Chapter 5
5
Finn listened to the sound of Elise’s breathing, making sure it was slow and steady before easing out from under her naked body. He didn’t want to leave.
He had to leave.
He pulled on his sweatpants and looked down at her, an angel laying on her stomach in his bed. Her golden hair was spread over the mattress, the sheet just covering the swell of her ass, the taper of her waist giving way to her strong, elegant back.
He loved her so fucking much.
The realization never failed to terrify him, and he padded quietly from the bedroom, easing the door shut without a sound as he stepped into the hallway.
Ronan’s bedroom door was closed, a series of sconces with sensors casting dim light through the hall. The house was quiet, and Finn walked carefully to the steps, grateful for the new construction of the house.
In the original Murphy house, the one they’d all grown up in, the one their mother had died in, the third and sixth step squeaked unless you stepped on the edge of the tread, something they’d all learned trying to sneak up and down the stairs for various reasons.
It had been annoying when Finn had been a kid, but now he looked fondly back on those quirks, symbols of a childhood where, for awhile at least, they had all felt safe and loved, cocooned in the old house with creaky floors and plaster walls and a water heater that never made it through more than one shower before needing to refill.
The house in the Berkshires was another symbol of how much had changed. His brothers didn’t live in a quirky old house anymore. Now they lived like kings — the massive compound in Boston, properties all over the world, the rustic but luxurious home in the mountains where they had been staying for the past three weeks.
He stepped off the stairs and headed for the liquor cabinet in the great room. His brothers were beer drinkers, but Finn wanted something else.
Something stronger.
Something to make him capable of falling asleep next to Elise without picturing the battered face of Eudorus, without wanting to go to the garage to work on him some more.
He looked at the labels on the bottles, wishing he had a glass of horilka, the homemade moonshine Fedir and his friends had made in Ukraine, or maybe some ouzo, which he’d developed a taste for when he’d lived in Greece.
He settled for whiskey, pouring an inch of the amber liquid into one of the glasses he found in the cabinet.
He took a drink and relished the burn of it in the back of his throat as he walked to the wall of windows overlooking the woods surrounding the house. The outdoor lights were off — they would come on if something tripped the sensors — but the moon was half full, illuminating the short lawn leading to the tree line.
He thought about the night Achilles’ men had invaded the property searching for the sample: the thump of the helicopter as it descended on the lawn, the men streaming onto the grass and into the house, the sound of shattering glass and splintering wood as gunfire tore through the night.
Looking at the property now, it was like that night had never happened, but it had, and they had Eudorus as a prisoner to prove it.
Not that it had done them any good, he thought bitterly.
He took another drink, his jaw tightening as he thought about the man in the garage. Even now, after three weeks of beatings, the defiant light hadn’t dimmed in the man’s eyes. Finn was beginning to despair they would get anything out of him, and that meant the trail of Fedir and Iryna’s murder would stay cold.
And what did Finn have to show for the past few months? The word blackridge , uttered by Isaac Fleming as he died on the lab floor in Scotland, and a shadow of a man named Achilles.
They knew next to nothing about him other than the fact that he was somehow affiliated with the Omni Group, a multinational conglomerate with countless divisions and even more employees and executives. They’d tried looking for connections between Omni’s employees and Ukraine, but so far the search had led nowhere.
Other than the Omni connection, the only thing they knew about Achilles was that he had some kind of interest in mining in Ukraine.
The paleontologist who’d had the amber sample before Finn stole it had been unable to tell them much of anything because of the NDA she’d signed when she’d agreed to work on the project, and Isaac Fleming, the only other scientist they knew for sure had worked on the project, was dead.
Finn could feel the clock ticking. If they didn’t get a break soon, he would be forced to abandon his search for answers, or let his brothers off the hook at least. They’d been devoting resources to Finn’s personal grudge for too long already. They’d been generous about it, but he couldn’t keep them from their real business much longer.
Besides, at what point was Finn crazy for continuing? At what point did the quest for justice turn into a futile obsession?
He thought of Elise, sleeping soundly in his bed. Leaving the States meant leaving her too. He’d been honest about that from the beginning, but dammit if he didn’t want to do it.
He didn’t know what the future held for him, had no real idea what he would do with the rest of his life. And he was in no hurry. He didn’t subscribe to the belief that life was about getting a job and a mortgage and settling down into a routine. He didn’t pass judgement on others for doing those things. If it made them happy, more power to them.
But the joy other people found in building a life of stability and security, Finn found in the unknown. He was most at peace when wandering a strange city with no schedule and no idea where he was going, when opening a map and picking his next destination on a whim, or accepting the offer of a fellow traveler to wander together for awhile — no timelines, no expectations.
He wanted to do those things with Elise, wanted to walk hand in hand with her like they had in Scotland, wanted to show her things she’d never seen and see new ones himself with her by his side.
But it would take most people a lifetime to heal from the kind of trauma she’d experienced, and it had only been two years for Elise. She’d made remarkable strides, had thrown herself into therapy and antianxiety practices, had forced herself to do uncomfortable things.
Could she leave Boston behind? Handle the stress of a constantly changing landscape, of new experiences almost daily?
He didn’t know.
Having Elise with him would mean slowing down. It would mean settling in one place for longer than he was used to while Elise acclimated.
It was a small price to pay for having her with him — and he did want her with him. For all the things he didn’t know, he knew that much with the certainty of his own heartbeat.
But he wasn’t sure she’d even want to leave Boston. She loved him — he believed that much — but her life was here: Julia, JT, her mom, however complicated that relationship was sometimes.
Leaving it all behind sounded romantic, but when faced with reality, he wasn’t sure she would want to abandon the comforts of home.
And there was another thing: she would hate slowing him down. No matter how much he reassured her, she would think of herself as a burden.
He thought of their trip to New York City the month before, how she’d gotten lost in the city on her own, how she’d kept it from him until they got home and it all came pouring out — her panic attack on the streets, her momentary paralysis as she forced herself to breathe, to orient herself again.
It had broken his heart to think of her alone and scared, but it had hurt him more to think that she hadn’t wanted to tell him, that she’d been scared he would think less of her.
Leaving the States together would mean a thousand experiences like that one. He didn’t know if she could survive it, didn’t know if he could put her in a position to try.
All of which left him with the two things he did know: he couldn’t stay, and leaving would be next to impossible for her.
He sighed and downed the rest of the whiskey in one gulp. Their relationship had become a tangled web of conflicting desire. He hadn’t expected it to be this way. He’d thought they would enjoy their time together and part ways as friends.
How could he have known he’d fall in love with her? How could he have known any of this would come to pass when he’d made the decision to come home, to follow the obscured trail left by Fedir and Iryna’s murderers?
His resolve hardened at the thought of the faceless people behind their deaths. It was their fault.
Eudorus’ fault.
It was Eudorus’ fault that Finn hadn’t discovered the identity of the man behind Fedir and Iryna’s murder, Eudorus’ fault Finn was still here in the States, becoming more and more entwined in the family he’d grown accustomed to living without, and yes, Eudorus’ fault Finn couldn’t focus on what to do about his future with Elise.
He tightened his grip on the glass until he was afraid it would shatter in his hands. Eudorus was the key. To get answers, to move on, Finn would have to crack him.
Finn would have to break him.