PROLOGUE
Arden - present day
I should feel disgust at the knife I’m holding in my hand, but all I feel is relief. Relief that I’ve finally taken back what belongs to me, to us. My deceased father’s skin might be wrapped around the handle, the butterfly tattoo he wore inked across his throat now stretched thin and faded with time. It should sicken me. It doesn’t. This knife and my father’s murder has become a symbol of who and what we are.
His death birthed us: the Deana-dhe.
Arden Dálaigh.
Carrick O’Shea.
Lorcan Sheehan.
Brothers in arms. Purveyors of truths and lies. Dealers of Debts. Legends.
We’re the men criminals fear above all else.
Our power comes not from brute force, though we have that in spades. It comes from truths hidden and lies uncovered. Everyone has secrets they wish to hide from the world, and we’re very adept at unearthing those truths and bartering with them. You need information, we have it. You want to blackmail your enemy, we can help you. For a price.
No money crosses hands. We don’t deal in property either, or precious gems and metals.
We deal in debts.
A truth for a debt of our choosing that we will cash in when the time is right.
It could be a year from now, five, ten, longer, but don’t get complacent, we never forget a deal made. We will always call in that debt, and if you refuse to deliver on your part of the deal? Well, put it this way, death isn’t the worst thing we can do to you.
Cynthia O’Farrell knows that better than anyone.
1
Cyn - fifteen years old
“Your room is situated in the east wing of the dormitory. Breakfast is at seven am sharp. The school day begins at eight-thirty am. Your father has already arranged for your personal belongings to be delivered. They’re in your room. Tomorrow you will meet your study partners and your therapist,” the school’s headmistress, Ms Weatherby, reels off as she strides in front of me along the stone corridor in her low heels, plaid skirt and high-neck, ruffled shirt.
I never wanted to come to Silver Oaks Institute, a school for the psychologically damaged, but my father had other ideas, and despite begging him not to send me, he did so anyway. What Niall O’Farrell wants he gets. Always.
“Do you understand?”
Of course I don’t answer. I can’t answer.
She stops walking, looking over her shoulder and down her nose at me. “Do you understand?” she repeats, her posh accent grating to my ears.
I nod. Yes.
Pulling in a sharp breath through her flared nostrils she nods. “Curfew is nine pm. Anyone caught out of their room after this time will be punished.”
If I could speak, I would question what kind of punishment she’s talking about. But as I can’t, I simply follow her, my trainer clad footsteps quiet where hers are loud.
She stops at the end of the corridor and pushes open a heavy wooden door. It squeaks on its iron hinges, the sound making my teeth go on edge. My face must pale, because she gives me a fake smile before stepping into the dimly lit hallway beyond.
“Old buildings like this are full of noises. You shouldn’t worry, it’s the quiet that you need to fear.”
My eyebrows draw together in a frown, and I expect her to laugh, telling me that she’s joking. She doesn’t.
A shiver tracks down my spine at the way she smirks in the darkness, and whilst I’m not easily scared, I am cautious enough to know that I need to avoid this woman at all costs. Which is a problem, given I’m alone with her right now.
“We’re almost to your room,” she says, another smile swarming up her face like wasps across discarded ice-cream. It should be comforting to know I’m finally going to be able to rest after spending most of the day travelling, but it isn’t. Not when she holds the key to this wing of the dormitory.
I give her a tight smile. The second I’m alone I’m texting my father. There’s no way I’m staying here. No way. This isn’t where damaged teenagers go to get fixed, this is where they go to die, and I’m not willing to end my life at the hands of some psycho headmistress with a chilling smile and a penchant for cheap perfume and plaid material.
“Well, come along then,” she insists.
But despite my fears, just like the obedient girl I was brought up to be, I follow her.
Like everywhere else I’ve passed through today, this portion of the dormitory is quiet. In fact, since I’ve arrived at the institute, I haven’t seen another student. Not one. Perhaps they’re all in class or therapy sessions with tweed wearing, cigar smoking psychotherapists.
Or perhaps they’re all dead, a soft voice inside my head whispers.
Clamping my lips shut on the scream that wants to break free from my chest, I fold my arms tighter around myself. Keeping my eyes fixed firmly on the back of Ms Weatherby, I force my feet to move and remind myself that I am the daughter of Niall O’Farrell, a man no one, especially not some uptight, freaky schoolmistress, wants to get on the wrong side of.
He’s fearsome, and has a reputation that stretches across the whole of Southern Ireland and the United Kingdom. My father is not someone you choose to mess with, and he’s certainly not someone who’ll stand any harm against his only child. Even if that child is a disappointment, as well as a freak.
“This is your room,” Ms Weatherby says, stopping outside of a door halfway down the hallway. A little further along is another door, and I can’t help but wonder who my neighbour is.
“Arden Dálaigh.”
I frown, my gaze meeting Ms Weatherby’s.
“That’s his room. I’m assuming that’s what you wanted to know?”
I keep my expression neutral and wait for further information. Usually, when someone is greeted with silence they fill it with the sound of their own voice. Ms Weatherby is no different.
“His father was murdered, and he went off the rails, so to speak. I would steer well clear of him if I were you. He’s trouble, that one. No amount of therapy will fix that young man, not an ounce of empathy in his body. Lost it the day his father died.”
Something about the dismissive way she talks about this boy I’ve never met and the trauma he’s so obviously been through, angers me. Most days I’m glad I can’t speak, but there are occasions where I wish I had a voice so that I can really tell people what’s on my mind.
Bitch.
“There’s no need for that look,” she says, waving her hand in my face as she scowls at me. “I’m only telling you what you’ll find out soon enough. You’ll thank me for the heads up. Steer clear.”
If Arden is someone I need to stay away from, it begs the question why she roomed me next to him. I think Ms Weatherby is the one without any empathy, or any human decency for that matter, or maybe she just has a really messed-up sense of humour.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it. Here’s your key. Don’t lose it,” she instructs with a sniff as she drops the key into my open palm.
Then she’s gone.
I heave out a long breath then unlock my bedroom door and push it open, coming face to face with a boy lounging on my bed, smoking a cigarette. At a guess I’d say he was no more than a year older than me, if that.