Page 2 of Conall's Reign

My father thought he was warning me, but he had no idea. Maxim looked around the table defiantly, and at that moment, I saw something unexpected—a potential ally. A plan began to form, the pieces shifting into place neatly and orderly in my mind.

My father whispered instructions, his voice a low growl. My heartbeat synced with the bass from the stage, each pulse measured and controlled. I could break these promises one day—I would.

“Conall,” my father prodded. The word sliced through my focus. I forced my hands to remain still despite the urge to align the contract on the table and adjust the pen that sat slightly askew.

“Are ye ready?” he demanded.

I nodded once, precisely. “Yes,” I replied, my voice steady.

And with that single word, I stepped closer to the abyss.

CHAPTER ONE

conall

AGE 17

The air feltthick and suffocating as I stood in the dim light of the living room, shadows stretching across the walls like fingers of a terrible nightmare. My mother’s lifeless body lay sprawled at odd angles on the floor, her face frozen in a grimace of pain—a sight I couldn’t have prepared for despite all the horrors I had witnessed over the years. At that moment, the world became a crystal-clear reflection of everything I loathed.

Cormac O’Kelly, my father, had become a tyrant in every sense of the word. I had always known him to be brutal, a man who ruled through violence and fear, but this? This was an all-consuming darkness that I couldn’t comprehend. My mother had been a delicate woman with strawberry blonde hair and laughing blue eyes, even amidst my father’s rages. To extinguish those bright attributes took a black soul.

Picking up her hand as I crouched over her blood, I closed her eyes with a sigh. Margaret O’Kelly had deserved more. The enormity of his crime pressed down on my chest, a weight I felt I couldn’t bear. It was hard to breathe with the knowledge that he was the architect of her death, the puppeteer who had yanked the strings of our lives every year into chaos.

I was seventeen, yet the weight of my siblings felt as heavy as an anchor. Cora needed me. Paddy and Brody depended on me. A shattered family would crumble. I couldn’t let that happen. I wouldn’t. Not ever. I had to keep them safe, to shield them from the behemoth that was our father.

My hands trembled as I clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms while reminding myself to breathe steadily and slowly. Four counts in… hold… and three counts out. This ritual momentarily calmed the chaos swirling in my mind. It was a ritual I had begun to rely on recently for calming myself. But now, as the shadows danced, I could feel it slipping away, fragments of sanity scattering like dust in the air.

I glanced back at my mother one last time, etching her face into memory even as my heart howled with grief. The sight of her battered form stoked the flames of anger igniting within me. The façade of calm I had constructed over the years began to splinter.

I made my way to the stairs, each creak of the wood beneath my shoes almost a warning. We lived in a garish mansion bought with blood money, but it was old, which meant creaky floors.

I opened the first door to the boy’s room, where Paddy and Brody slept next to each other in rooms that overlooked a courtyard. My heart pounded with urgency as I shook them in turn.

“Wake up, everyone. It’s time to go,” I said softly, my voice barely above a whisper. They stirred, blinking their eyes to clear the remnants of dreams.

“Con? Where are we going?” Paddy rubbed the sleep from his eyes. His innocence stung like salt in a wound. A weight of responsibility unfurled in my chest as I rubbed their backs while they woke.

“Somewhere safe,” I replied, my tone steadfast despite the dread gnawing at the back of my mind. I needed them to trust that I’d do the right thing, even as the fear twisted around my thoughts like barbed wire.

I helped them out of bed, two small figures against the backdrop of a crumbling home. I gathered their essentials—clothes carelessly crammed into a worn backpack—and led them down the hall toward the front door.

Time felt distorted, stretching painfully slowly as we descended the stairs. I could hear my heart pounding frantically, drowning out the faint sounds of the world outside.

As we stepped into the night, the chill of the air cut through the heaviness I carried inside. I led Paddy and Brody to the car, which I would have to ditch later.

“Stay here while I go back for Cora. Be sure to lie on the floorboards. We’re hiding.”

“From Da?” Paddy asked, his eyes solemn and knowing.

“Yes, from Da. I’m taking you away.”

There are no arguments from them. No tears. In the O’Kelly household, you needed to have tough skin and be older than your years to survive.

Leaving them in the car, I rushed back for Cora. I wasn’t sure how much time I had before my father returned home with his second-in-command — likely to clean up the mess he’d made.

I had barely made it into the foyer when the door crashed open.

My father stood there, a dark silhouette against the flickering light. Rage radiated from him like heat waves in the desert. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” His voice was grim as he stepped forward, and I felt the world tilting and shifting under the weight of our confrontation.

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