Chapter 19
Dervla
For a second, I just stare at him.
The question lands harder than it should, maybe because it comes after everything else. Guns. Blood. Roisin on the ground. My grandfather stepping out of the shadows like a threat with a pedigree. My father’s ghost turning out to have a whole second life nobody thought I deserved to know about.
What do I want?
Not what they want for me. Not what Dad planned. Not what Séamus ó Briain thinks is best. Not what Whitmore and Roisin tried to engineer by dragging me here like bait.
My body still aches from the fight. Hot water softened a lot, but did nothing to fix the rest of it.
“I want the Board seat because it was my dad’s, because they all think they can shut me out of something that clearly has my name written all over it, and because I’m done being manoeuvred by people who won’t even speak to me plainly.
” I look at Aidan. “I want answers. Real ones. About my father. About my mother. About why half this university seems to know more about my life than I do.”
Nobody interrupts.
So I keep going, because now that I’ve started, I can feel the truth of it under everything else. The rage. The pride. The part of me that would rather die than be handled.
“And I want power,” I say flatly. “I crave it. Not for the sake of having a fucking throne to sit on. For choice. For leverage. For the ability to stop being the person everyone tries to move around like a piece on a chessboard.”
Aidan watches me without blinking.
Cormac’s jaw is tight, but he is listening properly, not just waiting for his turn to tell me to stab someone.
Declan has gone very still against the counter.
“I don’t know yet what shape that power takes,” I say.
“Board seat. Family network. Whatever the fuck is attached to my surname that everyone else seems terrified of. I’m not pretending I’ve got some noble, polished answer.
I don’t. I want what’s mine. I want to know what was taken.
I want to make the people behind this regret not finishing me when they had the chance. ”
Silence sits heavy in the kitchen.
Then Aidan nods once, like I’ve passed something. “Good.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “That’s it? Good?”
His expression does not shift. “Yes. Good. Because ambition without self-deception is useful. You know what you want. You’re not dressing it up as morality. It’s a lot better than pretending this is about justice.”
Cormac picks up his glass and knocks back what is left. “Justice is for courts. This is war.”
Declan moves to the stove, checking whatever Cormac has half-started cooking. “So now we know. Board seat first. Everything else after.”
“Not everything else,” Aidan says. “The candidates matter now.”
I drag out a chair and sit down because my legs suddenly feel like they belong to someone else. “Fine. Tell me about Padraig Nestor.”
Aidan looks at Cormac. Cormac looks at me. Neither of them answers quickly enough to please me.
“Oh, good,” I say. “That means it’s bad.”
Cormac rests his hands on the counter. “He’s older. Postgrad. Law, maybe politics before that. One of those lads who can smile at your grandmother while taking the silver.”
Aidan picks it up. “Padraig Nestor is polished, connected, and fucking patient. He plays long games. Doesn’t get his hands dirty unless there’s no other option.”
“So basically, Whitmore but younger.”
“Less creepy,” Declan says.
“That’s a low bar.”
Cormac turns back to the pan, throws chicken in, and the sizzle cuts through the kitchen. “He’s one of those men who makes adults trust him for reasons they can’t explain. Student rep. Committee darling. Good grades. Better family. He knows how to sound reasonable while gutting you.”
“Is he Board-adjacent already?” I ask.
Aidan nods. “He’s been hovering. Charity dinners. Alumni events. Donor functions. He’s exactly the sort they’d float if they wanted someone who looks clean.”
“And me?” I ask. “I’m what, the unstable knife girl with a dead father and a fresh enemy list?”
“You’re also Apex,” Declan says. “Callaghan. ó Briain blood, whether anyone likes it or not. More importantly, you’re unpredictable. That’s what scares them.”
I sit back in the chair and try not to let the ache in my ribs show on my face. “So they put up Padraig, maybe Aidan, and hope I either lose or get blocked for being too much.”
“Exactly,” Aidan says.
I look at him. “And where do you stand in that?”
His stare is direct. “I’m not standing against you.”
“Convenient.”
“It’s true.”
I hold his gaze for a beat, then let it go because I’m too tired to pick apart whether that answer is strategic, sincere, or both. With Aidan, it is usually both.
Cormac dishes out the food and sets a plate in front of me first.
“Eat,” he says.
I do. The first bite hurts my lip, but it still tastes like relief. I hadn’t realised how empty I was until now.
He drags out the chair beside me and sits backwards on it, forearms braced across the backrest, eyes fixed on me like I might disappear if he looks away for too long.
“This Siobhán thing is worrying me,” I mumble around a mouthful of food. “What’s her deal? Why is she calling Declan up and having a conversation with him about me? In fact, why is everyone doing that? Why not talk to me?”
Aidan cuts a look at Declan. “Because she called him.”
“That does not answer the actual fucking question.”
Declan sets his fork down. “Because people think talking to you directly is the same as stepping into traffic. They expect impact.”
“See? That. That sort of shit. I’m literally sitting here eating chicken. I’m not foaming at the mouth.”
Cormac snorts. “Not currently.”
I glare at him. “Helpful.”
“It’s not about whether you can handle it,” Aidan says. “It’s about control. People reveal information in ways that protect themselves first. Siobhán wanted to test the water. Declan is easier to test with than me.”
“Because he looks less like he’d dissect her and more like he’d just bury her body,” I mutter.
Declan’s mouth shifts, almost a smile. “She made her choice.”
I shove another bite into my mouth and chew, thinking. It still annoys me. More than annoys me. It feels like being managed again, just dressed up as concern, strategy, or whatever excuse people want to use.
“So she has a bug in Whitmore’s office. This isn’t adding up.”
“What isn’t?” Aidan asks.
“You saw her running out of Whitmore’s office, all dishevelled and crying. And now she calls Declan all confident and full of secrets and bugs in the VC’s office. Call me suspicious…”
Aidan takes a sip of vodka and stares at me over the rim of the glass. “Go on.”
I put my fork down. “Either she’s terrified of Whitmore and being victimised by him, or she’s composed enough to plant surveillance in his office and feed us intelligence. Those are not impossible things to have in the same person, but the switch is fucking sharp.”
“Trauma doesn’t make people one-note,” Declan says.
“I know that.” I rub at my lip and regret it instantly. “I’m saying I don’t know what game she’s playing. Maybe none. Maybe she’s exactly what she says she is. But I’m done taking people at face value.”
“Probably wise,” Aidan says.
“Stop sounding pleased every time I become slightly more paranoid.”
“No.”
Cormac shoves his plate away once he’s finished and looks at me. “You think she’s lying?”
“I think she’s leaving things out.”
“That part is definitely true,” Declan says.
“Yeah,” I say. “Which means either she’s protecting herself, protecting someone else, or protecting the version of the story that suits her best.”
Aidan taps his glass with one finger. “That still doesn’t make the information false.”
“No,” I reply. “It just means I don’t like owing it anything.”
Declan picks up his fork again. “Then don’t owe it. Verify it.”
Cormac looks at me. “How?”
I sit back, ignoring the pull in my ribs. “We start with the easy part. The two candidates. If Siobhán was telling the truth, one of them is Padraig Nestor. The other was meant to be Aidan.”
Aidan’s expression hardens.
“So we find out who’s still being floated and by whom. Quietly. Before they make an official move.”
“You want names, timing, who’s lobbying, whether Whitmore is fronting it or the Board is,” Aidan says, already in that cold planning mode. “I can get some of it.”
“I can get the rest,” Declan says. “Postgrad committees talk. Law crowd, especially. They think whispering in corridors counts as secrecy.”
Cormac glances between us. “And Siobhán?”
I look down at my plate for a second, then back up. “I want to talk to her.”
Declan’s eyes narrow slightly. “Directly?”
“Yes. Mad concept around here, I know.”
“She might bolt,” he says.
“Then she bolts, that tells me something, too.”
Aidan studies me. “You’re not going alone.”
“I assumed that part.”
Declan drags his thumb over his lower lip, thinking. “If she’s bugged Whitmore’s office, she’ll be paranoid about being seen talking to you.”
“Then we make it look accidental,” I say. “Reception desk. Corridor. Somewhere public enough that she can’t panic and public enough that Whitmore won’t try anything if he appears.”
Aidan shakes his head once. “No corridor. Too exposed.”
“Reception, then.” Cormac nods. “Tomorrow.”
I nod, glad no one said anything about right now. My ribs ache. My scalp hurts where Roisin yanked my hair. My temple throbs in time with my pulse. Even my fucking knees feel offended.
Aidan glances at my plate. “Eat the rest and then sleep.”
I don’t argue. I’m starving and tired.
The kitchen settles after that. Not quiet exactly.
Just heavy. The sort of silence that follows violence when everyone is still wired enough to move but too spent to start another argument.
Declan rinses plates. Aidan sits at the table with his phone and that dead-eyed focus he gets when he is building a list of names to ruin.
Cormac wipes down the counter like he can scrub today off the worktop.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I ask suddenly. “What else did Siobhán say?”