Chapter 4 #2
“Proceed with your plans for Miss Callaghan. She proved tonight that she is who everyone fears she is. Roisin Brennan is particularly threatened. The three of you proved you will do whatever it takes to protect Miss Callaghan.”
I snort and feel my ribs, thinking there were only two of us in that fight.
“Don’t discount Mr Finnegan, Mr Byrne. If she had walked home alone, she would be dead now.”
He hangs up as I stand, growling. “Fuck,” I snarl.
I stare at the dead screen for a beat, then throw the phone onto the bed.
I breathe through the urge to punch a hole through the wall.
The old bastard knows too much. About Dervla.
About the Board. About whatever lies beyond the Board.
About us. About tonight. Which means he’s close enough to watch and careful enough not to be seen.
I hate men like that.
I yank on a pair of joggers, drag a tee over my head, and head straight back out into the hall, past Dervla’s door and downstairs.
Aidan looks up the second I walk back into the kitchen. He’s still at the table. Declan is still there too. Neither of them says anything for a second, but they both read my face and know something changed.
“What happened?” Aidan asks.
“An unknown number just called. Older man. Careful voice. Said Roisin acted without authorisation.”
That gets both of them fully alert.
Declan straightens. “From the Board?”
I shrug. “That part was unclear. He said there was something higher, and he wants Dervla above the Board.”
“Did he now?” Aidan asks, his voice low, which means he is pissed off.
“What is above the Board?” Declan asks the right question.
I shake my head. “Fuck knows. He didn’t say. All he said was she was in the path of something old, and too many people have realised she is there. This blew past the Board the second she stood in that ring.”
Aidan sits back. “So we find out what goes beyond.”
“I’m thinking we aren’t going to like that answer.”
“I think you’re probably right. What else did he say?” Declan asks.
“He said to proceed with our plans for her,” I reply. “Tonight proved she is who everyone fears she is. Roisin feels threatened. We proved we’d do whatever it takes to protect her.”
Aidan goes very still. That is always worse than him talking.
“And?” he says.
I look at Declan. “He said if she’d walked home alone, she’d be dead now.”
Silence.
It lands exactly how it should.
Declan’s face hardens first. Aidan’s expression goes blank in that polished, dangerous way that means he is already three moves into something ugly and violent.
“Does that make him the threat or the Guardian Angel?” Declan asks.
“Fuck knows. I asked him why he called me, and he said I’m the one who clears the path when the time comes.”
Aidan’s eyes cut to me. “Interesting.”
“Annoying,” I say. “He also talked like he expects obedience.”
Aidan shuts the laptop fully this time. “That part I like least.”
“No shit.”
Declan drags a hand over his jaw. “Irish?”
“Yeah. Posh.”
“Age?”
“Older. Sixties maybe. Educated. Didn’t rush. Didn’t bluff.”
Aidan nods once. “So not a student. Not one of the obvious faculty. Not a Board member. Not VC… we need to find out what goes above the Board. This changes everything. It was assumed that the Board answered to no one.”
“I don’t know if they answer to this entity,” I venture. “But he sure as shit made it clear that the Board was beneath them.”
Aidan stares at the laptop for a long second. “Old society.”
“He knew too much,” I say.
“He wanted you to know he knew too much,” Aidan says. “That’s not the same thing.”
“Still makes me want to break his face.”
“That is your answer to most things.”
“It’s a good answer.”
Declan looks at me. “Did he sound threatening?”
I think about it. The even voice. The way he kept control of the conversation. The certainty. “No. He did say if he was threatening me, I’d know about it.”
“Ouch,” Declan mutters.
Aidan nods once. “This was a warning and an instruction.”
“Which he can shove up his arse,” I say.
“No,” Aidan says. “If Dervla is being positioned for something higher that we know nothing about and the Board knows, or suspects this, she is in even more danger. Like it or not, we take this seriously unless proved otherwise.”
Declan nods slowly. “Agreed.”
I pace once across the kitchen and back, ribs protesting with every turn. “So what, we just sit here and accept that some unseen old bastard knows where she is, what she is, and that someone had a line on her walk home?”
“Not accept,” Aidan says. “Adjust.”
His voice has that hard, clean edge it gets when he’s stopped being angry and started building something. I hate when he’s right in that tone. It means he’s already seen the shape of the next week, while I’m still thinking about putting Roisin through a fucking wall.
“Adjust how?” I ask.
“First, nobody says a word to Dervla tonight.” He gets to his feet and starts moving around the kitchen, collecting his laptop charger, his phone, his glass, making organisation look like violence with better manners.
“She’s exhausted, injured, and running on adrenaline and rage.
If we wake her now and tell her there’s a hidden layer above the Board and someone may have had a hit lined up tonight, she won’t sleep. ”
“Yeah. But she will kick our arses in the morning when she finds out we knew this now.”
He gives me a look and then disappears into the hallway. I give Declan a look and follow Aidan. He is already halfway up the stairs. I don’t say anything as he shoves open his room door and then closes it behind him.
I pause outside Dervla’s room and then move to mine.
She is so going to kick our arses in a few hours. But at least she will have the strength to do it.