Chapter 8
Dervla
Cursing myself for letting him touch me like that, I run up the stairs and slam my bedroom door, leaning against it as I catch my breath and undo my laces so I can kick my boots off. How dare he? How dare I? What is going on?
Letting out a noise of annoyance, I stride to the window and stare out at the trio, standing on the other side of the road, looking up at me.
I clench my jaw and roughly close the curtains, blocking them from my view.
They all followed me home like stalkers, and one of them dared to barge his way in here, make me tea, fix my hand and then make me come.
Rude.
Obnoxious.
Arrogant.
It isn’t even the orgasm that’s got my skin tingling.
It’s the way he handled me like I was a bomb he knew how to disarm—firm, controlled, and completely unbothered by the fact I could’ve put Henrietta through his throat if I’d wanted to.
He didn’t take.
He didn’t push past the line where I’d have to fight him.
He just held the moment steady until I stopped shaking, until my body remembered what relief feels like, and then he left like that was the end of it.
Some traitorous part of me filed him away as safe.
Safe makes you stupid. Safe makes you forget to keep your blade within reach.
And worst of all… safe makes you want more.
But fuck, it felt so good to release all the tension of the day in that one climax that I will deny to my grave that was the best finger fuck I’ve ever had.
It makes me want to know what he can do with his dick.
I shove that thought into a box, lock it, and throw away the key.
Metaphorically. In reality, I’m standing in my bedroom with my hand still throbbing, my thighs still tingling, and the phantom impression of his fingers burned into my skin like a brand.
I need a shower. Another one. A cold one this time, to wash the memory of Declan Finnegan’s hands off my body and out of my head.
But first, I peel back the curtain half an inch. They’re still standing there. Fuckers. What is wrong with them?
I strip out of my ruined clothes and throw them in the laundry basket.
The shower runs cool, and I stand under it until my teeth chatter, my skin prickles, and the heat between my legs is nothing but a memory I’m actively suppressing.
I scrub myself raw with my left hand, clumsy and aggressive, like I can wash away the fact that I let a stranger—a stranger who broke into my house uninvited—touch me in my kitchen while I was at my lowest. While I was vulnerable.
That’s the part that stings. Not the orgasm.
The vulnerability. I handed him a piece of myself I don’t give anyone, and he took it with those steady, quiet hands like it was his to take.
I shut off the water and towel off roughly, wincing when the fabric catches the raw scrapes on my palms. The tape on my right hand held through the shower, which annoys me because it means he did a good job, and I don’t want him to be good at things that benefit me.
I pull on clean underwear, an oversized t-shirt, and crawl into bed with my hair still damp. The sheets are cold against my legs, and I curl onto my side, tucking my bandaged hand against my chest.
Sleep should come easily. I’m exhausted in a way that goes beyond physical—my bones feel hollow, scraped out from the inside.
But my brain won’t stop cycling through the night like a film reel stuck on repeat.
The gauntlet. The pit. The things in the pit that I refuse to name, even in the privacy of my own skull.
But the most frustrating part of all of this is that they never told me where I ranked in the hierarchy.
Wasn’t that the whole point of this? To see where my social standing landed?
Well, clearly not if they didn’t bother to inform me.
It was all to do with questioning me about my dad under circumstances they found acceptable.
Suspicious, is not even the word I’d use for it.
Did one of them kill him? Was it Gallagher?
Was it Roisin? The woman who asked me if I knew who it was?
The more I roll these thoughts around in my head, the angrier I become.
He died for nothing. For a seat on the Board to open up. But why? Who?
I press my face into the pillow and scream.
It’s muffled, ugly, and completely unsatisfying, but it’s all I’ve got right now.
When I lift my head, the pillowcase is damp from my hair and warm from my breath, and nothing has changed.
The questions are still circling like vultures, and the answers are still nowhere.
I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling.
The cornicing up there is original, intricate plasterwork that some craftsman spent weeks on two hundred years ago.
I wonder if he knew then that one day a woman with bleeding hands and a dead father would lie beneath his work and plot revenge while still feeling her clit twitch from a stranger’s hands.
Probably not. He probably just wanted to get paid and go home.
My head quietens down as the minutes tick by, and I crawl out of bed to peek around the side of the curtain again.
They are still there, sitting now, watching. Waiting.
My throat tightens with something I don’t have a name for. Something I refuse to call gratitude because gratitude is an opening, and openings are how people get inside you.
But the truth is simple and humiliating:
They could have gone home.
They didn’t.
Whatever game we’re playing, whatever they want from me, they’re still out there in the dark like the night itself belongs to them—and by proximity, so do I.
It makes me want to slam my fist against the window.
It also makes me want to open it.
I’m surprised someone hasn’t called the Garda already. Mind you, this late on, no one is up to notice them except me.
I flop back into bed and close my eyes. This time, I feel myself drifting, the edges of consciousness softening.
The last thing I register before sleep takes me is the faint, absurd comfort of knowing three dangerous men are sitting in the dark outside my house like guard dogs I didn’t ask for and don’t want.
I sleep like the dead. No dreams. No dining room. No crystal decanter catching the light. Just black, heavy nothing, and when my alarm drags me back to the surface at seven-thirty, I feel like I’ve been buried and dug up again.
My right hand is stiff. I flex my fingers experimentally, and pain shoots through the joint with enough force to make me suck air through my teeth. I sit up and cradle it, giving myself thirty seconds to register the damage before I have to become functional.
Ice. I need ice on it.
I drag myself out of bed and peer around the curtain again—they have left now, thank God—and head downstairs.
The kitchen is exactly as I left it, except the mug Declan made tea in is still on the table, a faint brown ring at the bottom.
I stare at it for a second too long, then grab it with my left hand and shove it in the dishwasher with more force than necessary.
Moving to the freezer, I grab the ice tray, wrap a handful of cubes in a tea towel, and press it against my swollen thumb, hissing at the contact. I sit down at the kitchen table and hold the ice in place, staring out the window at the overgrown garden while the kettle boils.
The back wall is thick with moss. Beyond it, the trees are still and dark despite the morning light filtering through the canopy. Everything looks different in daylight. Less menacing. More manageable. The kind of lie that daylight specialises in.
I make coffee with my left hand, managing because using my right is out of the question right now.
The ice has numbed my thumb enough that the throbbing has dulled to a low, persistent ache instead of the screaming fire it was last night.
I’ll take it. I rotate my wrist carefully, testing the range of motion.
Not terrible. Not great. Declan was right about the wrap.
It’s holding the joint steady, and the swelling hasn’t ballooned the way it would’ve if I’d just shoved it in my pocket and hoped for the best.
I hate that he was right. I hate that every time I look at my hand, I’ll think of his fingers working the tape around my thumb with that precise, unhurried focus because to him, my hand was something worth being careful with.
I drain half the coffee and force myself to eat toast. While I chew, I pull the campus map from my bookbag and spread it on the table, tracing the route from the Old Chapel to the boathouse with my fingertip.
There’s a pattern here. The Board chose those locations deliberately.
The chapel for ceremony, the underground for endurance, the boathouse for isolation.
Every stage was designed to strip away a different layer of defence.
Physical. Mental. Emotional. They wanted to see how I’d crack, and when I didn’t, they pushed harder.
And then they left without telling me a damn thing.
I tap the boathouse on the map and frown. The interrogation wasn’t standard. Roisin said not everyone goes through it, which means the Board singled me out for special treatment. Lucky me. The gauntlet was the test. The boathouse was extra credit.
I fold the map and shove it back into my bag, then finish my toast standing up because sitting still is making me twitchy. My phone buzzes on the counter. I glance at it.
Unknown number.
Your placement: Apex. Report to the Hennessy Building, Room 12, 1pm. Come alone.
I read it three times. Apex. It makes me roll my eyes so hard, I think they might get stuck. Who are they kidding? More like, who are they trying to flatter?