CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Nora
Earlier that night, I’d stood in the doorway of Liam’s room and watched him prepare for the operation.
He moved with the same calm precision I’d seen so many times before.
He checked his weapon carefully, slid it into place, adjusted the dark jacket over his shoulders, and spoke quietly with Diggs and the other men gathered in the hallway.
To anyone else, he might have looked completely in control. But I knew him too well now. I could see the tension hidden beneath his calm movements, the sharp focus in his eyes, and the way his expression changed whenever Victor’s name was mentioned.
Liam was steady on the outside, but beneath that steadiness was a storm waiting for permission to break loose.
The thought made my chest ache. I knew where he was going. I knew why he had to go. Victor and the trafficking syndicate had destroyed too many lives already, and Liam would never allow them to continue.
I understood that. I understood it so deeply that I couldn’t ask him to stay. Still, understanding did nothing to ease the fear curling quietly inside me.
Liam finished speaking with Diggs and turned toward the room. The moment he saw me standing there, his expression softened.
“Nora,” he said gently. “You should be resting.”
I stepped closer to him. “I couldn’t stay in bed while you were leaving.”
He reached for my hand automatically, his fingers warm and familiar. “I’ll be careful,” he said.
I shook my head slowly. “This isn’t about being careful, Liam. I know what kind of operation this is. I know what you’re walking into.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The hallway behind him was filled with the quiet sounds of men preparing for war, but between us there was only silence and the weight of everything we couldn’t control.
Liam lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it softly. “I’ll come back,” he whispered.
I looked into his eyes, searching for any sign of doubt, but I found only determination and love. I tightened my fingers around his hand.
“Come back to me,” I said.
The words weren’t a plea. They weren’t spoken from fear. They were a promise between us, filled with certainty and the kind of love that had already survived too much to be fragile.
Liam’s eyes flickered. “I will,” he said, his voice low and steady. “No matter what happens, I’ll come back to you.”
I leaned forward and kissed him gently, holding onto him for one quiet moment before the world outside the doorway demanded him again. When we pulled apart, Liam rested his forehead against mine.
“Wait for me,” he whispered.
I smiled through the ache in my chest. “Always.”
Then he stepped back, and I watched him walk down the hallway toward the men.
I watched until he disappeared from sight, carrying my heart with him into the darkness.
***
After Liam left, the house felt too quiet. I stood near the window in the living room, watching the rain blur the driveway where the convoy had disappeared.
I wrapped my arms around myself carefully, mindful of my healing arm, and tried to breathe through the worry pressing against my ribs.
Maeve and Sofia were staying at the house with me while the men were away. Sean had arranged it before the operation began, insisting that I shouldn’t spend the day alone.
A soft knock sounded behind me, and I turned to see Maeve standing in the hallway, a folded blanket draped over her arm. She looked tired, though she wore it with the same quiet strength she always carried.
“You look like your thoughts are far away. Come sit with us,” she said gently.
I tried to smile. “I was just thinking.”
“I know,” Maeve replied. “That’s why I came to find you before your thoughts carried you to Toronto.”
She crossed the room and placed the blanket around my shoulders before I could protest. The gesture was so simple and familiar that it made my throat tighten unexpectedly.
“Where’s Sofia?” I asked.
“In the kitchen, trying to convince herself she can make tea better than I can,” Maeve said, a faint smile touching her lips. “I should probably rescue the kettle before she proves herself wrong.”
A quiet laugh escaped me before I could stop it. Maeve’s expression softened at the sound.
“There you are,” she said. “I was beginning to think you lost the ability to smile.”
I followed her toward the kitchen, where Sofia was already arranging cups on the table with exaggerated concentration.
“There she is,” Sofia announced when she saw me. “Wanna try some of my special tea?”
I laughed out loud. Sofia scoffed. “It would keep you from worrying yourself sick.”
Maeve rolled her eyes affectionately while I took the empty seat beside her. The night passed slowly inside the house, softened by the presence of my friends.
Maeve’s teasing affection toward Sofia created moments of unexpected laughter, the kind that escaped before I could stop it.
Sofia’s stories filled the room with lightness, carrying all of us away from the weight of danger for a few precious minutes.
I watched my mother smile at something Sofia said, and the sight startled me with its tenderness.
It had been years since I’d seen my mother smile without fear hiding behind it.
For a little while, the house felt less like a place where we were waiting for bad news and more like a home where wounded people were learning how to breathe again.
The laughter was real as it moved through the room gently, touching each of us with the promise that healing might be possible.
I let myself enjoy it and rest in the warmth of Maeve’s kindness, in Sofia’s easy spirit, and in the fragile peace growing between my mother and me. I felt what it meant to be surrounded by women who carried their pain openly and still chose to offer comfort to one another.
But even as the room softened around me, Liam remained at the edge of my every thought.
I imagined him moving through the darkness with that same focused determination I’d seen in his eyes before he left.
I pictured the weight of his weapon, the tension in his shoulders, and the quiet fury he carried whenever he spoke of Victor Hale and the men protecting him.
I smiled when the others smiled and I laughed when their laughter rose around me, but beneath every moment of lightness was the steady pull of longing.
I missed him. I missed the certainty of his presence, the warmth of his hands, and the way his voice could calm the fear I tried so hard to hide. The house was filled with people who cared for me, yet Liam’s absence left a space that no conversation could fully fill.
Still, I didn’t allow myself to sink into despair.
I held onto the laughter in the room and the quiet hope that these small moments of normalcy weren’t temporary illusions.
They were proof that life could continue even after darkness, that healing could begin in the middle of fear, and that love could give strength to those who waited for it.
I sat near the window and watched the night sky beyond the glass. I realized loving Liam meant accepting a truth I’d never wanted to face: danger would always be close to him.
He carried responsibility, violence, and sacrifice as naturally as he carried his own name. He walked toward danger with the same steady certainty that had brought him to me when I was trapped and terrified, and no promise I made could change that part of him.
That was the part of him I loved most…and the part that frightened me most. Liam had shown me that love could be a choice freely given, a hand offered without chains attached, a promise to stand beside someone rather than hold them captive.
But loving him meant opening my heart to the possibility of loss. It meant knowing that every time he stepped into danger, a part of me would go with him. I closed my eyes and remembered the way he’d looked at me before leaving.
Come back to me.
The words still echoed inside me. Fear was still there, quiet and persistent, but it no longer controlled me. I didn’t pace the room or let panic consume me.
Instead, I held onto the life Liam and I had begun to build together, the promise of a future we’d chosen in the middle of fear and uncertainty.
I wrapped the blanket tighter around my shoulders and lifted my gaze to the night sky. I was waiting for him; I wasn’t helpless. I had the quiet strength of a woman who knew her love was worth fighting for, and who trusted that when Liam returned, we would face whatever came next together.