38. Deargán
DEARGáN
Iclosed the diary slowly, letting the leather cover fall shut beneath my palm.
Now she looked calm and unbothered.
But her initial reaction replayed in my mind.
Her sharp intake of breath. Her step toward the desk. Her outreached hand.
Recognition had flickered across her face for a fraction of a second, quick enough that a lesser observer might have missed it.
Or perhaps it had been discomfort. The purple diary stood out sharply against the black palette of the room, a single discordant color placed like a deliberate error.
People reacted to wrongness as often as memory.
The data remained inconclusive. It could have been a false positive. I refused to draw conclusions from one variable.
Not yet.
But I knew to look now.
I decided to escalate her surveillance.
Later, I sat behind my desk and opened the laptop with deliberate calm. The screen flickered to life and a small grid of black windows filled the display.
I had installed the cameras myself.
Three of them.
One hidden inside the chandelier above the bed.
One buried in the ventilation grate above the wardrobe.
One fixed into the far corner of the ceiling, painted white and hidden within the ornate cornice.
Each angle captured a different piece of her room.
Every movement.
Every whisper.
Every unguarded moment she believed she was alone.
A faint tension tightened at the hinge of my jaw as soon as the feed stabilized.
She was not alone.
I selected a camera angle and the image expanded until Liath’s bed filled the screen.
Dervla was cuddled up in the single bed with her, her arm wrapped around Liath’s waist.
Too close.
Too comfortable.
My jaw tightened, my blood burning.
That position should have belonged to me.
Her pain and secrets were mine to manage, mine to extract, mine to have.
Dervla was providing a kind of safety I needed to be.
But something else bothered me. Something else wasn’t right. I leaned forward, squinting at the screen.
Liath’s head rested against Dervla’s shoulder.
She was comfortable.
Too comfortable.
Rua Lasair did not seek comfort from other patients.
My posture straightened, my chest tightening. I turned up the volume in my headphones.
They were talking in low voices.
Her soft Irish lilt said distinctly, “It was my diary. He stole my diary.”
The words hit like a punch to the gut, sharp enough to steal air. The office fell silent around me. Heat spread through my chest.
She knew exactly who she was.
She had known the entire time.
She was faking being Rua.
All this time I had believed my methods had worked.
She had been playing me. A cold, sharp shock paralyzed my lungs. I had built the trap, baited it, controlled every variable, only to realize I was the one sitting inside it.
A laugh escaped, half awe, half madness.
She had fooled me.
She had sat across from me while I believed I was dismantling her mind and she let me believe I was winning.
Clever girl.
My dick swelled, pressing painfully against the front of my trousers. Need tightened low in my body, an intrusive and unwelcome response that threatened my rationality.
I would deal with it now before it got out of hand again.
I leaned into the screen as I palmed my cock, the ache turning feral as I traced my finger over her body on the screen, imagining how I’d like to pin her down.
Breaking her would still be possible. I was not a man who gave up easily. Or gave up at all.
But breaking her would destroy the very thing that made her valuable.
Intelligence.
Resilience.
Defiance.
A mind sharp enough to survive my experiments could become a weapon.
Perhaps I did not have to destroy Liath. Perhaps I could keep her.
Perhaps Liath could remain. But under my direction. Under my guidance. A kind of partner in the work I had begun.
Pleasure surged through me and my cock twitched in my hand at the thought of having her working at my side instead of under my control.
Yes, she would be my soldier, not just my pawn.
At that thought I came, pleasure swift and sharp through my body.
I allowed myself to sag over my desk for a moment before I snatched up a tissue and cleaned myself up.
Good, now that was taken care of.
I shoved the filthy, lingering guilt aside and turned my eyes back to the screen. To my clever, clever Liath.
She was ready for the next step.
Dervla’s fingers brushed Liath’s hair back and a sharp pulse of irritation cut through me before it sharpened into a realization.
Dervla had become a variable I could no longer ignore. She had become too great an influence on Liath. A refuge.
I paused the footage and Dervla’s hand remained frozen against Liath’s hair, a still image of misplaced intimacy.
I studied it thoughtfully.
Dervla would have to go.
I would have to relocate her to where she could not get in the way.
A moment of guilt surfaced, thin and sharp. It would hurt her. It would change her, permanently.
But I crushed the guilt down. I was long past being a good man, and Dervla was a necessary casualty in a war she didn’t even know was being fought around her. What would happen to her would be tragic and unfortunate. But it was for the greater good. It had to be done.
One day Liath would understand.
I closed the laptop slowly with a soft click.
My hand rested against the lid, pressure steady, as if I could contain the mess inside my body through force alone.
I needed Liath isolated. No Dervla. No friends. No allies.
She could have no one to turn to except me.
A smile found its way back to my mouth as my next steps formed.
“You’re far more interesting than I thought, Liath.”
Her name lingered on my tongue.
“Let’s see how long your performance lasts when you’re on your own.”