Chapter 27
Dervla
Legacy.
All of this was so that I would have control over a criminal empire, and no one could touch me.
Ever again.
Not like my mother tried to do. That was the catalyst. I can see it in my father’s eyes as I stare into them, not knowing whether I should punch him or thank him.
In the end, I pull away from Aidan and throw my arms around him.
He goes rigid for half a second.
Then his arms come around me, careful at first, like he thinks I might still stab him in the kidney if he gets too comfortable. He holds me anyway. Solid. Real. Alive.
That does me in worse than anything else today.
My throat closes. I bury my face against his chest and hate the way it feels like coming home. I hate that some stupid, broken part of me has wanted this exact thing since the second he walked back into my life and blew it apart.
“You absolute bastard,” I whisper.
“I know.”
“No, seriously, fuck you.”
His hand moves over the back of my head once. “Also deserved.”
I laugh, and it comes out wrecked, choked, ugly. I don’t care. The tears hit anyway. Not many. Enough. Hot and humiliating and impossible to stop now that I’ve started. I cry into my father’s shirt in front of everyone who matters, and a few people who don’t, and nobody says a fucking word.
Good.
Because if anyone does, I’ll kill them.
When I finally pull back, I wipe away the tears and refuse to meet anybody’s eyes except Dad’s. “I love you, and I hate you.”
“Both are accepted.”
“What about you? Now?”
Aidan clears his throat. “We’ll leave you two to talk.” He ushers everyone out of the office, and it goes quiet when he closes the door.
For a second, I just listen to the silence.
Not real silence. The hum from the hidden panel. Rain is tapping faintly at the window. Muffled movement beyond the door where everyone else has gone to give us privacy neither of us deserves.
Dad looks at me like he is trying not to break the moment by breathing too hard. “Now, I leave.”
“Leave where?”
“Do you really want to know? You can’t contact me. I can leave no trail.”
“Give me a clue.”
“Somewhere hot and sandy.”
“Cliche, old man,” I snort and then chew the inside of my lip. “With Siobhán?”
His expression answers before his mouth does.
“Yes.”
“You really love her?”
“I do. She has been there for me for the last few years, where I’ve been under intense pressure to get this done. Your mother…” He sighs. “I don’t know how to tell you this… she—”
“Tried to have me killed. I know.”
His gaze shoots to mine. “You knew?”
I nod stiffly. “You killed her.”
“I did. She crossed a line there was no coming back from. She lost her mind to jealousy. She made the biggest mistake of her life. I needed to make sure you were safe. This is the only way I knew how.”
“By destroying the country’s terrorist organisation and burning down more bridges than can be built in a single lifetime?”
“Yes.” It’s a simple statement. One syllable with no regrets.
“This is how you do stuff? This is how you protect people?”
“You have a lot to learn. Your grandfather will help you.”
“Why can’t you?”
“I can’t stay, Dervla, for all the reasons you already know.”
I nod stiffly, trying not to cry again. “Where do the Kavanaghs fit into all of this? They are a loose end, I think.”
He looks relieved that I’ve moved into less volatile territory. I have to. If we keep going over and over this, I will lose my mind.
It’s done.
We move forward.
Dad drags a hand down his face. “They’re opportunists with pedigree. Always have been. Brendan used them when it suited him, but they never belonged fully to the Romans. Too selfish. Too ambitious. Too convinced they should be the ones at the top.”
“Troy doesn’t strike me as top-tier mastermind material.”
“Don’t underestimate him.” Dad’s mouth hardens.
“He plays the part well, but his father is under his control. Eamon Kavanagh built his fortune in the gaps between other people’s wars.
Supply routes. Debt. Favours. Clean enough in public to get invited into rooms he should never have seen.
Dirty enough in private to keep getting richer.
His only son was diagnosed a long time ago as a psychopath.
His family fear him and what he will do. ”
“You’re joking?”
“No. He is a dangerous man, Dervla. Don’t dismiss him and assume he is the one being controlled. He’s not.”
“Aidan shot him in the hand.”
Dad blinks. “I won’t ask why. Just know there will be repercussions.”
“Fuck.”
“Take him out, Dervla. Once he is gone, his family will breathe a sigh of relief and disappear back into the woodwork.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Dad nods once. “Troy is not a tantrum in expensive clothes. He is deliberate. He likes appearing weaker than he is because people stop guarding the vital parts when they think they’re dealing with vanity.”
“I know vanity when I see it.”
“You know performance when you see it. That isn’t the same thing.”
He’s right. Annoyingly.
I look past him at the hidden panel in Whitmore’s wall.
The screen is still running lines of text.
Damage reports, asset transfers, god knows what else.
Somewhere out there, phones are ringing.
Men are realising their money has vanished.
Their schools, shell firms, trust accounts, endowments, little polished systems of corruption are collapsing in real time. It should feel cleaner than this.
“And Troy Kavanagh is outside of this…?” I gesture toward the switchboard with my head.
“Mostly,” Dad says. “Not entirely. Some of the Kavanagh structures will get hit if they were sharing Roman channels, but their core won’t. Eamon never lets anyone hold all of his throat in one hand.”
“Did you know Troy would kill Whitmore?”
“No.”
“Would you have stopped him if you did?”
Dad holds my stare. “Yes.”
I believe him. “Will I ever see you again?”
His face changes. Just a little. Enough. “Maybe,” he says. “If it becomes possible.”
“That means no.”
“It means I won’t promise what I can’t safely keep.”
I laugh under my breath. “Still managing expectations.”
He gives me a tired look. “I’m your father. It’s practically a calling.”
I should laugh. I nearly do. Instead, I stare at him and try to memorise him without making it obvious. The lines around his eyes. The grey at his temples. The fact that he is standing here at all.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I admit.
Something in his face softens. “Neither do I.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“No. But it’s true.”
I nod once. I can work with truth, even when it’s ugly.
For a second, I think that’s it. That he’ll walk out and vanish again, and I’ll be left in a room with a humming machine and a surname that suddenly weighs twice as much as it did this morning.
Then I say the thing that has been scraping around inside my chest since the chapel.
“Did you ever think I’d fail?”
His answer comes out solid. “No.”
I blink. “Not once?”
“I thought you’d fight me. Fight the situation. Fight the truth. I did not and do not think you’ll fail.”
That hits hard. Worse, because I believe him.
“And if you had to do it again?”
He exhales slowly. “I told you, I would do it all again, the exact same way, except for protecting Whitmore. He was a good man underneath his smarmy attitude.”
I nod and step back. I wanted to see if his answer changed. It didn’t. “Go then.”
He doesn’t move at first. “Dervla.”
“What?”
“I’m proud of you.”
“I haven’t done anything yet,” I say lightly.
“Yes, you have,” he says, and then he leaves.
Everyone must see him go, but no one comes to me yet. For that, I’m grateful.
The first thing I need to think about is getting St. Aug’s back up and running, and then I need to hunt down Troy and make what Aidan did to him look like a scratch.
Fun times ahead.
The door opens, and Gallagher of all people pops his head in. “Everything okay?”
“I’d say define ‘okay’, but I can’t be bothered.”
He chuckles. “Need anything?”
I breathe in deeply. “Three things, actually. I want St. Aug’s back online as a university by tomorrow.
Students back, staff wherever we can find them in what’s left of the education system.
We can work on skeleton rotation if we have to.
I want to appoint someone as Vice-Chancellor, and I need to find Troy Kavanagh before he finds me. ”
“Troy?” Cormac says, pushing his way past Gallagher. “Why?”
“Because my father just told me he is a lot more dangerous than he looks, by design, and I am done leaving dangerous men alive to become tomorrow’s problem.”
Cormac’s expression goes hard. “Good. Then we kill him.”
Gallagher stays near the threshold. “That will require finding him first.”
“Insightful,” I mutter.
Aidan appears behind Cormac a second later, Declan at his shoulder, Roisin just behind them all.
“Vice-Chancellor,” Aidan says. “You were saying.”
I look at him. “I’m not doing the day-to-day running of a university. I will be Chancellor.”
“Lofty promotion,” Declan smirks.
“Sensible. I’d be terrible at VC.” I look at Gallagher. “Kevin? You up for it?”
He gives me a look that could kill a houseplant. Not difficult in my case. “You are asking me to step into the public line of fire of an institution that has just become the scene of multiple murders, a criminal purge, and what will by morning look like a national financial event.”
“Yes.”
“You make it sound remarkably unappealing.”
“I’m asking because you’re competent, discreet, know this university inside and out, are a Board member, and too boring-looking for anyone to realise how dangerous you actually are.”
Roisin snorts so hard, I think her sinuses will be clear for a year. “Oh, my fucking god, she has nailed you.”
“Didn’t call me boring earlier, my dear, did you?” he mutters, but we all heard him.
Roisin’s cheeks flash red hot.
No one responds.
Not our circus, not our monkeys.
“Just accept it, and if it’s not a good fit in three months’ time, we’ll reassess,” I croak, trying not to laugh or die of second-hand embarrassment on Roisin’s behalf.
“Fine,” he says with a sigh. “I want complete autonomy. You do not interfere with anything. You are the public face. The name that will bring in students from all corners of the globe. Nothing. More.”
“Done,” I say, relieved to be off administrative duty. “About the Board…”
“We regroup. We have three living members. Add in O’Connell, Byrne and Finnegan, and we are up to six. We recruit a seventh through channels that are tight, rigorous and vetted to within an inch of their lives.”
“On it,” Cormac says. “Also, does this mean we are done with our degrees? My results were shit at the end of last term.”
“I don’t see why not. Unless you have a reason to stay?” I ask.
“Nah. Mum won’t care. Especially if I am employed before I quit.” He stares at me.
“What are you getting at?”
“Physical Combat Training Coach.”
“Suits you. Hired.”
“Anyone else? It will make this a lot easier if we have people who can at least supervise the returning students until we fill in the gaps.”
“I’ll be in the kitchen,” Declan says. “Someone has to feed you all.”
“Excellent. Aidan?”
“Finance. It’s always been my best class, and I thought I could teach it with my eyes closed. Here’s my chance to prove it.”
“IT,” Roisin says, sticking her hand up. “For now. It’s not a lifelong thing or anything.”
“Teaching or administratively speaking?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Both. Whatever.”
It’ll do. “Hired. Where’s Séamus gone?”
“He left with your dad,” Cormac says.
I nod, accepting that. I don’t need him hovering over my shoulder. “Roisin, get the students back here tomorrow. If they went home, give them until the day after to get their arses back on campus. St. Augustine’s is under new management and open for business.”