Epilogue #2
"Welcome to the family, girl. Properly this time."
It was as close to a blessing as the woman would give. Róisín accepted it with a nod.
The reception continued. Drinks flowed. Conversations happened—some genuine, most strategic. Belfast's underworld did what it did best: adapted, negotiated, survived.
Declan worked the room like the professional he was—shaking hands, making promises, ensuring everyone understood the new order.
He caught Finn's eye once, jerked his chin toward a group in the corner that looked nervous.
Finn nodded. They'd deal with it later. Tonight was about showing unity. Tomorrow was for handling problems.
By midnight, the crowd had thinned. The important conversations had been had. The alliances had been reaffirmed. The empire had been reminded who ruled it.
Róisín stood on the balcony overlooking the River Lagan, champagne forgotten in her hand, watching the city lights reflect on dark water. Belfast stretched out before her—scarred, beautiful, brutal, hers.
Finn joined her, sliding an arm around her waist. "What are you thinking?"
"That we did it." She leaned into him. "We actually did it."
"Aye." He pressed a kiss to her temple. "We did."
"They said we'd destroy each other."
"We did," he agreed. "And then we rebuilt."
She turned in his arms, looped hers around his neck. "Think it'll last?"
"The peace?" He considered. "Aye. Long as we're the ones enforcing it."
"That's not peace, Finn. That's fear."
"In Belfast?" He grinned. "Same thing, love."
She laughed, shook her head. "We're terrible people."
"Aye," he agreed easily. "But we're terrible together. That's what matters."
Behind them, through the glass doors, the last of the guests filtered out. Declan was coordinating the cleanup with the event staff, ever efficient. The night wound down the way all Belfast nights did—with everyone still breathing and that, in itself, counted as victory.
"Come on," Róisín said, taking his hand. "Let's go home."
Home was the estate now. The one that had been O'Callaghan for generations and was now something new. Something unified. The gates bore both family crests—the Morrigan's crow and the Malloy thorn—intertwined like lovers or fighters, depending on how you looked at it.
The bedroom was dark when they entered. Quiet. Safe. The kind of safety they'd built with blood and bullets and bodies left in their wake.
Finn undressed her slowly—not with the hunger of earlier months, but with the comfortable intimacy of people who knew every scar, every story, every secret. The dress pooled at her feet. His jacket followed. They climbed into bed like they'd done it a thousand times.
Because they had.
Róisín settled against his chest, his arm around her waist, her fingers tracing idle patterns on his forearm.
"Finn?"
"Aye?"
"Do you ever regret it? Any of it?"
He was quiet for a moment. Thinking. "No," he said finally. "Not the choices that led here. Not you. Never you."
"Even when I stabbed you?"
"Even then." He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. "You were protecting your family. I'd have done the same."
"Your da hates me."
"My da's an old man stuck in old ways." Finn's voice was firm. "He'll come around or he won't. Doesn't change anything."
"Doesn't it bother you?"
"Not as much as losing you would." He turned her to face him in the darkness. "I chose you, love. Over my father's approval. Over tradition. Over everything. I'd do it again."
Her eyes softened. "I love you."
"I love you too, wee Rose."
They kissed—soft, easy, certain—and settled back into the quiet. Outside, Belfast continued its dangerous dance. Inside, two people who'd been enemies, lovers, partners, and survivors rested.
The month of Valentine's had started with blood.
It ended with a crown.
Fourteen days. That's all it was supposed to take. A Valentine's Day arrangement to unite two warring families and stop the bleeding on Belfast's streets. Fourteen days to pretend. To negotiate. To play the part.
Róisín Malloy had entered that arrangement with a knife at her hip and her brother's ghost at her back. She'd entered it hating Finnian O'Callaghan with every breath in her body.
She'd survived assassination attempts, betrayals, her father's schemes, and the weight of a city that wanted to see her break.
She'd played her violin in a chapel full of ghosts and reclaimed the music they'd tried to take from her.
She'd stood beside a man she'd once tried to kill and built an empire that would've made their ancestors weep—with pride or horror, she didn't particularly care.
Fourteen days had become three months.
Three months had become forever.
Belfast was quiet now. The kind of quiet that came from predators well-fed and enemies well-buried. The Thorns and the Morrigan Ring operated as one entity under two crowns, and no one—not the PSNI, not the rival families, not the ghosts of the past—dared challenge it.
Róisín O'Callaghan, née Malloy, did not survive the month.
She conquered it.
And Belfast—brutal, beautiful, bleeding Belfast—bowed its head and called her queen.