The concert hall hadn't seen this many guns in formal wear since the Treaty of '98, and that one ended with three dead and a building on fire. Tonight, though, the weapons stayed holstered. The men who carried them stayed civil. Belfast had learned its lesson.
Or rather, Belfast had learned to fear its new queen.
Róisín O'Callaghan—née Malloy, never forgetting—stood backstage with her violin cradled against her shoulder, warming up scales that hadn't been played publicly in three years. The bow moved across strings like a blade finding its sheath. Familiar. Deadly. Home.
Finn watched from the doorway, one shoulder against the frame, arms crossed, looking every inch the king he'd become. Not by birth. By survival. By the woman tuning her instrument with the same hands that had pulled a trigger in the chapel three months ago.
"Nervous?" he asked.
She didn't look up. "Should I be?"
"No." He pushed off the doorway, crossed to her. "Just thought I'd ask."
"How's the crowd?"
"Terrified." He grinned. "In the best way."
She lowered the violin, met his eyes. "Good."
The venue was packed. Every seat filled. Malloys on the left. O'Callaghans on the right. And in the center—the uneasy middle ground—sat the families that hadn't yet decided if this peace was real or just a prelude to something worse.
Declan O'Shea sat in the O'Callaghan section, second row, cleaned up in a suit that probably cost more than his first gun deal. Finn's right-hand man. The one who'd stood beside him through the worst of it and came out loyal. He caught Finn's eye as they'd entered the hall earlier and nodded once. Respect. The kind earned in blood and business. He'd expanded hisoperations since the consolidation—tripled his profits, solidified his position. Betting on Finn and Róisín had been the smartest move he'd ever made.
Padraig Keane's family kept a low profile these days. His brothers had been offered the chance to attend. They declined. Smart lads. The Keane family had fractured after Padraig's death—some fled to Dublin, others to Liverpool, a few foolish enough to stay and try rebuilding. Those ones learned fast that Belfast had new management and old grudges were no longer profitable.
Cillian Malloy sat front row, left side. Róisín's father looked older now. Greyer. The kind of tired that came from realizing your daughter had surpassed you in every way that mattered. He'd stepped back from active leadership of the Thorns—officially for health reasons, unofficially because Róisín had given him a choice: retire with dignity or be retired without it.
He chose wisely.
The Thorns of Belfast answered to her now. Completely. Absolutely. The arms deals ran smoother. The territories expanded. The profits soared. Turns out having a woman who could negotiate a weapons contract in the morning and put a bullet in a traitor by evening made for excellent business.
Beside Cillian sat Aoife Malloy, Róisín's mother, who'd surprised everyone by attending. She wore black—always black since Ciaran—but she wore it with her head high. She'd made peacewith what her daughter had become. Or at least, she'd made peace with staying alive in a city her daughter now ruled.
Across the aisle, the O'Callaghans filled their section with the kind of respectful silence that came from genuine loyalty. Finn's aunt Siobhan sat closest to the center, lips pursed but present. She'd opposed the marriage initially. Called it a disaster waiting to happen. Three months later, she was the first to admit she'd been wrong.
Notably absent was Cormac O'Callaghan—Finn's father. Alive. Well. And making his displeasure known through pointed absence. He'd attended the wedding with all the warmth of a man at a wake. Since then, he'd made himself scarce. Some said he was in Dublin. Others said he was drinking himself into an early grave over his son's choice of bride.
Finn didn't particularly care which.
Cormac had ruled the Morrigan Ring with an iron fist and an old-world mentality that had no place in modern Belfast. He'd wanted Finn to marry an O'Donnell girl from Cork after the Keane incident. Someone pliable. Someone who'd smile and look pretty and stay out of the business.
Instead, Finn had married a Malloy. A woman who'd once stabbed him. A woman who now ran half of Belfast's underworld with the efficiency of a CEO and the ruthlessness of a warlord.
Cormac called it a betrayal.
Finn called it evolution.
The Morrigan Ring had never been stronger.
Finn had consolidated power quickly after the chapel. The families that stood with him prospered. The ones that didn't—well. Belfast had a way of dealing with loose ends. He ruled with the same calculated violence his father had, but with something his father never possessed: a partner who matched him step for bloody step.
Together, they'd done what decades of treaties and ceasefires couldn't.
They'd unified Belfast's underworld under one crown.
The Thorns and the Morrigan Ring operated as a single entity now—two families, one empire. The drugs, the guns, the protection, the ports—all of it flowed through their hands. Carefully. Strategically. Ruthlessly when necessary.
And it worked.
