Epilogue

Noah – (One Month Later)~

"K eavy's mad at me."

I looked up to see my wife walking out of the bathroom, a simple silk robe wrapped around her body. "She'll get over it, lass."

"Well, I mean…how is it my fault that The O'Brien is unhinged?" she asked, sighing as she made her way over to me.

I smirked as Shea sat down on the bed next to me. "She's very aware."

The day after Shea had agreed to give us a real chance, I'd taken her to Ryan's shop, and my name was now tattooed on the back of my wife's neck, making it clear to everyone with a pair of working eyes who she belonged to. Though it was enough that she was a Murphy, the fact that she was mine carried a different level of distinction.

However, that wasn't why Keavy was annoyed with her. Last week, after Lochlan had given Shea's bullet wounds the all-clear, she'd gotten the Murphy crest tattooed on her arm, her way of showing me that she was committed to making our marriage work. Though the past few weeks were already proof enough that she was trying, getting that tattoo, even though it was on a smaller scale, well…it'd made me realize that I'd slit my own throat for my wife if I'd had to.

At any rate, as soon as Declan had found out that she'd gotten the crest tattooed over her bullet wounds, he had pulled rank over his wife, forcing Keavy to get the O'Brien crest over her bullet wound, something that she'd been adamant against, but Declan hadn't cared. As for the rest of the wives in the family, since none of them had any bullet wounds to cover up, only Shea and Keavy held the honor of carrying our legacies in ink forever.

During that time, we'd also heard back from Nero, and Morocco had been able to confirm that Sergey and Andros had been Klive Simpson's men. They'd been connected through a couple of the dead corpses that we'd taken care of at the cabin. Luckily, that information was what we needed to keep the peace with the Kotovs, but Avgust hadn't been happy to know that Simpson's connection to his outfit was becoming more undeniable by the day.

"Maybe it's her pregnancy hormones that are making her more irritable than usual," Shea suggested. "At least, that's what Keagan thinks." Keagan was now Shea's official bodyguard.

That got a laugh out of me as my hand reached out to run across her bare thigh. "Baby, pregnancy has nothing to do with it. Keavy's just…different."

"Well, we'll see soon enough," she muttered, making my hand still on her leg.

"Meaning?"

"I'm late," she announced. "At first, I contributed it to stress, but since I'm not stressed out anymore, there's only one other reason that it could be."

I sat up straighter in the bed, my hand back to running along her thigh. "Tha' sure is a roundabout way ta tell me tha' yer pregnant with my babe, lass."

"My birth control has an extremely positive effective rate," she remarked, ignoring what I'd said. "If stress or things like that lower the effective rate, they should put that on the box."

I tried not to laugh at her. "It's probably in da fine print."

"Yeah," she muttered, her eyes falling to her lap. "I didn't read the fine print."

"Well, I think that it's wonderful news," I assured her. "Only one thing could possibly make this moment better."

She finally looked back over at me. "What's that?"

"If you'd finally tell me that you love me, lass," I told her seriously.

Her entire face softened. "You know, it's more special when it's an unexpected surprise."

"Like yer pregnancy announcement?" I chuckled.

"Noah?"

"Yes, baby?"

"I love you," she finally said, bringing us full circle and finally completing our family.

"I know, baby," I replied before placing a kiss on her shoulder. "I've known for a while now."

She let out a low chuckle. "You really are an asshole, Noah."

"Maybe," I smirked. "But it's still my name tha' ye got tattooed on da back o' yer neck, lass."

The End.