“You will never be alone again, wee Rose.” His voice drops, dark as old stone. “Not in rooms like this. Not in meetings. Not in the ground if I can help it.”
His hand slides to my lower back, possessive but steady. “And if anyone tries to sell you again—your blood, your land, your name—” His eyes meet mine, feral and absolute. “I will kill them.”
No hesitation. No poetry. Just promise. Something in my chest loosens. Something dangerous settles in its place. I don’t argue. I lean into him instead. And for the first time since the bells rang, I believe him.
Chapter twelve
The Cathedral of His Temper
Finnian
Thecarglidesthroughthe city like a confession no one dares interrupt. Black glass, black leather, Belfast blurred beyond the windows—wet pavement, iron railings, the echo of old power stitched into stone. There’s a driver up front, eyes forward, smart enough not to exist. In the back, it’s just us.
Her hand is in mine. Not clenched, not fighting, just there. Warm and certain.
She’s dressed in black—of course she is.Not mourning, not softness, but command. Lace sleeves hugging her wrists, fabric skimming her like it was designed to behave only for her. The O’Callaghan jewels gleam against her throat and fingers, heavy with history: the necklace at her neck, my name on her hand twice over, the bracelet biting gently at her wrist like a promise that knows how to draw blood. She wears them like a threat.
I match her in black—tailored, severe, the cut of my coat sharp enough to suggest violence without ever promising it outright. We don’t touch beyond our joined hands, but the space between us hums. Recognition. Possession. Something old and feral that never needed permission.
Lord and lady.
Two families that spent generations circling each other like wolves now stitched together with vows, blood, and a marriage half the city still can’t decide whether to fear or worship. I feel the looks already—the ones we’ll get when we arrive. The weighing, the wondering who bent first, yet they'll never know.
I glance at her. She’s staring straight ahead, chin lifted, expression calm in that way that fools everyone except me. I know what that stillness hides. I know the way violence lives just beneath her skin, patient as a blade kept clean.
My thumb brushes once over her knuckles. A silent check-in. A reminder. She doesn’t look at me—but her fingers tighten around mine.Good.
The car slows, and power waits for us just beyond the door. Gravel crunches beneath the tyres. Salt hits the air—cold, sharp, unmistakable. The docks loom ahead, all iron bones and dark water, cranes standing like old sentinels that have seen too much and said nothing.
Of course.I feel it the second she does. Her fingers tighten in mine—not in fear. In recognition. The driver pulls to a stop.Old docks. The kind the city pretends not to remember. Where deals were sealed in blood long before they were sealed in ink. Where ghosts linger because no one ever bothered to bury them properly. Where I took her. The first time.
She exhales slowly, the sound barely there. Then, softly—too softly for anyone but me—“Poetic,” she says.
I glance at her. Her mouth curves, not quite a smile. Something sharper. Sadder. Older. She finally turns her head, dark eyes meeting mine, and there’s no accusation there. No blade behind the look. Just truth.
“This is where you dragged me out of my life,” she adds. “Threw me into yours.”
I swallow. “Aye,” I say. “Didn’t plan the symmetry.”
She huffs—a quiet, breathless sound. “You never do.”
The corner of her thumb brushes my knuckle. Absent. Intimate. A habit from when we were younger, when touching meant safety instead of strategy.
“And yet,” she murmurs, gaze drifting back to the water, “here we are. Together. Walking back in.”
Not prisoners. Not enemies. Something else. Something dangerous in a different way.
I lift our joined hands, press my lips briefly to her fingers—nothing for the world to see. Just for us. “This time,” I say, low, steady, “no one’s taking you anywhere you don’t walk into yourself.”
Her throat bobs.
“Good,” she replies. “Because if you tried again, husband, I’d stab you properly this time.”
I grin despite myself. “Fair.”
The driver opens the door. Cold air rushes in. Shapes move near the warehouses—men waiting, alliances already shifting, eyes already counting sins.
I squeeze her hand once before we step out. “Ready, Lady O’Callaghan?”
