Chapter 10
Cormac
Idon’t sleep. It’s becoming a problem that will catch up to me at some point. I hear Dervla up and moving around and decide to give up and get ready. I pull on black cargos and a dark tee, and stare at myself in the mirror for half a second.
I look wrecked.
Good.
People are usually more honest when they think you are one bad word from putting them through a wall.
By the time I get downstairs, the house is only half awake. Grey light comes in through the kitchen windows. Rain still taps at the glass. Aidan is at the table with his phone in one hand and his laptop open in front of him, fully dressed, fully in control, fully irritating.
Ignoring his presence, I open the cupboard, take out a mug, and pour coffee.
“Eoin has checked out of the clinic and is now at home in Dublin. Increased security, of course.”
“Roisin?” I ask, taking a sip of scalding black coffee.
“Still here as far as I know.”
“We let them both simmer. They will be jumping at shadows until they stop and think we aren’t moving.”
Aidan nods his agreement.
The back door opens, and Declan comes in with wet hair from the rain and that unreadable face he wears when he is already working three problems at once. He goes straight for the coffee.
“See anything out of the ordinary?” I ask.
“No, all quiet.”
“Worried or not?”
“Both,” he says and takes a sip.
Footsteps sound on the stairs a minute later. I look over as Dervla comes into the kitchen in black leggings, boots, and a dark jumper. Her hair is tied back. She looks tired. She also looks like she’d stab someone before breakfast if they annoyed her, which is one of my favourite things about her.
“Morning,” she says, “Ready to do this.”
“Without wanting to stab Whitmore?” I ask.
“I can think it, but I’ll remember his useful idiot status.”
She turns, and I move with her. “You’re going now?”
She nods. “Earlier the better.”
“I’ll come with you. I’ll wait outside while you talk to Whitmore, but you aren’t going alone. Not after what that guy said about the other night.”
She holds my gaze for a second but then says, “Okay.”
I put my mug down and grab my jacket from the bottom of the bannister, where it ended up yesterday when we came in.
I follow her out into the morning. The air is wet and cold.
We cut across campus side by side. She surprises me when she takes my hand and laces our fingers together.
I don’t comment on it, just tighten my grip on her hand.
Students are already moving between buildings with coffee cups, hoods pulled up against the rain and that dead-eyed weekday expression. Heads turn when they see us. Most people step out of her way. She ignores them.
I clock them all, letting them know I’m watching.
As we enter the Admin Building, I glance at her. I expect to see exhaustion, but instead I see a vibrance to her that makes my cock hard.
“Come in with me,” she says when we walk up to the receptionist’s desk. “I want Whitmore to know I’m not alone.”
“He creeps you out that much?” I ask seriously.
“Yeah, and I don’t particularly feel like stabbing the VC today. Something tells me I wouldn’t last a day in prison.”
“Probably not,” I mutter, worried that she is thinking this far ahead. But there is no denying that if she gets separated from us in any way, Roisin, or whoever else, is out to get her will. The receptionist—Siobhán—looks up as we approach.
Her face goes blank. “Can I help you?”
“I need to see Vice-Chancellor Whitmore.”
The woman blinks. “Do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
“I’m afraid—”
“It’s urgent,” Dervla says. “It’s regarding a formal complaint against another student.”
That does it. She reaches for the phone and presses a button. “Vice-Chancellor Whitmore’s office.”
A beat.
“Yes, Miss Callaghan is here to see him. She says it’s regarding a formal complaint.”
Another beat.
Siobhán puts the phone down. “He’ll see you now.”
We head up the stairs and down the hallway together, Dervla’s fingers gripping mine with enough force to whiten her knuckles, before she lets go.
We stop in front of Whitmore’s office, and she takes a deep breath. She knocks once and opens it without waiting.
Whitmore is behind his desk with a look that could curdle milk. “Miss Callaghan.”
“Vice Chancellor Whitmore. I would like to make a formal complaint against another student.”
Whitmore’s eyes flick to me and harden. He doesn’t like that I came in with her.
“I see,” he says, clasping his hands on the desk. “And who is the complaint against?”
Dervla shuts the door behind us, moves closer to his desk, but stays standing. I take up position half a step behind and to her left, close enough to put my hand through his fucking desk if he says the wrong thing.
“Roisin Brennan,” she says.
That lands.
Not dramatically. Whitmore is too controlled for that. But I see it in the slight pause before he speaks again, the tiny recalculation in his face.
“Ms Brennan?” he repeats. “That is a serious allegation.”
“What she did was serious.”
His jaw tightens. “Sit down.”
“We’re fine standing,” I say.
His gaze cuts to me. “Mr Byrne, this is an administrative matter.”
“Then administrate.”
He glances at Dervla, who remains unmovable and leans back in his chair. “Very well. Proceed.”
Dervla’s voice goes cool and precise. “The night before last, Roisin Brennan publicly challenged me in a manner designed to provoke violence. She used a planned event to escalate an issue she has with me. She used an unauthorised outsider. He was armed. She did nothing to stop the escalation once it became dangerous.”
Whitmore watches her with that careful, bureaucratic stillness that always reads false to me. “You are referring to the event in the assembly hall.”
“Yes.”
“The one not officially sanctioned by the university.”
Dervla doesn’t blink. “If your point is that the event was unofficial, mine is that Roisin Brennan still used her authority and influence on campus to interfere with it.”
His fingers tap once on the desk. “Influence is not the same as responsibility.”
“It is when she used it to set up violence,” I say.
His gaze shifts to me again, irritated now. It means he is not fully in control of this.
Dervla keeps going, voice flat and exact. “A man named Eoin Brennan entered the lower level and challenged me. He was not a student. He was armed. Roisin Brennan initiated the challenge and permitted him access.”
Whitmore goes very still for half a second before he opens a drawer and pulls out a folder. “Write it all down,” he says, almost resigned. He knows he can’t fight it. He can’t tell Dervla to go to hell. He can’t ignore it.
She has put him in check, and he knows it. Dervla takes the folder from him without sitting. She flips it open, scans the university crest at the top and the lined pages beneath, then looks up.
“I’d also like it noted that Dervla doesn’t feel safe being approached by Ms Brennan in any academic or administrative setting without witnesses present,” I state.
She doesn’t react to it. Good girl.
Whitmore’s expression tightens. “That is a substantial request.”
“It is a practical one,” I argue. “If your institution cannot prevent Board-connected students from bringing armed men into student spaces, then they need adjusting accordingly.”
Clean. Cold. Hard to dodge.
Whitmore ignores me and reaches for a pen, sliding it across the desk. “State the facts only.”
Dervla gives him a look that says she knows exactly what he’s doing. Keep it narrow. Keep it procedural. Strip it of the ugly truth until it becomes something a committee can file.
She starts writing anyway.
I stay where I am, my gaze never leaving him.
Whitmore watches her hand move across the page with the strained patience of a man trying not to show he’s trapped. His office is too warm. Too polished. Heavy curtains. Dark wood. Framed certificates. Everything about it says authority. Everything about him says rot.
He clears his throat. “Mr Byrne, I will need a statement from you as well if you were present.”
“I was.”
“Then, after Miss Callaghan has finished, I expect the same from you.”
Dervla keeps writing. Her expression does not change, but I know her well enough now to read the set of her jaw. She is enjoying this more than she wants to admit. Not because she likes paperwork. Because she likes backing men like Whitmore into corners they pretend do not exist.
Whitmore folds his hands again. “If this account is found to be exaggerated in any way, there will be consequences.”
I look at him. “Are you threatening her for filing a complaint?”
His eyes flick to me. “I am reminding both of you that false accusations are serious.”
Dervla does not look up. “Good thing mine are true, then.”
That shuts him up for a second.
I file it away. He is not surprised enough. Not by Roisin’s name, not by the mention of Eoin Brennan, not by the fact that there was a weapon. He is too careful. Too controlled. It makes my skin itch.
Dervla finishes, signs the bottom, and hands me the folder. I take it and write my account of what happened before handing it back to Whitmore. He takes it like it might stain him.
He sets the folder on his desk with too much care. “I’ll see that it is logged.”
“Today,” I say.
He looks at me like he’d like me removed by security. “Yes. Today.”
“And Roisin?” Dervla asks.
“That will be handled through the proper channels.”
I nearly laugh. Proper channels. In this place.
Dervla does not smile. “I want written confirmation that the complaint has been received.”
Whitmore pauses, then nods once. “You’ll have it by the end of the day.”
“Good.”
She turns before he can dress it up with any more official bullshit. I stay where I am for a beat longer, looking at him hard enough to make the point plain. I see you. I know you know more than you’re saying. Then I follow her out.
The door shuts behind us.
We make it halfway down the corridor before she exhales.