Page 39 of Sins and Salvation

She throws the glass against the wall. It shatters, sending shards across the floor. "Don't talk about him like that!" She idolized him, and he made her think she was special.

"Why defend him? He treated you like shit. Treated all of us like we were nothing but pawns."

"He made us strong."

"He made us broken."

Siobhan paces the small cabin, agitated. "You think you're so different? Better than the rest of us? You've got blood on your hands too, brother. I know what you did in Barcelona, in London. The fights that weren't just fights."

"I'm not denying what I am."

"And what's that?"

"A Donovan." I meet her eyes. "But I want more for my son."

She laughs, bitter and sharp. "There is no 'more.' There's just survival. Power. Control." She picks up her phone. "Time to call big brother. See what he'll trade for your life."

I hear her call Cormac, making demands. Territory. Money. Recognition as equal partner in the family business. Her voice rises as she argues, revealing the desperation beneath her anger.

When she hangs up, her face is flushed. "He says he needs proof of life."

She takes a photo of me, the flash temporary blinding. "And now we wait."

Hours pass. The pain in my shoulder becomes a dull throb as blood dries and stiffens the bandage. Siobhan drinks more, growing more unstable with each glass. She rants about our father, about Cormac, about family loyalty—a twisted view warped by years of manipulation. She truly is mad in the head.

I work at the zip ties while she talks, rubbing them against a rough edge of the chair behind my back. The plastic cuts into my wrists, blood making them slick.

"You could join me," she says suddenly. "We could take Cormac down together. Split everything fifty-fifty."

"I don't want any part of it."

"Liar. It's in your blood."

"I want my son. My girl. That's all."

She snorts. "That nurse? Really, Declan? She's so... ordinary."

"That's why I love her."

Siobhan's face darkens. "Love is a fantasy. Power is real."

"You sound like Dad."

"Good."

Night falls. Siobhan's phone remains silent. No word from Cormac. She grows more agitated, pacing and muttering. I keep working at the ties, feeling them weaken slightly.

She points a gun at my head. "Maybe I should just kill you. Send your body to Cormac in pieces."

"You won't."

"Why not?"

"Because then you have nothing to bargain with."

She lowers the gun. "True." She checks her phone again. "Where are his men? He should have sent someone by now."

"Maybe he doesn't care if I live or die."

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