“She wanted your father’s place long before she wanted him dead.
Understand that. Cillian had legitimacy, education, allies, and the patience to build.
Maeve has a grievance. Grievance is powerful, but it is rarely disciplined. ”
I look at the rain on the window, at the dark shapes of men outside my house through the gap in the curtain. “Is there anything else you aren’t telling me?”
“Plenty. None of it useful.”
“Are you and Séamus…?”
She snorts delicately. “No. For all his sins, your grandfather was the love of my life. I will never be with another.”
“That is probably the most sentimental thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
“And it will be the last, dear.” She hangs up, and I smile. The conversation I thought was going to end in tears and rage hasn’t.
And why hasn’t it? Because I’m empowering myself and I refuse to feel sorry for myself like some scolded child in a corner. I am a grown woman who just found her power.
And I’m going to use it to burn St. Augustine’s to the ground.