SWNOVELS Vicious Hearts: Chapter 33
“I was born this way.”
Back at our place, Una sits on the floor against the back of the couch, wrapped in a blanket and holding a steaming mug of herbal tea. I’m by one of the windows which is open a crack, flicking the silver Zippo in my hand open and shut as the tip of the cigarette glows red.
We haven’t spoken much since she walked in on what she saw earlier.
Not my best moment.
Hardly my worst.
I know something hangs in the balance here. She’s looking at me like she still sees the me that she knows—the man I can appear to be. But the mask has slipped. The façade has cracked. She thought she knew the darkness in me before, but now, she’s seen the true devil that lives under my skin.
No one has ever looked right at that and stayed afterward. Not even my uncle Lorcan.
I take a slow hit of nicotine, gritting my teeth as I drag my gaze back to Una.
“I’m…different, Una. I know you see a monster—”
“I don’t—”
“Yes, you do. Because that’s what I am,” I growl quietly. “I wasn’t the son my father wanted. But I was the one he needed, to have someone to ascend his throne, since that wasn’t in the cards for my older half-brother.”
I look away, eyes gazing into the middle distance.
“At first, they didn’t really know what was the matter with me. I was charming and made friends, but then I’d also hurt or steal from those same friends, seemingly without feeling a single shred of guilt or remorse. My father, cruel tyrant that he was, was proud of this behavior. He said it was proof of my ability to be king, and that I’d be a strong leader. But later, as I got older and the violence in me became harder to contain, he didn’t know what to do with me. Nobody did.”
Una’s brow caves a little, her eyes locked on me as she takes a sip of tea.
“That’s when Lorcan, my mother’s brother, stepped in. He saw pretty quickly what I was—or at least thought he did. And he helped me channel it constructively. Boxing, hunting…anything he could think of to give me an outlet to release the darkness inside me.”
Until he saw too much, that is.
“Is he…” she swallows. “Is he still alive?”
“No.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Me too. But we hadn’t spoken in a very, very long time when he died.”
Her brow knits. “Why not?”
My jaw tightens as I look away. “Because he’d seen the real me. He thought he knew how bad it was, but then he got a good look at the true depths of how different and broken I was.”
“What happened?” She flinches as soon as she says it. “I’m sorry, that’s not my business—”
“Do you want to know?”
She blinks, staring right at me as she nods slowly. “If you want to tell me, yes.”
I don’t know why we’re talking about any of this. No one knows these things about me. Not Neve, not Eilish, not even Castle.
But we’re here now. She’s already seen a monstrous side of me that few ever really have. Castle’s seen me bad. He’s been with me when the savagery has come out. But Una saw a part of me tonight that I keep hidden even from Castle.
The joy of it all. The sheer thrill of the kill.
I know how exhilarating it felt to destroy those pieces of shit in that alley tonight. I know the feeling of release, and the almost sensual thrill of committing acts of violence that brings a savage smile to my face.
Which she saw.
This woman didn’t see me “angry” or “being crazy”.
She saw me at my most sociopathic—blood dripping down my hands and face, glee in my eyes, cloaked in death.
And fucking enjoying it.
And yet, she’s not jumping on a plane and getting as far away from me as she can, like Lorcan did when he found me that one night. She’s not screaming or cowering from me.
She’s still sitting here. She’s looking right at me. She wants to know this part of me.
“There were these two boys at school who were spreading vicious, disgusting rumors about my sister.”
She frowns. “You have a sister?”
“Had. Saoirse. She…passed away young.”
Una’s face crumbles. “I’m so sorry, Cillian.”
I nod. “Anyway, these two pricks were spreading lies about her taking money for sexual favors. It was just stupid teen boy bullshit. But it…” I shake my head. “It got to me. It festered. I did give them a chance. I asked them to stop. But when they doubled down and it got worse…”
I turn to look out the window.
“Cillian…”
“I stalked them home one day, caught them together in one of those pedestrian tunnels under train tracks, and I…”
Cut out their tongues and eyes with a pencil, and then decapitated them both.
“Killed them.”
Some details nobody needs to know.
“Lorcan found me right after it happened, and it pushed him past his limit with me.” I frown. “It was…messy.”
Una swallows.
I stub out my cigarette and then cross the penthouse to the kitchen. I’m washing the smoky smell off my hands and face when I hear her come up behind me.
“You mentioned learning to channel it. That anger in you.”
I turn, toweling off my chin and hands as I lean against the counter.
“How do you? Channel it, I mean?”
“The club, for one.”
Una bristles, her mouth thinning.
“You did ask me about that before.”
She looks away. “Yeah, well, I don’t need to know—”
“You’re the first, actually.”
Slowly she turns to look at me. “What?”
“You asked me about going there and tying girls up. I’ve been to Club Venom once in a while since I moved to New York. But I’d never taken anyone to a private room before.”
“Why me?” she whispers hesitantly.
“Because you looked like prey.”
She looks down at her feet.
“And because I saw at least a flicker of my own monster and darkness in you,” I growl quietly.
Una takes another sip of her tea.
“What else do you do? As an outlet?”
My jaw clenches.
“You hurt people, for one…”
When I still don’t answer, her mouth tightens.
“My father hurt—”
“I am not your father,” I hiss. “I’m not. The people I hurt…” I look away. “The people I hurt deserve it.”
“Says who?”
“Me,” I snarl. “Those men tonight? Besides being fucking serial raping, child abusing trash, they were also bomb makers. I was looking into what happened at the wedding reception.”
She shivers, pulling the blanket around her shoulders a little tighter.
“Some people deserve to be hurt, Una,” I murmur. “And yes, to die. There are monsters, and then there are monsters. We all have a little of the first in us. Some,” I growl, “more than others. But the latter?” My teeth grind. “The latter have no place in society.”
I take a slow breath, looking right at her.
“My father was the latter. A true remorseless monster.”
Why am I telling her this?
Not even Eilish and Neve know about this part of my past. Neither does Rose, Saoirse’s daughter that she was forced to leave with the nuns. Rose, who grew up shielded from the world and the Kildare family because I wanted her safe. She and I aren’t close, but we’ve reconnected now that she’s grown up and married. But even she doesn’t know the real, full story of her mother.
No one needs to know this story. And yet, it just starts to tumble from my mouth to Una. Like I feel compelled to open every dark corner of my past up to her.
Like I want her to know everything.
“My father was a fiend.”
She stiffens. “You don’t have to—”
“He sexually abused my sister her entire teen years. She finally, finally got out and ran off with some guy. But she was back nine months later, pregnant and alone, when the piece of shit abandoned her. My father made her give up the baby, and it was the last straw for her.”
My gaze drops.
“She slit her wrists in the bathtub. And when I got back from the hospital, where I’d taken her in the vain hope she could be saved, I found my mother, dead at my father’s hands.”
Una’s face goes white. She puts her mug down, and steps toward me to take my hand in hers.
“I’m…Cillian…I’m so fucking sorry.”
“We all die.” My gaze hardens. “But it wasn’t her turn yet. So, I made it his turn. Slowly.”
Her hand drops from mine, the horror obvious on her face.
And just like that, once again, someone has looked too deep. Someone has peered too far into the darkness.
Gritting my teeth, I begin to walk away—to give her the space I’m sure she’s craving between her and the monster she’s truly seen now.
But I’m stopped when small, lithe arms wrap around my middle. When her tiny frame presses to me, and her soft lips kiss my back.
“I don’t think you’re a monster.”
“Then you haven’t been listening.”
“Do you feel things? Emotions?”
I’m quiet for a minute before I turn. Her arms stay close around me.
“I feel them differently than other people. When I hurt people. When I kill them”…my eyes gaze deeply into hers…“there’s no regret. I don’t feel what a human being should feel when they take a life, even a bad life.”
Una chews on her lip thoughtfully. “What about other emotions?”
“Like what?
“Like…” Her cheeks tinge with pink as her gaze drops. “Like what do you feel when you look at me?”
“Several things,” I rasp darkly.
She shivers. “Like…?”
“Like…I want to shield you from the world. Like I want to hurt people who wish to harm you.”
Una’s face flushes as her eyes raise to mine.
“Like even the idea of anyone laying their hands on you makes me see blood,” I snarl.
She shivers. “Do you want to hurt me?”
“I want to free you.”
“No, I mean…” She shifts, her eyes darting over my face. Searching. “I mean do you want to hurt-hurt me.” Her eyes hold mine. “Do you want to inflict your anger on me?”
There’s no hesitation.
“No. Only in the ways you want me to hurt you.”
“Good hurt?” she whispers.
I nod.
“Do you want to chop me into a million little pieces?”
The corner of my mouth lifts. “No.”
“Good.”
She smiles.
So do I. When she reaches up to cup my face, I don’t flinch quite so hard this time.
“I guess you’re not a monster after all.” She shrugs. “Sorry to burst your bubble.”
I grin as I lower my mouth to hers and lose myself in her lips.