30. Nora
NORA
T hey chose a house neither family owns—neutral territory between the Fitzpatricks and the O'Rourkes.
The building is old. Its stone walls are weathered, ivy creeping across the facade in slow conquest. The interior is dim and formal, a long room with high ceilings and aged wood paneling.
The table at the center is cleared of everything but the documents and the waiting pen.
No personal effects, no weapons, no drinks.
Just the work of power laid bare, stripped of ceremony or warmth.
I walk in beside Connor. He doesn’t limp, but I know his leg still aches.
The bruising along his ribs looks better today, yellowing at the edges as an indication it's finally healing after two weeks. He’s stubborn enough to sit tall anyway, to wear his jacket like armor and pretend the bullet wound in his thigh isn’t a throbbing ghost beneath the table.
I match his stride and keep my hands loose at my sides. My father walks a pace behind.
He hasn’t spoken to me since the night of the siege. Not on the drive to the estate, not when I brought him coffee this morning, not even when the O’Rourke envoy called to confirm. But he’s here, and he’s not trying to stop this. That’s enough—for now.
Ronan sits across from us. To his left is Killian.
Finn is posted near the door. There are no bodyguards, no weapons.
Da isn't happy about any of this, but Mum broke him down, urged him to allow me the freedom to forge forward in the world he brought me into, and despite letting her down by not marrying Volkov, I think she sees how much I care for Connor.
I lower into the seat next to him. My father remains standing for a beat longer, then pulls out the chair to my right at the head of the table and sinks into it with a stiffness that betrays the bandages beneath his suit.
The fabric stretches tight across his shoulder. The swelling hasn't gone down.
“I lost seven men that night,” he says. His voice isn't flat, but it's also not the nasty tone I know him to use at times. He's a leashed beast for now.
Ronan nods, his elbows resting on the arms of the chair. “I know,” he says. “We lost a few too." His eyes flick to Connor, who squeezes my knee beneath the table. There’s a pause as we all calculate the shared cost of my father's refusal to work together for so long.
Ronan tips his head toward Da, speaking more quietly. “Your shoulder—how’s it holding?”
Da shifts in his seat. “Healing. Slower than I’d like.”
“Could’ve been worse,” Ronan says, not unkindly.
“It almost was,” Da replies. He looks at me, then Connor, then back down to the table.
Ronan picks up the pen and flips through the agreement, scanning each page with quiet intensity. He doesn’t rush. He makes sure every man at the table sees that this isn’t just ink on parchment—it’s a reckoning.
Then he looks up.
“We’ve agreed to terms on patrol lines and transport routes,” he says. “We’re taking our checkpoints off the border roads. Joint teams will monitor any contested sectors. No one runs cargo solo anymore—not unless they want it seized. That clear?”
There are nods around the table and Ronan continues.
“Territory claims remain where they stood before the first shot. No movement without written approval.” He flips to the final page.
Ronan looks to me first, then to Connor, holding each gaze long enough to make the message clear.
This decision will not be spoken around or over.
Everyone at the table shifts their focus, the low creak of leather chairs the only sound as all movement stills.
Even my father remains quiet, his eyes locked on Ronan’s, his hands resting flat on the table, not clenched but not relaxed either.
“Arms withdrawal from mutual border zones,” he begins. “Cooperative trade oversight for the southern districts. Shared intelligence channels during the transitional period. Reallocation of transport lanes, effective immediately.”
Each clause lands with the weight of a gavel. I feel it settle into the room, into the tight coil at the base of my spine. Every line of that contract was born from blood.
“Before the agreement is finalized,” he says, pausing, “there remains one condition."
My father doesn’t turn, but I can feel the heat of him—his scrutiny, his resistance. He says nothing, but it's present in his facial expression. Connor doesn’t look at me. He already knows what I’ll say.
I lift my chin.
Connor clears his throat and sits forward slightly, his fingers still laced with mine beneath the table. He doesn’t raise his voice, but it carries. “We want unity,” he says. “Not just between the crews. Between the families. Permanently. Through marriage.”
The words don’t settle. They land sharp and uninvited. My father’s head turns toward Connor in a slow, deliberate glare. The twitch at the corner of his mouth isn’t confusion—it's an insult. His jaw tightens. “You want what?” he says, his voice a growl barely restrained.
Connor doesn’t flinch. “I want to marry your daughter.”
“You think this is the time for declarations?” Da’s chair scrapes as he leans forward, both hands braced on the table. “We buried seven men last week, and you come in here making proposals?”
“It’s not a proposal,” Connor says. “It’s the final condition. If this is going to hold, it has to start with us.”
Da’s gaze swings to me, demanding something. Denial, maybe? Refusal? I give him neither.
“It’s my decision,” I say. “And I’ve made it. I love him, and if you can't agree to this, you're a fool, Da. We're stronger together."
The anger doesn’t vanish, but he reins it in and sits back slowly, the bandages on his shoulder pulling taut beneath the fabric of his jacket.
His mouth works through a thousand arguments he doesn’t voice.
Then his hand moves with reluctance toward the pen.
His eyes zero in on me one last time before he shakes his head and scribbles his name.
My stomach twists, but I keep my posture. I don’t fidget or blink. I think of the fire licking the walls of the estate, of Connor bleeding beside me, of the men who died so we could sit at this table.
Ronan leans forward and slides the agreement back toward himself before scrawling his own name under my father's, and then nods.
That nod does something to the tension in the air, unraveling it slowly as all parties involved realize we've struck a permanent truce, and the Russians will have to deal with the full force of both families if they come sniffing around again.
Ronan collects them himself and aligns the pages, secures them with a clasp, and sets the folder at the center of the table as if anchoring the moment.
“Let’s see if we can keep this peace now,” Ronan says. Across from him, Da exhales through his nose, not quite agreement, but not dissent either.
Killian shifts in his seat and mutters something about how long it’s taken to reach this point. Finn nods once, arms crossed. The room exhales with us all, and the stillness breaks—not with applause, but with motion.
Then chairs scrape back. One by one, the men stand.
Connor rises and offers his hand to me, and I take it.
Across the table, Ronan extends his hand to my father.
For a breath, I think he won’t take it. That he’ll walk out and let everything burn again.
But Da lifts his unbandaged hand. Their grips meet in the middle.
It’s not a handshake of old friends or a gesture of burying the hatchet. This is survival, and I'm not foolish enough to think that the moment my father sees an out, he won't take it, but for now, it means peace. And a wedding…
Outside, the wind picks up, shaking the ivy against the windows. I watch the men who once carved lines in blood and wonder if any of them believe in what we’ve just done.
Connor squeezes my hand. "You okay?" he asks under his breath.
I nod. But the truth is… I don’t know. This was always going to be the price.
I agreed to it. I wanted it. But saying the words in that room, with my father beside me and Ronan watching, made it feel less like a vow and more like a sentence.
I'm still in an arranged marriage, and that wasn't exactly the best wedding proposal a woman could receive.
Maybe that’s what all alliances are—sacrifices made in public for benefits paid in private.
"We’ll be all right," Connor says. He leans in, presses his mouth close to my ear. "You and me. We’re the only ones who never lied."
I close my eyes for a beat, breathe in the scents of smoke and aftershave, the trace of sweat on his skin. It centers me. He centers me. Being near him, allowing his arms to wrap around me, and my heart thrumming in my chest with his name written on each beat.
Connor turns toward me fully and both of his arms wrap around me. "We don’t have to make this political when it’s just us." His hand curls around my ear, and I know he's securing a loose hair. I raise my hands up and lock them behind his neck.
I study him. His eyes are tired, rimmed red from too little sleep, too much pain. But they’re steady.
"We made this choice before anyone asked us to," I say.
"Then let them think it was theirs… But tell me one last time that it's yours?" His voice is low, steadier than I expect, and something in the way he holds me shifts—like he’s bracing for more than words.
I pull back enough to meet his gaze fully. "It’s always been mine," I say. "Even before I knew what it meant."
His throat works around the weight of that answer. He nods, just once, then reaches into his coat pocket. I think it’s a gesture—some idle movement—but then I see a ring—no box, just gold, simple and adorned with one decent diamond in a low setting.
"I was going to wait," he says. "Until after. But I don’t want to wait anymore. Not when everything’s finally been put down. My heart needs to know, Nora."
My breath catches, and I feel tears well up as he holds the band between our faces. It's beautiful, exactly my style. I never thought this was part of the arrangement, and I didn't agree to it just to bring peace. I love Connor, and I want him, but this—it's unbelievable.
"You didn’t get a choice when they arranged your first engagement. You didn’t get a voice in most of this war. But I’m asking now. Not as a condition. Not for peace. Just for us."
His fingers tighten slightly around mine.
"Nora Fitzpatrick, will you marry me? Not for a treaty, but because you still look at me the same way, even after everything?"
The silence is warm now. Honest. And it belongs to us.
I nod slowly, eyes burning, voice steady. "Yes. I will."
He slips the ring onto my finger with a steady hand, fitting it into place.
The gold is cool against my skin, the diamond catching the faint light from the sun.
His palm presses to mine after, grounding us in the moment.
There is no one clapping or watching, but the stillness around us feels earned.
This isn’t a spectacle. It’s real, a vow forged not from ceremony but connection. He looks at me, and for the first time since walking into that room, I feel like the future is ours to name.