Chapter 25
Dervla
If this conversation is going to split my life open any wider than it already has, I’m doing it on my feet.
“Tell us what you know,” Séamus says, taking a seat, his eyes on me, ignoring everyone else in the room.
It would creep me out if I had time to even think about getting creeped out. Right now, my brain is moving faster than a bullet, and I can barely keep up.
“About which part?” I ask, just to stall and be ornery at the same time. A girl can multitask.
“The only part that matters,” he says. “The hard drive.”
“Not your daughter, who my father killed?”
His face goes hard. There isn’t a single flicker of grief. “She got what she deserved.”
“Well, fucking hell, Séamus. That is… harsh. Impressive.” Inside, I’m quaking. Declan knows it. His gaze is on me, but I ignore him. If this man doesn’t even care that his daughter got murdered, then how exactly am I supposed to feel safe anywhere near him?
Short answer?
I don’t.
“I can see that shocks you,” he says. “It shouldn’t. This world, Miss Callaghan, is a dirty world. Made dirtier by those who refuse to obey the standard.”
“And what standard is that?” I ask bitterly.
“The standard where I am king and everyone else is a peasant.”
“Right,” I grit out. “Including me?”
His mouth curves up.
I nearly wet myself.
“You, my dear, are the reason. The princess. The queen-in-waiting.”
Silence drops. Uncomfortably.
“What does that mean?” I whisper, hating that my voice won’t cooperate with my laid-back outwardness.
Séamus settles back as if he has all the time in the world to say monstrous things and expect gratitude for them.
“It means,” he says, “that blood matters. Legacy matters. Continuity matters. Whether your parents were wise enough to manage that legacy is another issue entirely.”
My laugh comes out thin. “Continuity. What a word. Very clean. Almost distracts from the murder.”
Alanna moves to the mantel and pours herself a drink without asking anyone if they want one. “If you insist on reacting like a child, this will take forever.”
“Forgive me for not being clued in now on how the mafia handles themselves,” I snap.
“Sadly,” Séamus says calmly. “You were permitted the illusion of not being one.”
That lands like a slap. I feel Aidan go still at my side. Declan is close enough that I can feel his heat. Cormac says nothing, which usually means he is at his most dangerous.
I keep my eyes on Séamus. “Try that again, but in a way that I understand.”
He studies me for a beat, then nods once, like I have asked a reasonable question. “You are my heir through your mother’s line.”
“And that is why Mum wanted me off the board, right?”
“Quite.”
Quite. Nothing more, nothing less. Just… quite.
“Don’t you care that she was murdered by my father?”
He actually considers that for a moment, which is more of a relief than I’m willing to let on. An outright no would be hard to come back from. “I care. I care that she was foolish enough to try something with the one person in all of Ireland who matters.”
Right. That’s not the same thing, and we all know it.
“Why do I matter?” I ask carefully, sitting, so everyone else sits.
Séamus looks at me as if the answer should be obvious.
“Because your mother was my only legitimate child with a direct claim strong enough to consolidate several lines at once. ó Briain, Colthurst and Callaghan. She squandered that by being jealous, childish, and entitled, which is probably my fault. And, Dervla, because you are what remains.”
I blink at him. Dervla. “That is one of the bleakest things anyone has ever said to me, and Aidan is usually pretty good with that.”
Aidan smirks enough for me to feel it.
Alanna sips her drink. “He isn’t here to comfort you, darling.”
“I gathered that. I don’t want comfort. I want answers. You’re giving them. In very short bursts.”
Cormac shifts, not enough to interrupt, enough that I feel him there. Solid. Dangerous. Mine in some feral, impossible way.
I keep my eyes on Séamus. “When you say heir, do you mean family money, or do you mean whatever rotten empire everyone keeps dancing around with cleaner words?”
His expression does not change. “Both.”
I laugh once because if I don’t, I might throw up on his expensive rug. “Of course. Do you know that people are moving on you?”
He snorts, and it catches me off guard. “Can you be more specific?”
Declan snickers behind his hand.
“Right. Sure. Whatever lies above the Board at St. Augustine’s. Specific enough for you?”
His gaze holds mine for a second too long, and then he says, “Yes.”
The room seems to sharpen around that one word.
“How specific would you like me to be?” he asks.
“As specific as fucking possible.”
Séamus ignores my language. “The Board at St. Augustine’s is not the source of power.
It is a funnel. A screening mechanism. A proving ground for loyalty, leverage, and appetite.
The people above it are not a committee in the usual sense.
They are facilitators between respectable institutions and private networks. ”
“Private networks,” I repeat flatly. “Still doing the tidy language thing.”
“They are criminal organisations with old names and newer accounts,” Aidan says.
Séamus glances at him. “That will do. Thank you, Mr O’Connell.”
I rub at my temple. “They’re trying to move against you.”
“Add them to the very long list.”
“Why now?”
His expression goes colder. “Because you arrived at St. Augustine’s and survived what was intended to remove or weaken you. You are a sharp tool with no formal allegiance.”
“My allegiance is to my dad.”
“And now me and your grandmother,” he gestures to Alanna.
I look at Alanna. She gives me a prim look back. “You are up to your neck in this, aren’t you?”
“My family name is everything,” she says. “Anyone who thinks they take that and destroy what my forebears built is sadly mistaken.”
“That is the attitude you need to adopt, Dervla,” Séamus says.
“You can’t just demand allegiance. It doesn’t work that way.”
“It can if the alternative is worse,” he says.
“Threats. Nice. Subtle. You don’t get to appear out of nowhere, announce I’m some dynastic heir apparent, and expect me to nod along because your house has armed guards and expensive rugs.”
Declan shifts closer beside me. Not touching. Just there. A line at my side. Aidan is quieter, sharper, watching every word like he’s already rearranging them into a plan. Cormac has gone dangerous that makes the whole room feel one bad sentence away from violence.
Séamus doesn’t seem remotely bothered by any of it.
“I am not demanding blind obedience,” he says. “I am telling you the truth of your position. You may dislike it. You may reject it emotionally. It remains true.”
“What is so important about this hard drive that Alanna panicked when she knew I had it?”
“Enough information to burn Ireland to the ground. Or at least the families who run it.”
“But not you?”
“Of course not me. Your father was working with me.”
“Who killed him?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Men whose names you are better off not knowing.”
“Don’t,” Aidan says slowly. “Don’t treat her as if she doesn’t deserve to know.”
Séamus turns his head slightly toward Aidan. “I treat her according to the level of danger attached to the knowledge.”
“Convenient,” I say.
“It is survival.”
“Whose?”
His eyes come back to me. “Potentially yours.”
I stare at him and feel my temper trying to tear free again. Every answer in this house arrives wrapped in control, as if the truth only counts if he is the one handing it over in measured portions. I am so fucking tired of being managed.
“My father is dead,” I say, counting off on my fingers.
“My mother is dead. People are trying to use me to flush you out. I’ve already been hunted, attacked, lied to, manoeuvred, and publicly bloodied in the middle of campus.
So no, you don’t get to sit there in your perfect little fortress and tell me the names are too dangerous for me to hear. Dangerous is already in the room.”
Alanna sets her glass down with a soft click. “That,” she says, “is your grandfather’s temper. Annoying, but useful.”
“Not helping,” I mutter.
Séamus studies me for a long beat. “Your father was building a record. Not merely a map. Evidence. Financial trails. Meeting chains. Courier routes. Shell structures. Names. He intended that drive as insurance. If he fell, it would force my hand.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, we are going to war.” He says it with a smile that chills me past blood and bone, straight to my soul.
“You look cheerful about that,” Cormac says, leaning forward, elbows on his knees.
“I am. The ó Briains have never backed down from a war. However, this one is a little more strategic in nature than marching up to the battlefield and slaughtering your enemies with a sword and arrows.”
“Lovely imagery,” I grit out. “What does burning half of Ireland look like? In real-world terms?”
“Now that is a question with intelligence behind it,” Séamus says with an ounce of pride.
I try not to feel insulted.
“It looks like institutions failing all at once,” he says. “Audits. Arrests. Exposure. Asset freezes. Political resignations. Boards collapsing under scrutiny. Men who believed themselves insulated discovering insulation burns.”
Aidan goes still beside me in a way that tells me that the answer interests him far more than the posturing did. This is information to pass on to his father.
“And the hard drive does that?”
“Information is only useful if the right people receive it in the right order. Too much, too quickly, and it vanishes. Too little, and it is buried.”
“So what, Dad died building a bomb, and you’re the only one with the code?”
“In crude terms, yes.”
“Funny. I hate that.”
“I’m not asking you to like it.”
“Good, because I don’t.”
Alanna gives me a dry look. “You do enjoy informing people of things they’ve already gathered.”
I ignore her and keep my eyes on Séamus. “Why did Dad trust you with that kind of insurance?”
He is quiet for a moment. Long enough that I almost think he won’t answer. Then, “For all our differences, he understood scale. He knew I could act where others would hesitate.”
“You mean where others would follow procedure.”
“I mean where others would die with their principles intact and accomplish nothing.”
That shuts me up for half a second because, infuriatingly, it is something Dad believed.
I take a breath. “Then answer this plainly. Did my father work for you?”
“No.”
“With you?”
“Yes.”
“Against who?”
“Everyone.”
“Narrows it down.”
“Are you always this exasperating?” he asks.
“Yes,” Declan, Aidan and Cormac say together.
Guess who’s not getting their dicks wet later?
“Your mother was the same,” Séamus continues. “Don’t be like her.”
“I don’t want to be, but this is enormous, and I’m just catching up. Let me in my own time, okay?”
He takes in my sincerity and nods. “Of course.”
The room falls silent.
“I need to get out of here,” I say eventually.
“Your friends are still outside,” Séamus says.
“Can you get rid of them so we can go home?”
“Stay,” he says. “Just for tonight. Think about everything. Tomorrow, hand me the hard drive, and my men will escort you home.”
Hand him the hard drive.
“Fine,” I say and stand up. “Room?”
He gestures out to the hall. “Emily will arrange it.”
I nod, assuming Emily is the woman in the black suit.
My guys stand as well, and we file out like we’ve been dismissed, but it doesn’t feel too far from the truth.
“Wait,” I say, turning back. “How did you get the CTU to stand down?”
Séamus stares at me for a moment before replying. “I just did.”
“Helpful. Why did St. Aug’s just go back to normal like nothing had happened after the shooting?”
“Because the students know they weren’t the target, the shooters were eliminated, and that’s how St. Aug’s runs.”
“Double helpful. Thanks.” I saunter off with my guys behind me to find Emily at the foot of the stairs, waiting to show us up.