25. Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Five
Finn
L orcan glances at the box on the floor of the back seat again. It’s wrapped like a Christmas present, a bow sitting on top. Underneath is a garbage bag to keep the blood from seeping into the car mats. Probably been blood spilled in the vehicle before. Not as much as that leaking head, though.
“Bloody hell, you’re playing with fire,” he says.
“I’m giving them what they want.” I’ve taken the second stretch of driving to get us into PLA territory. We’ve spent most of the ride in silence since we can’t be sure if we’re being monitored by someone. If my mind wasn’t busy mulling over Jade’s connection to Carys’s stabbing years ago, I’d be bored out of my skull.
“Indeed. With a ‘screw you’ flourish.” He sighs and rubs the side of his face.
That’s been my MO since we were kids. Why would he imagine I’d be any different now? “Think anyone is still awake?”
He squints down the dark laneway, trying to catch a glimpse of any lights ahead. “It’s half twelve. I reckon someone will be up as a lookout. Pretty shoddy security otherwise.”
As we get closer, the gravel drive crunches and crackles under the tires. There’s no silent entrance by car. If anyone is watching for trouble, they’ll hear us coming, even if we turned off our lights. I park the vehicle by the front, and framed in the doorway is Noel. I could give him the box now and have him find a spike for Donal’s head. Or I could deliver the package as I intended. Easy choice.
From the back seat, I drape the garbage bag over my present and pick it up. The contents aren’t heavy, but I don’t need to be getting covered in blood when I haven’t seen Carys in a week. Not sure how she’ll respond to what I’m about to do. She’s probably sleeping, anyway.
Lorcan is at my side as we walk toward Noel. “Pierre-Jacques and Jade around?” I ask.
“In the throne room. We heard the car on the laneway.” Noel holds open the front door. “Is that…?”
“It is. No peeking.” I smirk and shoulder past him.
They follow me to the throne room, and while I hated our last meeting here, I have a feeling this will leave me more satisfied. When we get to the large, open room, Jade and PJ are settled into their thrones drinking glasses of wine as though they are royalty. Ridiculous. I set down the garbage bag and pluck out the bloody, wrapped box. Without waiting for an invitation, I set the box on Jade’s lap.
“M’lady. Donal’s head. In a box.” I give her an exaggerated bow.
She gasps, and her wineglass crashes to the floor. Red liquid spills everywhere. When she glances up at me, shock and rage mingle on her face. “Is that blood ?”
“Yeah. See, the head is connected to the neck by—” I use my head and neck as props while I explain basic anatomy.
“I know,” she grits out. “Why did you put the bloody box in my lap?”
“Oh, sorry.” I frown, trying to suppress my grin. “I thought you wanted his head.”
“You thought wrong,” Pierre-Jacques says from the seat beside her. “Noel, remove the box and do as I asked earlier. Head on a spike at a corner of the house.”
I quash my eye roll at such a useless display of dominance. Who from McCaffrey’s organization will see his head up here? No one.
When Noel lifts the box, Jade’s dress is patterned in various shades of bloodred.
“You’ve ruined my dress,” she seethes.
Funny, it’s not the blood bothering her but rather the ruined fabric. I focus on Pierre-Jacques and ignore her quiet rage. At least her emotion seems authentic. Apparently, she cares about clothes. She and Carys would have that in common if nothing else. “Francois probably called you already, but the McCaffrey men are yours.”
“Did he beg for his life?” Her hands hover over the dampness of her dress, disgust marring her features. When I don’t answer right away, she glances up, a cunning gleam in her eyes. “Well?”
“No.” I shrug. “He went out like a man.”
She glares at Pierre-Jacques, unsatisfied with my answer. “Did you kill the rest of his family?” Pierre-Jacques asks in a leisurely tone.
I chuckle. “Uh, no. Had you listened to my plan, you’d have known who I needed to kill to get this done. Lady Macbeth here has the blood of the only person who couldn’t survive in her lap.”
Her eyes narrow at my reference. What I’m trying to figure out is whether she’s more like Iago. A poison in Pierre-Jacque’s ear, partners in the PLA, or is she manipulating him?
“Yes, but you have a certain reputation.” Pierre-Jacques flicks his hand. “Kill them all.”
“What can I say? I learned a few things in prison about being more economical.” Beside me, Lorcan covers his mouth, but he remains a silent presence.
There are more sides to Jade than a house of mirrors, and I can’t tell whether she understands why I put the box in her lap or not. If she was at the pub eighteen years ago, she’ll have seen Lorcan too. So far, they’ve given no indication they don’t trust him. Trust is earned, but it can turn on a dime.
“Leave us.” Pierre-Jacques picks up his wineglass.
“What? I don’t get a pat on the head? A cookie?”
His furious gaze bores into mine. “You disrespected Jade, and you’re alive. The fact you still have a head is because you brought me someone else’s. Leave us.”
The instinct to bite down, swagger harder, rises and waits at the back of my throat. I swallow the urge. Until we’ve got Lucas, Sofia, Lena, and the girls moved to a more secure location, I can only push so hard. Carys wouldn’t forgive me for putting them in danger for my ego. The CIA would never pardon me for ripping his head off without knowing the larger PLA plan. Tentacles of the organization lie across the world. Take one off and another grows in its place.
Instead of escalating, I rotate on my heel and stride to the door which leads to the stairs. My brother follows behind as a silent shadow.
“Not you, Lachlan. We have things to discuss.”
“Aye.” He turns back. “Yes, sir.”
I half turn in response, uneasy at the thought of leaving him alone. In this situation, he’s not my brother, he’s the PLA’s hired gun. If they don’t suspect anything yet, insisting on staying will raise their ire. Our gazes connect for the briefest moment before I’m through the doors and headed for Carys. There’s only so much protecting I can do, and I relied on Lorcan to take care of himself once our father was disposed of. I can’t start coddling him now.
In the hallway outside Carys’s bedroom door, Jay is playing twenty-one with a deck of cards. “You winning?” I smirk.
He chuckles and sweeps up the deck. “You’ve returned.”
“How were things here?” Even though we chatted a few times, communication was tricky with the distance between us and people on both ends listening in. My respect for Kim’s duplicitous nature might have increased a smidge in the last week. Here, in the PLA mansion, I’m just like her. Vulnerable from both sides—two agendas tugging on me for attention. Figuring out which to prioritize, and when, isn’t always clear.
“Weird. You?”
“Same, actually.” I frown and check the time on my phone. How long will Jade and Pierre-Jacques stay awake? We can’t speak inside, but middle-of-the-night trysts came with their own risks. “Three a.m. Field. You got me?”
“I got you.” Jay rises to his feet and ambles along the hall to his room.
I slip inside the door, and Carys stirs in bed but doesn’t wake. At home, she became a light sleeper with Lucas needing fed. I undress as quietly as I can and slide between the covers behind her. When I tug her flush against my body, she sighs.
“You’re here,” she murmurs. Her ass moves against my erection. She turns in my embrace and burrows into me. “I missed you. I wish you never had to leave me again.”
My arms tighten around her, drawing her as close as I can. The whole week I was gone, there’d been a dull ache under my breastbone. The same one I carried with me in prison. Right now, it’s disappeared. Vanished. I’m never going to get into heaven, but having her in my arms is pretty damn close to perfection. Amazes me, sometimes. I get to feel this with her after everything I’ve done.
She trails kisses up my neck until she reaches my lips. “Show me how much you missed me.”
Easy. I’d give her that demonstration all night.
Carys’s hand is secure in mine as we sneak down the rear staircase. Daniel and Noel switched watch posts for tonight, and I’m confident we can get to the fields without Daniel seeing us. He’s lazy and borderline incompetent. Once we’re outside, Jay’s build is a shadow in the distance.
We’re silent while we trudge through the field to meet him. When we arrive, he says, “What’d you learn?”
Carys wraps her arms around my waist, and I run my hand along her back. Having to meet out here in the middle of the night is inconvenient, but at least we’re capable of speaking somewhere. We need to have the same information. “Jade’s not her real name. She used to run around with the McCaffrey crew when Carys was stabbed. I—uh—murdered her boyfriend.”
“Oh shit,” Jay breathes. “Why’d she want Donal’s head on a stick?”
“According to Donal? He didn’t do enough to get revenge for my murderous spree within his organization.”
“But if you killed him…” She gazes up at me. “Why go after Donal? Shouldn’t she be going after you?”
Jay and I stare at each other in the dark. “You think she wants to hurt Carys?” he asks.
I shake my head. “If that’s what she wanted, she could have gone after her while I was away. I’m confident she has more power than she lets on. I don’t know if Francois told me the shit about Jade because he was supposed to let it slip or the guy’s an idiot. Spent a week with him. Fifty-fifty either way.”
“What’s Lachlan think?” Jay asks.
“He’s going to check to see if there’s any more intel on her. I doubt it. Without a real name, we’re flying blind. This alias could have come from anywhere at any point.”
“She mentioned she likes to—” Carys seems to search for the right words. “She gets off on seeing people afraid.”
I rock on my heels. Well, fuck me. Letting me realize she’s a threat and then coiling up like a snake, not striking, but not backing down, is a hell of a message. For the first time, the risk in being here is weighty and solid. She’s circling us. Maybe it’s because of her dead boyfriend or maybe it’s something else. “You talked to Demid?”
“Yeah, but my father won’t budge on the terms. Thinks Demid is being unreasonable. Sure—abandon your daughter and grandson to dangle in danger while you determine what’s the best deal for you. You know? He makes me so angry. I’d never leave him in harm’s way.”
“I can’t make a move until our families are safe.” I rub my face with both hands. “She’s got a grudge against me. That much we know. How much does the bitterness matter in the bigger plan? Who really wanted me here? Was it her? Pierre-Jacques? Why do they need the influx of men from the McCaffrey organization? Why do they want to drag the Byrne family into this? Does Jade know Lachlan isn’t Lachlan?”
“That’s a lot of unknowns,” Jay mutters.
“I don’t like our odds at the moment,” I admit. “We’ve gotta start slotting pieces into the puzzle. We need time and space to search the place.”
“Jade and I are going shopping in Belfast tomorrow. So, we’ll be out of the house.”
“Not alone.”
“Kim’s coming, much to both her and Jade’s disgust.” She laughs a little. “They don’t get along.”
“But yet Jade tolerates her and is technically her boss.” I cock my head. “Why?”
“She likes Carys to think she’s weak,” Jay says. “She enjoys Carys’s sympathy. Almost… preens when Carys gives her undivided attention. If she vetoed Kim, she’d lose the weak angle and possibly Carys’s sympathy.”
I glance down at Carys. “That what you think?”
She eyes Jay with a hint of a smile. “You’ve really been paying attention.”
“You and Jade have been talking about a lot of boring shit. Makes it easy to read some body language ’cause there’s fuck all else to do.”
“Maybe she is faking it. But we do seem to have a lot in common.”
“What’s Kim say?” I hate asking, but if someone can spot a fake, I suspect she’s it.
“It’s easy to become who someone wants when you know them well enough.” Carys sighs. “So cynical. I will admit Jade has too many faces to be completely sure which is the real one.”
“How’d she respond to you putting the head in her lap?” Jay’s eyes gleam in the moonlight.
I wince. Lorcan must have texted him. I can only imagine how that exchange went. I was hoping to avoid the brutal details with Carys around. She’s never been squeamish, but I’m loath to push her too far with my ruthlessness.
“Head in her lap?” The furrow between her brows deepens.
“Don’t worry.” I rub her back. “I used a box.”
“Please tell me you killed him first.” She squeezes her eyes shut.
“He didn’t suffer. No point. Killing him wasn’t personal. Not for me.” I kiss the top of her head. “As for Jade, I’d say indignant and a bit aggressive. Mostly about the blood on her dress.” I consider her reaction for a beat. The dress wasn’t the weirdest part. “She also wanted me to tell her if he begged.”
She points at Jay. “The way she discussed fear and suffering with me the other day was not normal.” She presses her finger into her chest. “For me to say her opinions on those topics aren’t normal? Well, you realize she’s screwed up.”
Carys might love me, but her sense of right and wrong is on a scale others would recognize even if they don’t agree with the breadth of her gray areas. Enjoying the suffering of others? On a different scale entirely.
I gaze between Jay and Carys. “We need to understand who we’re really dealing with as soon as we can.”