Chapter 18 #2
She sighs sharply. “That’s what you’re taking from this conversation?”
“No,” I say. “I’m taking all of it. That was merely noteworthy. You speak about him like you were friendly.”
“We were more than friendly,” she says, her voice cracking. “But it’s irrelevant. They are going to stop Dervla from getting that Board seat. There are two candidates that they are putting forward.”
“Send me the names. But if they are going to stop Dervla from getting the Board seat, why did they want her here in the first place?”
Aidan raises an eyebrow as Cormac slowly chops vegetables. It’s a question that needs an answer.
“Because it’s bigger than just her,” Siobhán says.
The kitchen goes still.
I look at Aidan. He is already thinking three steps ahead. Cormac stops chopping for a beat, knife in the air, then goes back to it like he’d rather cut the answer out of someone than wait for it.
“Séamus ó Briain,” Aidan says before he can stop himself.
I throw him a filthy look.
Siobhán goes quiet.
“Sorry,” I say, clearing my throat. “Aidan and Cormac are also here.”
“Thick as fecking thieves,” she mutters.
I stare at the phone. “You’re saying they brought Dervla here to draw out her grandfather.”
“Yes.”
Fuck.
I look at Aidan. His face gives nothing away now. That means it’s bad.
“How?” I ask. “How the fuck do you know that?”
Siobhán is quiet for a second. When she talks again, it’s a whisper. “They needed confirmation. It’s been circling for a while that Dervla is related to ó Briain, but nothing was concrete. Cillian never confirmed it. In fact, he did the opposite. He denied it.”
“So now that it’s been confirmed, what’s the end game?” I ask.
“I don’t know.”
I rub a hand over my jaw. “Why are you telling us this? Why did you call me specifically?”
On the other end of the line, Siobhán gives a short, humourless laugh. “Because Cormac would threaten me, Aidan would dissect every word I said and decide whether I’m useful, but you sound like the one most likely to listen before deciding whether to bury me.”
“That is not entirely accurate.”
“Accurate enough. But I’m not just a bystander in this.” Her voice drops again. “Cillian meant a lot to me. Dervla by proxy, even though she has no idea about her father and me. I’d like to keep it that way.”
“You want us to lie to her about who her dad was shagging?” Cormac snorts.
“It wasn’t like that,” she growls possessively.
I raise an eyebrow. “You were in a relationship?”
“Yes. I loved him. He loved me. He didn’t tell Dervla because I’m not that much older than her… don’t tell her. Not yet. She needs to focus on getting around these candidates and grabbing that Board seat.”
“How does she do that?” I ask, not letting this opportunity slide. “Who decides?”
“ó Briain,” she whispers. “Off the records, of course.”
“So they’ll call a conflict of interest if he picks Dervla.”
“Yes. It’ll get ugly.”
“It already is.”
“Uglier.”
“Who are the two candidates?” Aidan asks a question she should be able to answer.
“Padraig Nestor and… you.”
My gaze shoots up to Aidan’s.
He frowns. “Me? Since when?”
“Since before Dervla displaced you as Apex. It was a perk.”
“I knew that,” Dervla says, joining us. “Who are you talking to?”
“Siobhán,” I say, seeing no reason to lie to her.
She nods slowly, taking that in, but her gaze goes back to Aidan. “Are you saying you weren’t aware of this? Roisin told me, by the way.”
“This is a conversation that doesn’t include me,” Siobhán says, and promptly hangs up.
“I didn’t know,” Aidan says.
“She made it sound like it was to do with the Apex thing. But since you were displaced, I didn’t think anything else of it.”
“Interesting,” I murmur.
“What did Siobhán want?” she asks, looking at me.
“She says Whitmore and Roisin are in this together,” I tell her. “Been in it together a while. She says they wanted you here, and they wanted your dad gone because once he was, there was nothing left to stop you coming.”
Dervla goes very still.
Cormac sets the knife down. “She also says this whole mess is bigger than the Board seat.”
Aidan picks up from there, voice flat. “They wanted to confirm your link to Séamus ó Briain.”
Her stare sharpens. “By dragging me into St. Augustine’s and seeing who came out of the woodwork.”
“Looks that way,” I say.
She takes that hit without much visible reaction. That worries me more than if she’d started smashing glasses. “And Siobhán knows all this because?”
“That part was vague,” I say. “She said she had ways to hear them.”
That grabs her interest. “Office bug?”
“Probably.”
“Because Whitmore is a pig who is abusing his authority? She wants to catch him red-handed?”
I blink and look at Aidan. I hadn’t even considered that. Truth be told, I’d forgotten with all the other shit going on. “Maybe,” I say. “But she appears to be on your side, so we can use her information to get in front of this.”
“Well, if they think I’m a candidate for the Board seat, they can think again,” Aidan says. “My only purpose here is to annihilate them all.”
“Only purpose?” Dervla asks lightly.
He glares at her. “What exactly is it you want out of all of this, Dervla?” he asks, and the kitchen goes silent.