Page 33 of Liam

“Look, Liam, I had no idea when I sent Danny that she was your woman. If I’d known, I would have come direct to you.”

“Makes no difference, Roy, you shouldn’t have sent someone into our territory without first asking us as a courtesy. This could have been avoided, and Danny wouldn’t be on his way home to you with a wound through his hand where my woman stuck him with her knife.”

“But you guys are retired,” Big Roy stutters in confusion.

My eyebrows rose. “Have you been asleep these last few weeks, or is your head so far up your arse that you’ve not heard that we’ve been cleaning our town? We may be retired, Roy, but Fitheach is O’Shea territory; it always has been, and it will continue to be as long as O’Sheas live here,” I roar at him. “Next time, you call first. And, Roy, this ends here. Don’t try and get any money out of my woman. You get it from her brother like you should have done in the first place.”

“He hasn’t got it,” Big Roy protests indignantly.

“Not my problem and not my woman’s problem. You can take it out of his hide for all I care. My woman has one request: that if you do that, you don’t kill him.” I go to hang up on Roy’s sputtering, but then I decide to give him one more warning.

“Oh, and Roy, my woman isn’t weak; she spent ten years in the military as a sniper, and she comes with her own protection. My woman doesn’t need me to protect her; she can do it herself, and I assure you, she and her girls’ squad are a lot more devious in their violence than we’d ever be, so best you pull back whoever else you sent because I won’t hold her back if you come for her again.”

Inhaling a deep breath, I press my fingers to the bridge of my nose as the familiar feeling of pressure bears down on me. I wasn’t finished yet, though, “Do you understand what I’m saying, Roy?”

“I do, Liam. I’ll pull everyone back, and I’m sorry we stepped on your toes. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“Be sure that you do,” I order him, ending the call and handing the phone back to Johnny.

“You okay, Liam?” Johnny asks, concern on his face.

“Yeah,” I nod, my gaze lifts to find Sera in the doorway of the office watching me. The tension melts away as our eyes meet, and my shoulders relax. “Yeah, Johnny,” I answer, clasping his shoulder. “I’m okay. Sera agreed to marry me.”

Johnny looks stunned at my words, and Adam starts to laugh, “Only you would ask a woman to marry you while you’re both wearing the blood of your enemy. But somehow it fits you both perfectly. I’m happy for you, Liam,” Adam says, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and slapping my back. “She’s perfect for you. I can’t wait to tell Rhett when we see him on Saturday that the last of us has fallen. I mean, we can’t count Andy because he’s still on my shit list, but the rest of us, yeah, we all found good women.”

On impulse, I wrap an arm around each of their shoulders as we walk towards the office, “Long time coming, brothers, a really long fucking time coming. But we are three lucky fuckers because we’ve landed some truly amazing, beautiful women who are willing to put up with your surliness, Johnny’s constant fucking cheeriness, and my moodiness. So, I’d say not only are we lucky, but we’re also fucking blessed.

“Now fuck off because I need to get my woman home before Da finds out we’re getting married, and I don’t get to see her for the next few hours.”

Adam and Johnny start to laugh because they know it’s true—Da’s a romantic, and as soon as he finds out we’re gettingmarried, he’ll want to get in on it all, and I’ll be hard-pressed to get any time with Sera.

I can’t help but join them in their laughter, me in the middle with my arm around the shoulders of each of the brothers I was closest to. We’re laughing hard.

It was only later that we found out about the picture that Sera took, capturing that moment of pure happiness and the love my brothers and I had for each other.

It was that picture that we had each hung on a wall in our houses. You can feel our happiness just from looking at the photo. And it was a good feeling to have.

It was a photo we all cherished because it was fitting that out of everything we’d been through, somehow, we’d ended up here.

Still alive, still able to laugh, and live our lives, with women so different from each other but perfect for each of us. Who loved us and stood by us no matter what.

And the families we had and would hopefully continue to build. It was a great place to be.

EPILOGUE

LIAM

Standing at the bar, I watch Adam and Ally have their father-daughter dance while waiting for my queen to come back from helping Da to his room.

Adam wasn’t taking Ally getting married and moving out very well. Johnny liked to tease him about letting go, but I had a feeling when it came time for Emy to leave home, he’d be falling apart.

We’d each grown our families. Johnny and Maya had Jackson, Emy and Ronan. Adam and Tilly had Ally, Jeanie, and their twins, Cian and Aiden. Sera and I’d followed along with three boys of our own: Lorcan, Sean, and Fionn. Tommy and Lana had their own brood. Our property, for the longest time, has been wild with the children running in and out of our houses. It was as we liked it. We still ate together every evening.

With our constantly growing families, we’d had to extend the main house’s kitchen and dining room to accommodate us all. With our eldest children getting married, I wondered if we’d have to expand again to make room for any children they’d be having. Something to think about. A flash of emerald green catches my eye, and I turned just as Sera walked back into the room, stopping by the table that held her girls’ squad and their respective partners.

Over the years, there had been many changes all round, most of them good. Sera and her girls were as close as ever and in and out of each other’s houses. They never stood on ceremony; luckily, their men understood that they came as a unit. They were sisters not bound by blood but by heart, and I considered them to be ours. Luckily, I liked the men they’d ended up with and considered them family. Sera finished talking and waved her hand at the group as she strode away, her long legs eating up the distance between us. Pushing away from where I’d been leaning against the bar, I waited for her to get to me. Slipping my arm around her waist, I pulled her into my body where she fit like she’d been made for me.

“Da doing okay?” I ask, pressing a kiss to her shoulder.

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