Keira
Dinner is already underway by the time the conversation drifts to me.
I’m placed halfway down the table with Fionn across from me and my mother at my father’s right hand, where she always sits, one pale hand curved around a champagne flute as if the glass is part of her evening wear.
She’s not even touched the food in front of her, but the alcohol keeps lowering and rising, a ritual she performs between smiles.
Tonight, six guests have joined us. Men in suits with watchful partners next to them, all waiting for me to say something scandalous about the Tallons over roasted lamb and candlelight.
I keep my knife and fork moving.
“Crowley Junior will be here in the morning, Keira,” my father announces.
I set my fork down and dab the corner of my mouth with a crisp linen napkin. “Why?”
“To take your statement.”
My mother finishes her fourth glass of champagne, and Fionn’s eyes come to mine across the table.
“When did I say I wanted to make a statement?”
My father cocks a brow at me. “A bunch of criminals kidnapped you. We all want justice.”
The servers continue to skirt the table while a guest’s wife touches her pearl earring, someone clears his throat near the far end of the table, and the candle flame nearest to my plate bends in the draft from the open dining room door.
I hold my father’s gaze. “We didn’t discuss this.”
“Saint Tallon dragged you out of our family’s charity gala.”
“I walked beside him actually.”
His grip visibly tightens around his wine glass, though his gaze stays on me, almost mild. “Pedantry does not suit you.”
“She’s been through so much, Alasdair,” my mother says. “Let’s not talk about those uncouth people this evening.”
I’m aware of the pitiful eyes drilling into me, and my mother’s plausible performance. That was her way of containing embarrassment while she’s entertaining.
“You were stolen from us, Keira,” my father repeats. “The Tallons took your consent, and I won’t let anyone disrespect my family.”
A man to my father’s left gives a grunt of approval, then kills it when no one else joins him.
I turn my head and glare at him before I look back at my father. “I have nothing to say to Crowley.”
“It is not a discussion.”
“Clearly not.”
My mother lowers her glass and places a hand over my father’s wrist, not to stop him, not really. More to make her appear supportive from a distance.
“Darling, eat something. You’ve barely touched your plate.”
I stare at the potatoes beside my knife. “I’m not hungry.”
“Shock will do that,” one guest says.
My father’s mouth curves. “She’s had several days to recover from the shock.”
Candlelight hits the base of my mother’s champagne flute as she lifts it again, drinking deeper this time. Her eyes flick toward me, then away, as if looking too directly at me might make her responsible for what she knows.
The man near the end of the table leans forward. “The arrogance of it, taking her to that land of all places.”
My fingers tighten around the knife handle.
Fionn cuts through the meat on his plate and stabs a piece with his fork.
My father sits back, one arm resting along the side of his chair. “What I would have paid to see the look on his face when he realized the deal would never work.”
I keep my eyes on my father. “Why wouldn’t it work?”
He returns my gaze with the patience of a man who always wins. “He pushed me to sign it when it actually needed your signature. You own it.”
For a moment, my breath stalls in my chest, and I swallow hard.
“What do you mean I own it?” I ask, my brows tugging together.
“You’re a Harrington, Keira. Fionn and you will inherit all this someday. I just pressed fast forward on the ownership of that piece of land.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“The land Saint is fighting over belongs to you, Keira.”
I draw a tight breath, my gaze flicking to Fionn, who’s chewing lamb, expressionless. “Since when?”
My father’s chuckle is low, built for rooms full of people who respect his authority and would bow if asked. “Since he took my daughter, thinking he’d get one over on us.”
A heat starts under my ribs and spreads outward. I lose focus on the guests at the table, my peripheral vision going fuzzy. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I’m not part of the game, sweetheart. I’m the game master. I make the rules.”
Saint’s face comes back to me, not the version my father wants me to imagine, furious, humiliated, outmaneuvered. I see him at the old mobile, silent and unreadable, alone after sending me away because he thought I’d played him.
“You used me.”
My mother whispers my name. “Keira.”
I refuse to look at her, my ribs tightening, then push my chair back and stand. “You put the land in my name before the deal was signed, but you didn’t come for me.”
The room stiffens.
I lean forward, my palms flat on the tablecloth. “You knew where I was.”
“Keira,” Fionn warns.
My father holds my gaze over the candlelight. “Sit down.”
“Why didn’t you send someone for me sooner, father?”
My mother empties the last of her champagne and sets the glass down with a small click.
“I sent Riley,” he says.
The lie is so neat it almost earns respect.
Almost.
I turn my head toward Fionn. He’s sitting back in his chair, sipping whiskey.
“No, you didn’t,” I say. “Fionn sent Riley.”
I look back at my father. “Not you.”
Fionn lowers his glass and cocks a brow at me, not used to his sister standing up for herself like this in public.
My father smiles. “I didn’t need to send anyone.”
The room seems to lose a degree of warmth.
“What does that mean?”
“It means your brother did what he was raised to do.” His gaze slides to Fionn, then back to me. “Protect the Harrington name. Protect the asset. Protect the story before someone else controlled it.”
My fingers curl against the tablecloth. “You knew he’d go after me.”
“I knew he wouldn’t sit idle while Saint Tallon thought he was winning.”
He raises his tall-stemmed glass, the flickering light catching the red wine, so it looks like blood.
He takes a slow sip and places it beside his plate. Then he offers me a smile that prickles down my spine.
“Your brother and Riley work for me, sweetheart.” The endearment crawls across the table and leaves dirt under my skin. “And given your Harrington name, you do too.”
“You put it in my name after Saint took me,” I say.
My father’s expression doesn’t change. “Yes.”
“You used me while I was with him.”
“I used what Saint Tallon handed me.”
The answer is so calm it turns my stomach. And that’s when my father’s real face shows.
I always knew he was monstrous to other people. I never believed I’d be one of the people he’d sacrifice.
He put the land in my name and let Saint hang himself trying to reach it.
He didn’t need to order Fionn to act. He only had to trust that my brother loved me enough to make the next move.
My father only had to wait.
But he didn’t count on a Tallon caring about me.
That makes it worse.
My father didn’t risk me because he feared I’d matter to Saint.
He risked me because he was certain I never would.
When I press a hand over the ache in my chest, Fionn’s chair scrapes the floor as he rises.
“How about we go for a walk, Keira?”
My father lifts his knife and fork, ready to eat again. “Good idea, son. Take your sister to get some fresh air; she’s clearly had too much champagne.”
His gaze flicks up, holding mine. “Take your time remembering details on the Tallon family. Crowley will be here first thing.”
My mother lifts a hand toward the champagne bottle, and a server appears at her shoulder before she has to ask. The glass fills. Bubbles rise. Her mouth presses into something that almost resembles a smile for the guests.
“Let’s not waste any more time talking about that family,” she says, raising her glass.
Fionn walks behind the guests and heads for the door, expecting me to follow. Once upon a time, there was a version of me who wouldn’t have dared to argue with my father.
Fionn catches my eye, and the warning in his face is almost brotherly enough to change my mind. I walk around the table and stand beside him, then angle back to the guests.
“You can tell Crowley I met Saint for the first time at the gala,” I say. “I thought he was hot and went home with him for sex. I stayed at his place until I got bored, and then my big brother came to pick me up.”
My mother’s glass drops an inch.
Someone gasps at the far end.
My father’s hand slams on the table. Crystal jumps. Cutlery rattles. A red line of wine shivers up the inside of his glass and slides back down.
“I’ll say nothing of the sort.” His eyes are like fire now, all the dinner-table politeness stripped from his face. “The man will go to prison for kidnapping my daughter.”
I shake my head. “Not if I tell Crowley what really happened in his cabin. I’ll tell him how we fucked in the shower and on the kitchen table.”
A muscle pulses in his jaw. “You’re lying—”
I can hear my blood rushing through my skull, steady and hot, pushing through every expectation to stay meek and obedient. But I’m over letting men decide which version of my character, my name, my story is theirs to manipulate.
“You want to fight over land and history, father,” I say. “Go ahead. But leave me out of it. I’m not interested.”
Fionn’s hand settles at the small of my back, firm enough to get me moving before this turns into something I’ll never come back from.
We leave the dining room with every eye on us and my father’s silence too loud. I realize my outburst crossed a boundary under this roof, and consequences are certain, which is why I need to get far away from Black Heath.
Fionn doesn’t stop until we reach the entrance hall.
“Christ, Keira,” he mutters. “What the fuck was that?”
I pull away from his hand. “That’s me having a voice, Fionn. And now I’m leaving Black Heath behind.”
“You just told a room full of people you went willingly.”
“You know why?” I fold my arms across my chest. “Because if I let them call it kidnapping, he turns me into the bullet that destroys Saint. He makes me the weapon in a war he’s fighting alone.”