Home Free (Coming Home #3)

Chapter 1

1

The blows reverberated through Finn’s body, traveling through his fist and up his arm, echoing through his torso and legs. The man on the chair in front of him was bloody and bruised, his head hanging onto his chest, but other than a soft grunt, he barely responded to the impact.

It had been that way more and more lately. The first week, the man had been defiant, holding his head high as Finn and his brothers beat him, demanding answers to the questions that would solve the murder that had haunted Finn for the past six months.

After that, the man had retreated to a place inside himself, a place where the daily beatings didn’t seem to touch him.

His apathy prompted a surprising reaction in Finn.

A surprising rage.

Rage was his brothers’ department. While they’d built a business killing those who’d escaped justice, Finn had been traveling the world, taking work on village farms and in schools, taking pride in growing things, in seeing the light of knowledge in the eyes of children in Mexico and Africa and Eastern Europe.

And he’d learned too. The people he’d met in his eight years on the road had made him feel small in the best of ways, unimportant in a way that had diminished his personal pain.

Finn wasn’t a violent man.

That’s what he’d told himself anyway. But since they’d taken Eudorus prisoner, the person he’d been had started to feel further and further away, a distant memory that was starting to seem more like a dream.

Like he’d never been that person at all. Like maybe he’d only told himself he was that person to put distance between himself and his brothers, who made no excuses for the violence that was their business.

He looked down at his bruised and bloodied hands. Like the man in front of him, Finn had stopped feeling the pain a long time ago.

No, that wasn’t exactly true. He’d started to relish it, proof of his commitment to find the people behind the murder of his friends, Fedir and Iryna Kolisnyk, a murder that had left their young son, Petro, an orphan.

The door to the house opened behind him, and he turned toward the light. He didn’t know if it was day or night, if the column of light came from the kitchen or the sun.

His oldest brother, Ronan, appeared in the doorway. “I’ll relieve you.”

“I’m good,” Finn said, flexing his battered hand. “I’m going to get this fucker to talk.”

Sometimes Finn forgot that was why they were keeping the man, code-named Eudorus, prisoner.

“Nope,” Ronan said, stepping into the garage. “Time’s up.”

Finn glared at him, the urge to hurt someone transferred to his brother. One look at Ronan’s face told him there was no point fighting it. Aside from being the oldest of the six Murphy kids, Ronan was also a former Navy SEAL. He was used to being in command, and even now, both of them adults, Finn wasn’t eager to go toe-to-toe with his big brother.

Finn seethed as he headed for the stairs leading to the house.

“Anything new?” Ronan asked, stepping onto the concrete floor.

“Not a fucking thing.” Finn slammed the door to the garage. He plugged the kitchen sink and turned on the cold water, then removed the ice maker from the freezer and dumped the ice into the water.

He set a clean dish towel on the counter. When the sink was half full, he turned off the faucet and stuck his hands in the icy water.

He rested his elbows on the sink, wondering what it would take to get Eudorus to talk. He and Ronan, plus their brother Declan, had been taking turns beating the guy to a pulp for the past three weeks, but he’d barely said a word.

The trail to the person who’d hired Eudorus — the person behind Fedir and Iryna’s murder — was growing colder by the day. By now, he must know Eudorus had been captured during the invasion on the mountain house in Massachusetts, which meant he’d had three weeks to tie up any loose ends leading back to him.

That person had been operating a mining operation in Ukraine, near the village where Finn had been working for Petro’s parents. It was clear from the sample they’d stolen during a shootout in New York that an important paleontological discovery had been made there, but it was hard for Finn to imagine some prehistoric artifact being worth the lives of living breathing people, good people like Fedir and Iryna.

When Finn had first come back to Boston to ask his brothers for help finding answers, he’d expected to spend a few weeks at home while they used their business — Murphy Security and Intelligence, a facade for the assassination-for-hire enterprise that had made them rich — to dig around.

But weeks had turned into months, and somehow Finn had slid down the slippery slope of finding answers to killing a man during a shootout in New York and beating Eudorus to within an inch of his life.

Getting answers had become a singular pursuit, one whose end justified any means, eclipsing everything else in his life.

Well, almost everything. Elise Berenger’s face flashed in his mind. She was beautiful, with long flaxen hair and deep brown eyes that made him think of all of the world’s best hidden places, but that hadn’t been the thing that had drawn him to her like a sailor to a siren.

What had made it impossible to turn away from her was the combination of strength and vulnerability that made him want to both protect her and stand by her side in battle.

She was the best thing to come out of his return home. It had been nice to spend time with his dad and brothers again, to heal the fissures caused by their mother’s death and their sister Erin’s overdose.

But Elise had become the thing he lived for.

He looked up as Declan entered the kitchen. There was a question in his eyes as he looked at Finn, something he didn’t want to say. Funny how quickly Finn had slid back into knowing his family after so many years apart.

“What’s up?” Finn asked, his hands still in the ice water.

“I was thinking I’d stay a few days,” Declan said. “Give you a break.”

He was almost as big as Ronan, both of them with dark hair and the blue eyes they all shared — except for Nick, who had their mother’s green eyes, and Erin, who’d had them too.

“Don’t need a break,” Finn said.

Declan peered into the sink, taking in the bloody water. “I disagree.”

“Doesn’t matter what you think,” Finn said through gritted teeth. “I’m fine.”

Declan sat on one of the chairs at the kitchen island. “I’m worried about you, man.”

“Don’t.” Finn removed his hands from the water and grabbed the towel on the counter. He wrapped it around his right hand, forcing himself not to wince in Declan’s company.

“It’d be a nice surprise for Elise,” Declan said.

Low blow.

“She’s coming up this weekend,” Finn said. He walked to the fridge, removed two beers, and handed one to Declan.

“I know, but maybe you should go to her this time. Might be nice for you guys to hang out at the beach for a bit. It’s getting warmer,” Declan said.

Finn studied him. “I know what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing?” Declan asked.

“Using Elise to get me to leave the house,” Finn said.

Declan studied him. “You’ve gotten a bit rougher lately. The goal isn’t to kill him. Not yet. It’s to get information out of him.”

“I’m aware,” Finn said coldly. “He doesn’t seem amenable.”

“He’s a tough case, I’ll give you that. I’m just saying, a break might do you good, give you some perspective,” Declan said.

“I have all the perspective I need.” Fedir and Iryna dead. Petro living with another family in the village in Ukraine, forever scarred by the memory of hiding with Finn in the woods outside the house while his parents were gunned down inside.

Declan stood. “If you say so.”

“I do.”

Declan nodded. “This kind of work can get under your skin. You need to be honest with yourself — and with us — if you’re struggling.”

“I’m fine.” Finn choked out the words. Since when had Declan, the Murphy brother most likely to put someone in the hospital during a bar fight, turned into Mr. Touchy-Feely?

“Then I’m heading back to the city,” Declan said. “Griff’s got a piano recital.”

Declan’s wife Kate was expecting their second child. Griffin, their son, was the apple of Dec’s eye.

“Tell them hello,” Finn said.

He just wanted Declan to leave already. Dispatches from the city felt like they were coming from another universe. He didn’t need or want them. All he wanted was Elise, and she would be here in a couple days.

“Will do.”

Declan opened his mouth like he was going to say something else, then seemed to change his mind. He rapped on the counter with his fist and left the room.

Finn sank onto the chair vacated by his brother. He sighed, exhaling the tension that had been between them. It hadn’t been the first time one of his brothers had expressed concern since they’d taken Eudorus prisoner.

Mostly, he was able to ignore them, brush off their concern, get back to business when the conversation was over, but deep inside there was a tiny voice screaming that they were right. Screaming at Finn to look at himself, to be honest about what he was doing, what he was becoming.

The problem was, that voice was smothered under the one screaming for vengeance, the one determined to get justice for Fedir and Iryna, for Petro.

And there was another realization too, one that was even harder to admit: he was trying to get justice for himself, to assuage his guilt at the memory of hiding in the woods with Petro.

It had happened so fast: their return from swimming in the river, the black SUVs in front of the tiny house, the gunshots from inside.

There hadn’t been time to try and help Fedir and Iryna. Finn had wanted only to protect Petro, to keep him from seeing what was happening or becoming a victim himself.

It all made sense. It was all true.

But that didn’t make it easier to swallow the fact that Finn had stood by, that he’d hidden in the woods with Petro while Fedir and Iryna were slaughtered in their own home.

Finn was no longer sure if the punches he landed on Eudorus’ pulverized face and body were punishment for the man’s complicity in Fedir and Iryna’s murder, or if they were punishment for Finn for not saving them.

It was too late to save them now. The only hope he had — for them and himself — was justice. And justice could only come if he figured out who had pulled the strings that had gotten them killed.

At what cost?

He silenced the voice inside with an easy answer.

At any cost.

He thought again of Elise and felt his mood lift. She would be here soon. Then, for awhile at least, everything would be better.