19. Connor
CONNOR
D ark walnut paneling stretches from floor to ceiling in my brother's study, interrupted only by brass sconces that throw long shadows across the worn carpet.
The table's been polished but not perfectly.
Cigarette burns and water stains remain, etched into the wood like scars that never healed.
The past never really leaves this room—it watches from the corners like a ghost ready to haunt you.
Ronan sits at the head of the table, the picture of composed authority.
His shoulders square under a tailored charcoal jacket, his hands loose on the table top, but I can see the tension in them.
Every so often, one finger moves, the smallest twitch, like he’s keeping time with a clock only he hears.
I sit to his right, one chair removed. It’s a calculated distance—visible loyalty without the implication of command.
Across from us, Seamus Fitzpatrick settles in with the quiet confidence of a man who believes the war is already won.
His suit is flawless, his tie a deep, blood red.
Next to him, Callum throws himself into the chair like it belongs to him.
With one boot hooked around the leg, an elbow over the back, he takes up more space than necessary.
His folder rests untouched on the table, a prop waiting for the right moment.
The silence stretches long enough to become its own form of dominance. No one breaks it. Not until Ronan chooses to.
Ronan clears his throat, setting his elbows on the table, his voice calm but edged with purpose. "We came here to talk terms of peace because there’s more at stake than just our lines in the dirt. If we keep bleeding each other, we won’t last long enough for the Russians to finish what we started."
Seamus lifts his chin, folding his hands together in front of himself, his expression unmoved.
"Your men pushed onto our docks eight nights ago.
You cornered three of ours behind warehouse six and left two of them dead.
So if we're already bleeding, don't come in here pretending you're the one offering peace. What you’re doing now is damage control. "
Ronan doesn’t blink. His fingers tap once on the wood. "Would our retaliation be necessary if you were staying in your own territory?"
Callum laughs under his breath, not bothering to hide the condescension. “Neither did your men. Let’s not pretend your side showed up with clean hands.” He throws his hands up as he speaks and displays how little self-restraint he has. He could learn a few things from his sister.
I sit forward, resting both forearms on the table, grounding myself against the need to punch something. “Our men went in armed because we had reason to. They were there to ensure our shipment came through clean and to send a message. We didn’t pull the trigger first."
Callum turns his gaze on me, eyes half-lidded. “Territory is always contested. You know that as well as I do.”
“It wasn’t last month. Your people are pushing past agreed lines, and you’re calling it oversight.” Ronan's voice ticks up a bit in volume, and Seamus runs a hand over his face.
“We’re correcting soft boundaries, O'Rourke. You've been pushing them for years." He's upset, but his tactics won't work on our family. That's why we've been reviewing our maps. The Fitzpatricks are inching too close.
Ronan steps in before I do something I’ll regret. “We’re not here to debate the map. We’re here to avoid escalation neither side can afford.”
Seamus rests his hands over each other methodically. His tone is even as he says, “Lines were blurred. We acknowledge that. But if this truce is going to mean anything, those lines need to be redrawn, and this time, they need to hold.”
Callum finally moves. He shoves the folder forward and flips it open with a flick of his wrist. Black-and-white images spread across the polished wood—satellite photos and zoomed-in surveillance stills showing trucks parked near the edge of the dockyard, men standing guard beside them, and the loading bay doors of a Fitzpatrick warehouse left wide open.
“Your people near one of our warehouses,” he says.
I glance at the images. “Those aren’t our trucks. Wrong build, wrong guards, and no insulation on the undercarriage. Whoever they are, they’re not ours," Ronan says, but I see the similarities. Still, he's right. They're not ours. Someone is impersonating us to cause trouble.
Seamus leans back, folding one leg over the other. He doesn’t bother looking at the photos again. “Then someone’s borrowing your name. That’s not our problem.”
“Someone’s trying to frame us," I tell Ronan, who looks very unhappy to hear that the Russians are stirring up the hornets' nest.
Ronan shifts in his seat. “Or trying to provoke us. And you’re playing directly into it.” His eyes flick at me in anger, but I know he means it to be directed at Seamus.
Callum narrows his eyes. “If you can’t control your own reputation, that’s not a Fitzpatrick issue.”
The atmosphere thickens, like the walls themselves are bracing for what’s next. The central unit clicks on with a mechanical hiss, but the real pressure isn’t coming from the vents—it’s coming from the men at this table, waiting to see who pushes first.
Ronan responds calmly, with more control than I think I could ever possess. “We’ve lost men. You’ve lost men. Neither side benefits from keeping score. We need oversight—joint enforcement of the Quays, shared customs and logistics. Temporary, of course. Until things stabilize.”
"Alright, then an alliance. You fold into my family and we'll talk." Seamus steeples his fingers in front of himself and taps one on his lips. They dress it up like strategy, like cooperation. But it’s a takeover. They want bodies in our system. They want to count our money before we touch it.
Ronan doesn’t even pretend to consider it. “That won’t happen.”
Callum’s smirk widens. “Then maybe we’re wasting our time here, Gentlemen.”
“Or maybe we’re just beginning to understand what the other side is really after.” I'm furious because I hoped this meeting would bring an end to the violent stalemate we've been at for months. Nora is caught in the middle and I need her to be safe, not continuously trapped between us.
There is no verbal reply, just the stillness that follows a line neither party is ready to cross.
“We’ll review your proposal and respond through proper channels,” Ronan says, and I'm disgusted by his comment. We should slit their throats for even proposing that the O'Rourkes would fold into the Fitzpatrick clan. That will never happen.
Seamus nods and stands. It’s meant to be formal, but it carries the weight of something more final. Then Callum ruins the veneer.
“While you’re at it,” he says, tone too casual, “maybe remind your man to keep it in his pants. That little distraction in our family? She's promised to someone else."
Everything in the room tightens.
Ronan stills. I feel the shift in him as if the entire table moved. Seamus doesn't speak, but his eyes cut sideways toward his son, narrowing slightly.
Callum leans forward. “You think we wouldn't notice Connor O’Rourke sneaking around with my sister? Thought you were smarter than that.”
I don't give him the reaction he wants. “I never asked her for anything.”
“But you took it anyway.” Callum is far more upset about this than his father seems to be, which tells me he's not been privy to the orders Seamus gave Nora concerning me. He doesn't know she's a weapon yet, but I do. And when Seamus's eyes narrow on me, I know just how he plans to use her.
Ronan speaks then, calm and clinical. “If there’s a connection, it's coincidence, but I assure you, no O'Rourke man will ever lay a hand on her.
" His eyes slice through me, and I feel shame creep up, but it only lasts a second.
I own her now. She's mine, not a Fitzpatrick anymore.
I have no other words to defend my actions, but the gun on my hip burns and I want to use it.
Ronan looks away from me, and so does Seamus.
Seamus adjusts the cuff of his jacket with deliberate calm, as if the conversation didn’t just shift onto a fault line.
The air between us feels heavier than ever, the kind of pause that holds its shape like it might snap.
No one speaks. No one moves. The tension just lingers, swollen and waiting.
The meeting ends in silence, without a single word of acknowledgment exchanged. There are no goodbyes, no forced smiles, and not even the pretense of a handshake. Just the cold, deliberate exit of men who know the next time they meet, it may not be across a table.
Callum walks out first with a smug strut to his stride. He knows what he planted. The seed has been sown, and now he gets to watch it bloom.
I stay seated. Ronan waits a full beat before turning to me.
His voice breaks the silence again, this time quieter but no less pointed. He stays standing at the far end of the table, arms crossed over his chest as he stares me down. “You should’ve told me.”
“I didn’t think it mattered.” I massage the bridge of my nose and wait for the lecture.
“It does.”
“She’s not part of this," I snap, but I know she is. She's more a part of this than even Ronan knows, but if I tell him what Seamus is asking from her, he'll tell me to kill her. Which is something I'll never do, and I'm not looking down the barrel of his gun so easily.
“She’s part of them, Connor." Ronan’s voice sharpens as he paces behind the chair, his boots scuffing hard against the rug. He slams his hand flat against the table, the sound cracking through the room. “Christ Almighty.”
“She’s not him.” I'm on my feet now, defensive, like a snake coiled and ready to strike. My orders were clear, but I can't follow them. I refuse to use her.
“She doesn’t have to be. This is optics. They think we’re compromised, and that’s enough.” He runs a hand through his hair and turns his back on me.
I let the weight of that settle before I speak again.
“What do you want from me?” I want him to tell me something he knows I won't do, because I'm prepared to put my foot down and draw a line.
I'm second in command in this family, and I think it's time he starts taking my opinion to heart when he makes his decisions.
“I want your loyalty.” He says it quietly, but with more weight than if he shouted it. Then he turns slowly and meets my gaze, and I wonder if he realizes that things between Nora and me are too deep now. If that's why he won't tell me to just kill her or cut her off.
“You have it," I say, and to a point, I mean it. I also mean that I won't buckle under his pressuring.
“I also need you alive…"
He leaves it hanging, but the silence that follows says more than the words could. He understands that if Callum knows about me and Nora, Seamus will use it as a weakness too. That may mean she's not the only one caught in the crosshairs.
After he sighs hard, he walks out without looking back.
I sit back down, staring at the edge of the folder Callum left behind.
Nora’s face floods my mind. Not the guarded version she wears for her family. The real one—the one only I’ve seen. I hear her voice in my head, so softly as she told me in fear, We have to survive this .
If her father sees her as bait and Ronan sees her as leverage, then I'm alone in the middle. And I am the one they’ll both hold accountable if the Russians move before either family is ready. It's clear they're already trying to tempt fate by impersonating us.
I pull out my phone. Her name is already there, top of the list. The thread is open, the last message unanswered. I don’t type anything, but I want to. I want to tell her to meet me, and I even think about hopping a plane to Zurich to get out of this mess, but that would be cowardice.
Eventually, I lock the screen and put it away. Then I push back my chair and walk out of the room like nothing happened.
But everything has. And the next time I see Callum Fitzpatrick, I will not be seated.