Chapter 2 Ciara

The O’Connell estate was never quiet, though silence was all I seemed to carry. Laughter echoed down the marble halls, sharp and bright, but it never reached me. It belonged to Isolde. It always did.

She was the jewel of the family, the daughter my father paraded before the world. Every smile rehearsed, every gesture polished until it gleamed. My brothers adored her, my stepmother worshipped her, and my father… my father looked at her without flinching.

He could not look at me the same way.

When his eyes did find me, they slipped away almost instantly, as though the sight of me burned. I reminded him too much of her — my mother. The woman he had loved once, the woman he had lost. My face carried her shadow, and for that, I was a wound he refused to touch.

Isolde knew it. She wielded it like a blade. Her words were never shouted, never crude. They were soft, sweetly spoken, but sharpened to cut.

“You should be grateful,” she would say, brushing past me in silks I would never wear. “Father keeps you here at all. Most men would have sent you away.”

I learned to keep my head down, to fold myself into corners where her light did not reach. To be invisible was safer than to be seen.

But invisibility has its cost.

At dinners, I sat at the edge of the table, my presence tolerated but never acknowledged. When guests came, I was introduced as the other daughter, a shadow beside Isolde’s brilliance. My brothers laughed at her jokes, praised her wit, and when I spoke, they did not hear me.

Yet silence taught me things they never learned. I saw the cracks beneath their performance, the hunger behind their smiles. I knew the weight of being overlooked, and I carried it like armor.

They thought me fragile. They thought me forgettable.

But shadows endure where jewels shatter.

Dinner was served in the grand dining hall, the table stretched long enough to remind me how far I sat from them. Crystal glasses caught the light, silver cutlery gleamed, and laughter filled the air — but none of it belonged to me.

Declan sat at the head, his presence commanding even in silence. Tonight, though, he was not silent. He was pleased. The meeting with the Riccis had gone as he intended, or so he believed.

“The engagement party will be announced soon,” he said, his voice carrying easily down the table. “It will be the event of the season. Our families united.”

Isolde’s eyes lit up, her smile perfectly rehearsed. “I’ll need to start dress shopping immediately,” she said, her tone bubbling with excitement. “Something elegant, something that will make the Riccis see me as their equal.”

My brothers laughed, chiming in with praise. “You’ll look stunning, Isolde,” one said. “The Ricci heir won’t know what hit him.”

Another leaned back, smirking in my direction. “And what about Ciara? Will she even be there, or will she hide in the corner like always?”

Heat rose in my cheeks, but I kept my gaze on my plate. I had learned long ago that answering only fed their cruelty.

Declan’s fork paused midair. His eyes flicked to me, sharp and fleeting, before returning to his meal. “She will be there,” he said flatly. “And she will stay quiet.”

The words landed heavier than any insult. Not a daughter, not a participant, not even a shadow with her own will. Just an obligation. A presence to be managed.

Isolde’s laughter rang out again, sweet and sharp. “Of course she will. She wouldn’t dare spoil my moment.”

I lowered my gaze, the taste of food turning to ash. They thought me invisible, a ghost at their table. But ghosts see everything. And I saw the cracks forming, even if they did not.

Later, when the house had quieted and the echoes of laughter faded, I sat alone in my room. The walls felt closer here, the silence heavier. I traced the edges of the photograph tucked into a book on my nightstand — not of me, but of my mother. The only proof I carried that she had ever existed.

I wondered what Matteo Ricci was like. Men like him were born into power, raised to command. He would never want someone like me. I was invisible, a shadow in my own home. A nobody.

The thought pressed against my chest until it hurt. Perhaps it was better this way. Better to remain unseen than to be broken by the weight of expectations.

The door creaked open without a knock. Isolde stepped inside, her perfume filling the air before her words did. She leaned against the frame, her smile sharp in the dim light.

“You should remember your place, Ciara,” she said softly, almost sweetly. “Men like Matteo Ricci don’t choose girls like you. You’re nothing. Just like your mother.”

Her words slid into me like ice, cold and deliberate. I kept my gaze on the floor, refusing to give her the satisfaction of tears.

Isolde’s laughter was quiet, cruel. "Keep quiet at the party and don’t embarrass us—that’s all you’re good for. If you so much as glance at Matteo, you’ll regret it. Don’t get in my way; I can make things much worse for you if I choose to. We wouldn’t want you ending up like Mommy, now would we?"

She left as quickly as she had arrived, the door closing with a finality that seemed louder than her voice.

Alone again, I pressed my hand to the photograph. My mother’s eyes stared back at me, soft yet unyielding. I know my stepmother had something to do with my mom’s illness spreading so fast. She was only at stage one, and the doctors were confident she’d beat it. No one could explain why it advanced so quickly. I was just nine when she died and didn’t understand what was happening. Siobhan had been hired as my mother’s personal maid, though I later learned my father only brought her in because she was his mistress. He refuses to see what’s right in front of him. I know Siobhan killed my mother, but I have no proof—and even if I did, my father and brother wouldn’t believe me.

A nobody, they called me. A shadow.

But shadows endure.