Declan
By the time I reach the compound, the sun is bleeding out behind the warehouse roofs, leaving the sky a washed-out purple.
My body is still running on the last dregs of whatever got me through the night.
I keep having to say it to myself plainly, like a man learning a language: I did not get her out.
She got herself out. Some woman I haven’t seen in a year unlocked a door, and Ailish walked through it on legs that could barely hold her, carrying my child, while I stood over a map of the wrong building with five men waiting on my signal.
The drive back feels wrong—my hands empty, the passenger seat empty, everything empty except the promise I left her with.
The compound gates slide open. I step out of the car, and the first thing I see is Conor leaning against the brick wall with his arms folded, looking like he’s been waiting for hours.
Mackenzie stands beside him with two coffees in hand.
She offers me one wordlessly. I take it, grateful for something to hold onto.
“You look like hell,” Conor says.
“Feel like it,” I mutter.
Mackenzie studies me with those sharp eyes of hers, the ones that see through bullshit like smoke. “She’s alright?”
“For now.” I take a long, bitter swallow. “The baby too.”
Relief flashes across both their faces. Then something else passes between them—something conspiratorial. Conor pushes off the wall, reaches into his jacket, and pulls out a small velvet box. Dark green. New. Untouched.
He presses it into my palm.
I stare at it.
My heart stops, then kicks forward hard enough that it hurts. “What the hell is this?”
“No more running,” Conor says, voice quiet but razor-sharp. “You’ve been half alive since the day you lost her the first time. You’ve been worse than dead since the ambush.”
Mackenzie folds her arms. “And now there’s a baby. And she’s not going to wait forever for you to get your head straight.”
I close my hand around the box, feeling its edges cut into my skin. “I just got her back.”
“Then keep her,” Conor says. “The whole damn world is trying to tear you two apart. Do something that anchors you together.”
My pulse hammers so loudly I hear it in my teeth. “You’re pushing.”
“We’re nudging,” Mackenzie corrects. “Pushing would’ve been us driving you to her safehouse and shoving the ring onto her finger ourselves.”
Despite everything, a laugh escapes me—tired, raw, but real. “You two have lost your minds.”
“Maybe,” Conor says with a shrug. “But we’re not the ones in love.”
I don’t deny it. I look at the box in my hand and let the quiet answer for me, and Mackenzie’s eyebrows climb halfway to her hairline.
“Say it once,” Conor says. “Out loud. You’ve had other people saying it for you all year.”
“I love her.” It comes out wrecked, and I don’t try to fix it. “I’ve loved her since before I was old enough to be frightened of it, and I let her walk anyway.”
Nobody says anything smart. Mackenzie looks at the ground. Conor puts a hand on my shoulder and leaves it there.
I rub a hand over my face. The weight of the box is suddenly enormous.
“She nearly—” The words cut off before I can finish. I swallow. “I thought I’d lost her. And the baby.”
“And now you haven’t,” Conor says. “So do something with that second chance.”
The idea of marriage has always felt like a dream other men got to have.
Other lives. Other worlds. Not mine. Then I picture Ailish in that hospital bed, her fingers wrapped around mine, whispering don’t leave.
I picture her at the safehouse, sleepy, vulnerable, trusting me to keep her safe.
And I picture her belly—rounding more each week—carrying a future I never thought I’d deserve.
Maybe that’s why the idea scares me. Because I want it. Because for the first time in my life, I want something clean.
I snap the box open with my thumb.
Inside sits a simple gold band. No diamonds. No frills. Nothing flashy. Just a circle—solid, unbroken, unyielding.
Her.
Exactly her.
I close the box.
“I need to see Liam,” I say, voice low.
“No,” Mackenzie says gently. “You need to see Liam and Nadia. They’re both part of this.”
Conor nods. “You won’t get her hand without going through both. They’re a team now.”
The two of them step aside, giving me a path forward. I take it.
Liam’s office is lit only by a desk lamp when I push the door open. He’s standing behind the desk, going through a thick stack of intel reports. Nadia sits on the couch near the window, one leg tucked under her, watching him with a mixture of affection and exhaustion.
Both of them look up when I enter. Liam’s eyes narrow a fraction. “She’s safe,” I answer. “Resting. Midwife coming tonight.”
Nadia exhales, hand rising to her throat. “Thank God.”
Liam nods once. “Good work getting her out.”
The praise lands strangely. Heavy. Weighted with something unspoken. I step forward. “I need to speak with both of you.”
Liam raises a brow. “Sounds serious.”
“It is.”
Nadia sits forward on the couch, curiosity bright in her eyes. Liam folds his arms and studies me the way he used to when I was younger—measuring not my words but my resolve.
I take out the ring box. Nadia gasps softly. Liam stills.
“I want to formally request Ailish’s hand,” I say. My voice comes out steady despite the storm in my chest. “And I know what that means. I know the expectations. I know the cost.”
The room goes utterly silent.
Liam’s eyes drop to the box, then rise slowly to mine. “Declan,” he says quietly, “this life doesn’t get easier. You know that.”
“I do.”
“You’ll still have enemies. She’ll have them too.”
“I know.”
“If you lose control with her again, if you let pride or rage rule you, you won’t just break her—you’ll break the family holding this entire operation together.”
Nadia’s gaze flicks sharply to him. “Liam—”
“No,” he says gently. “He needs to hear it.”
I nod. “I’m listening.”
Liam steps around the desk and comes to stand in front of me. Taller than me. Broader. But for the first time in months, he doesn’t feel like an opponent. He feels like my brother again.
“You don’t get to swear half loyalty,” he says. “Not to the Irish. Not to her. Not to the child she’s carrying. If you want her—if you want to make her family—then you bleed for her. Every day. Every way.”
“I already do,” I say.
“Then say it.”
I meet his eyes. “I’ll bleed for her.”
The words come out like a vow carved in stone. Something new settles inside me—a clarity I didn’t have before. A sense of direction.
Nadia stands and walks toward us. “Ailish deserves someone who will love her with discipline. Not chaos.”
My throat tightens. “I know.”
“She’ll forgive you,” Nadia says softly. “But she won’t survive being hurt again.”
“I won’t hurt her,” I whisper back. “Not ever again.”
Liam studies me for one long moment more, then nods once—the smallest gesture, but the one that means everything. “All right,” he says. “You have my blessing.”
My chest constricts.
Nadia smiles. “And mine.”
I close my fist around the ring box.
Liam steps back. “Then get your head straight, because we move on the estate at dark and I need you thinking about walls and sightlines, not weddings.”
“I could be there and back in two hours.”
“You could.” He doesn’t blink. “You’ve waited five months. You can wait until the building she was held in is rubble.” Something almost gentle crosses his face and is gone. “Ask her when you can tell her it’s finished.”
I push the ring box into my pocket. It feels like a live heartbeat. “I won’t,” I say.