Chapter 4 #2
He wants to challenge me, and I don’t blame him. He is the one who brought this entire arsing thing to our door. He is older, wiser and can probably read documents from two hundred years ago, but… this is my legacy.
I hold his gaze, daring him to push it. A muscle ticks in his jaw, but after a tense moment, he gives a short, sharp nod and withdraws his hand.
I don’t release his wrist until he’s fully backed off.
My fingers, still trembling slightly from adrenaline, reach for the parchment.
The wax seal cracks under my thumbnail with a satisfying snap.
I carefully unroll the document, the old paper stiff and fragile.
The script is a looping, elegant scrawl, the ink faded to a rusty brown. I squint, trying to decipher the words.
“Holy shit,” I breathe, my eyes scanning the document again to make sure I’m not hallucinating.
“What is it?” Cillian asks, his voice tight.
“It’s not a key to St. Bart’s,” I say, looking up at Alex, then at Iain. “It’s the deed.”
The words hang in the air, heavy and impossible. Iain moves closer, peering at the document over my shoulder.
“She’s right. It’s the deed to the land, the buildings, the artefacts, the books, everything.”
“How?” I mutter. “How did he swing this past the founding members?”
“With the clause,” Alex says. “The Gannon descendant to marry a founding member descendant. It was a race for the ultimate prize, a way for Ardal to cut the dead weight and have his legacy tied to the strongest family.”
“And your ancestors just so happened to kill off the other competitors,” I grit out.
He beams at me. “Never go up against a Rhodes, you will lose.”
“Is that how you know Axl will be okay?”
His gaze softens slightly. “Always.”
I nod, hoping he’s right. “What’s the key for?”
“Who knows?” Iain says. “Clearly something on the campus of St. Bart’s.”
“There are a dozen things this could fit,” Cillian says, “from the old gates to the original doors in the library. We’ll have to make a catalogue and go around trying it.”
“The old gates? The ones at the front of the main building?” I ask.
He nods.
“That would make sense. The literal key to St. Bart’s.”
“I think you’ll find that Ardal Gannon was anything but sensible,” Alex says.
“True,” I mutter. “This is an elaborate game that has been played out over hundreds of years.”
“And you and Axl are the winners,” Ciar says. “Do you have your birth certificate?”
I frown at him. “No, why?”
“You’re gonna need it,” he mutters.
“Where is it?” Cillian asks.
“With my mother,” I say, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. “In her flat. In Dublin.”
The room goes quiet for a second. The idea of me having a mother, a flat, a life before this, seems to hang in the air like a bad smell.
“Right,” Cillian says, his expression unreadable. “We’ll go get it.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I’ll go. You can’t just turn up to a council estate in Dublin. You’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”
“You’re not going alone,” Ciar says, pulling me against his side possessively with a soft grunt.
“A rather indelicate question, my dear,” Alex says, adopting his Marquess tone instead of badass mafia royalty. “Is Oisin Gannon even listed as your father?”
My blood chills. “No. No, he isn’t.”
“So how did you know you were a Gannon?” Cillian asks a damn good question and one that I don’t want to replay.
“Oisin told me. About a month before he died, he tracked me down in South London for a chat.”
“And you believed him because...?” Ciar asks.
I glare at him. “Are you disputing it?”
He holds his hand up. “No, I’m questioning what proof he gave you to convince you.”
“He showed me a picture,” I say, my voice low and tight, the memory scraping at me like broken glass.
“Of him and my mother holding me, back before she was a bitter drunk. She was smiling. My mum had the same photo, but she cut him off it.” I swallow the lump in my throat, hating the vulnerability, hating that they’re all staring at me.
“And then he told me things about her, about me, that no one else could have known.”
My gaze locks with Ciar’s, challenging him to question me further. “When I went back and screamed it in her face, she didn’t deny it. She just threw a bottle at my head and told me I was a curse, just like him.”
The study is silent for a beat, the ugly truth of my past hanging between us.
Ciar’s expression softens, the hard edges of his suspicion melting away into something that looks dangerously like regret.
He doesn’t apologise, but his hand finds mine, his thumb stroking over my knuckles in a silent truce.
“You need a DNA test,” Alex says after a beat. “You know you do, before you start yelling at me. Will Cian oblige?”
I shrug. “You’d have to ask him.”
“No, girlie, you have to ask him,” Iain chides me.
“This is getting too complicated and weird,” I snap. “Whoever took Axl can have St. Bart’s!” I turn on my heel and bolt from the room, knowing it’s not going to be as easy as that.