Chapter 27 Dervla #2
I pull the blanket higher and look toward the chair where my clothes are half dumped, then to the floor where the hard drive lies near the leg of the table like the world’s least sexy reminder that my life is on fire.
“There’s the mood hoover,” I murmur.
Aidan follows my line of sight. “I’ll take that as your signal that we’re done.”
“For now,” I mutter.
That gets a dark look from all three of them, which would be more enjoyable if I didn’t feel like I’d been put through industrial machinery.
Cormac bends, picks up the hard drive, and sets it on the bedside table with a care I don’t miss.
None of us says anything for a second.
The thing just sits there. Black plastic. Silent. More dangerous than half the armed men downstairs.
I drag the blanket up to my chest and stare at it. “Amazing. Even in a room full of orgasms, my problems still have excellent timing.”
Declan huffs a laugh. “You’re impossible.”
“Yet beloved,” I say.
Cormac sits on the edge of the bed again, forearms on his thighs, looking from me to the hard drive like he’s measuring the distance between us and the next disaster. “We need a plan for the morning.”
“I have a plan,” I say.
Aidan looks at me. “That sentence usually makes me want a weapon.”
“You already have one, so we’re ahead.”
His stare flattens. “Dervla.”
I sigh and shove myself more upright against the pillows.
My body aches in every direction. My scalp still hurts.
My ribs are still offended. My cunt feels thoroughly used.
None of it is enough to keep my brain from kicking back into gear.
“The plan is simple. I give him the hard drive and let him do whatever it is he’s going to do with it. ”
All three guys blink slowly as they process that.
“That’s it?” Declan asks. “That’s your plan?”
“Yep. If anyone has another one, I’m all ears.”
Aidan stares at me like I’ve just announced I plan to donate a kidney for fun.
Cormac is the first to speak. “That isn’t a plan. That’s surrender with better branding.”
“It’s not surrender.” I push damp hair off my face. “It’s triage. He knows what it is. He knows how to use it. He has the reach. I don’t.”
Declan sits up, the mattress dipping. “And if he takes it and decides you’re now a useful little heir who gets told fuck all while the grown-ups handle it?”
I give him a flat look. “That’s already happening.”
“That doesn’t mean hand him the only leverage your dad left,” Aidan says.
I look at the hard drive again.
Leverage.
Insurance.
Bomb.
Protection.
Every person who talks about this thing uses a different word, which probably means they all want something different from it. That should bother me more than it does. I’m too tired for paranoia with nuance.
“According to Alanna, it was never meant for me anyway. She was at the house three times looking for it. The toss? That was the Gardaí. I’m sure there were others after that.
I got lucky and found it because I knew how my dad’s brain worked.
I can’t think that’s fate or any other such bullshit.
Alanna might be a bitch, a cold-hearted mafia bitch, but her panic was real.
Honest. And that tells me more than any other words or any other actions.
Dad wanted Séamus to have that hard drive. So I’m giving it to him.”
Aidan drags a hand down his face. “Fucking hell.”
“What?” I snap. “You all think I’m being stupid, but none of you has a better option.”
“I’ve got a better option,” Cormac says. “Don’t hand a man like that the only thing standing between you and being completely at his mercy.”
“He’s already at the point where he says turn left and we turn, where armed men open car doors for me and lock gates behind us,” I say. “I think we’re well past pretending I’m not in his hands.”
Declan shifts closer, eyes hard on mine. “That’s exactly why you don’t make it worse.”
I stare back at him. “You think I don’t know that?
You think I’m dying to trust the fucking crime emperor downstairs?
I’m not. But this hard drive is bigger than me.
Bigger than us. Dad built it for a reason, and every person who actually understands what’s on it keeps reacting like it’s a live grenade. That matters.”
Aidan reaches for the hard drive and turns it over once in his hand, studying it like he can force it to give up answers by contempt alone. “It is bigger than all of us. This is what levels St. Aug’s.”
I stare at him for a moment. “Look, I get it. I get annihilation is your plan. That hard drive is exactly what you say it is. But we are in no position to use it. Even if we knew what we were looking at, we can’t do anything.
He can. This is his endgame. My dad’s endgame.
Why are you asking me to stand in the way of that? ”
That gets to him. I can see the shot landed. Aidan sets the hard drive down with too much care for a man who is that angry.
“I’m not asking you to stand in the way of it,” he says.
His voice is very controlled, which is worse than shouting.
“I’m asking you not to hand over the only copy without knowing exactly what the fuck is on it.
You hand it over with one caveat. You want it copied.
However you phrase it so he listens, I don’t care.
Tell him it’s insurance in case something happens to the original, or him, even. ”
I nod slowly. “Okay.”
“Do you trust them?” Declan asks. “I mean enough to hand this over.”
“My dad did.”
“Did he? Or is that just what they’re telling you?” Cormac asks.
I breathe in deeply and exhale. “That’s fair.
But Alanna wouldn’t betray her only son.
She doted on him, in her own cold way. I saw the looks she’d give him when she thought no one was looking.
She wouldn’t stab him in the back to destroy her only granddaughter.
Who, I might remind you, is part Colthurst—whatever that means in this world. ”
They go silent. They don’t trust them, and I get it. I’m not exactly full of trust either. But I can’t just be stubborn and my usual self by withholding the hard drive. What does that accomplish? Absolutely fuck all, that’s what.
“Okay,” Aidan says eventually. “This is your family, and you have to do what’s right for you. We said we have your back, and we do. Ask him to copy it in front of you and then let him have it.”
I swallow, look at Cormac, then at Declan.
Cormac nods once, sharp. “Don’t ask him. Tell him.”
“He’ll respect certainty more than hesitation. Go in with doubt, and he’ll treat it like weakness,” Aidan agrees.
I look from one of them to the next. Three dangerous men, all staring at me like I’m the centre of some war map. It should freak me out more than it does. Instead, something in my soul settles.
Not because any of this is good.
But because I’m not doing it alone.
“Fine,” I say. “In the morning, I tell him he gets the drive after it’s copied in front of me. If he says no, he doesn’t get it.”
Cormac’s mouth shifts in approval. “Better.”
Declan stretches out beside me and props himself on one elbow. “And if he tries to strong-arm you?”
“I become extremely difficult.”
Aidan snorts. “True to nature then.”
“Shut up.”
I flop back to the bed and snuggle further under the covers. I close my eyes and hope to fuck I’m making the right decision.