35. Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Five
Finn
W e’ve been welcomed into the Byrne house. Whatever Lorcan said or guaranteed Thomas, it was enough to get us entry. So far, no one has fired a shot or thrown a punch. Not a bad start to an uneasy alliance. Jay is tucked away in a private bedroom, and Thomas called his personal physician to double-check John and Lorcan’s patch job. He sent a maid to a shop to purchase us an extra set of clothes. Not a full wardrobe like the PLA, but I’ll take loyalty over outfits any day.
When Carys gets off a video chat with Lucas, and she’s been able to reassure Lena and Sofia about Jay’s condition with a straight face, I figure I might as well know what she promised Semyon. Depending on how things go with the PLA, we might end up in debt to Thomas and his family. Perched on the bed, fresh from our shower together, she looks relaxed and, dare I say it, happy.
I drop my towel and crawl across the bed toward her. She eyes me with amusement. “Again?”
Instead of tugging her under me like she expects, I sprawl out beside her and drag one of the pillows under my head. “I didn’t want to talk about it in prison—because what would be the point?—but in three years when I’m out, what do you want?”
With the PLA listening in while we were in Northern Ireland, I didn’t get a chance to discuss the future. But I don’t want to do it at a cramped table in a room full of other people during visitation either. Maybe it’ll help when I’m back there to have an understanding between us of where we’re headed.
Confusion flashes across her face. “Well, I thought—I thought we both wanted the same thing. You, me, Lucas, Cape Verde. The hotel and casino.”
“I guess.” I scratch my head and force myself to maintain eye contact. This is not a conversation I ever expected to have with any woman, but I want Carys to have everything she’s dreamed about—even if she has to wait three years to get it. “I guess I’m wondering whether, and this isn’t me asking officially because I know better, whether you wanted a wedding with all the family stuff.”
She bites her lip, and a slow smile tugs her lip from her teeth. God, she’s sexy.
“Are you asking me to marry you?”
I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling, chuckling. “Uh, no. ’Cause I know better than to ask a woman like you without a ring.”
“With or without a ring, Finn Donaghey, my answer is the same.” She traces figure eights on my chest.
“Don’t keep me in suspense.” I turn to gaze at her. “Is that what you’d want?”
“I don’t need to marry you to feel like we’ll be together forever, but yeah, I want to. I really, really want to.”
I tap my temple and smirk. “Noted.”
“I’d marry you right now if I could.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Really? Without the dress and the decorations and the other girly shit?”
“Well…”
“Exactly.” Whatever she wants, she’ll get even if it’s not for another three years. I climb off the bed and grab my towel from the floor, scrubbing my short hair to get rid of the excess water. “How’s everyone doing in Boston?”
“They said the staff has been very good to them so far.”
I eye her as I pluck my fresh clothes out of the pile on the dresser. The maid took our other things to wash. She made a tsking noise at the blood. “They should be. They’re honored guests.” Semyon doesn’t have much honor though, and whatever Carys guaranteed him has been eating at me. “What’d you promise him to get that treatment?”
Carys fiddles with the neck of her robe and doesn’t meet my gaze. “I told him I’d protect him and his family from you.”
I laugh, and amusement coats my face as I tug my shirt over my head. “Oh, yeah?” Just like Semyon to ask for the impossible.
“He made Jay promise as well.”
“Jay’s in no shape to hold me back from anything.” Despite my enjoyment in the request, I’m not going to like why she’ll be keeping me in line. While I might mock her for trying, if she tells me I can’t do something, I try to listen. She’s got me by the balls, and I don’t even mind all that much. “Why would Semyon and his family need you to protect them from me? I’m one guy. I don’t have any of my crew.”
She tilts her head, and her expression is exasperated. “You didn’t threaten them with a crew. Apparently, you threatened to saw off their body parts.”
That does ring a faint bell. “With a dull saw…” The piece of my memory slots into place, and I swallow. Rage rises in me swift and sure. Now I remember why I said that. “They bombed your hotel. I wouldn’t do their dirty work in prison, so they came after you.”
Carys meets my gaze, but she doesn’t deny the leap I’ve made.
“Nah, nah, nah.” I wag my finger and then button my jeans. “That doesn’t go unanswered. Those fuckers can’t threaten you and not get a reprisal from me. I don’t work that way. I don’t care what you promised them. When our family is out of their grasp, I’m making good on my threat.”
“Finn.” She climbs off the king-sized bed. “I promised. I gave my word.”
“And I gave mine in the prison. I told their errand boy if Hagen or anyone in his family was trying to use you to get to me, I’d find a way to cut off their limbs. I don’t make empty threats.”
“We’re no longer in a position of power. We aren’t. Maybe someday we will be again. Though that’s not exactly the life I want for us.” She slides her hand down the side of my face. “I don’t want to start wars or keep those fires burning. A family with you. That’s what I want.”
I meet her gaze and flex my jaw with repressed emotion. A family is good until one of my old contacts gets a little too bold. Leaving something like this unanswered is bad for business.
“All this anger, all this rage, we need to funnel it into destroying the PLA. If you do that, then in three years, we’re free. We’ll get the rest of our lives together. You, me, and Lucas. The Volkovs, every other mafia organization, and the danger’ll be in our rear window. You can’t keep courting it. Do you understand? If you keep inviting it, we’ll never be free.”
Her words land, but I don’t want to let them sink in. Maybe I can’t keep pursuing dangerous people and expect to keep us safe. Doesn’t mean the instinct isn’t there, threatening to burst out and ruin our lives. I could yell and seethe—pour these emotions across the room as proof of how much I love her, and of the lengths I’ll go to keep her safe. There are no limits and no barriers. For her, I’d burn every last inch of the world to the ground.
“Love me, Finn,” she whispers, as her hand cups my chin. “I need you to love me. Nothing else.”
I yank her robe apart and tug her naked body flush to mine. With a murmured curse, I capture her lips. If this is what she wants, this is what she’ll get. She tugs my shirt off, frantic with need, and she makes short work of my jeans. Her heavy robe hits the floor with a soft thud. I throw her onto the bed and follow her down, covering her body with mine.
She won’t let me litter the room with my rage, so I’ll sink it into her. My anger can fuel my worship. I’ll show her I love her enough to listen, even if leaving a threat unanswered murders a piece of me.
Liam, Gus, Jack, Connor, and Thomas stand around the world map with me, Lorcan, Kim, and Carys. Though the family has vetted us, and our families go way back, tension is thick in the air. No matter what guarantees we give them, there’s still a chance Lorcan or Kim could screw them over with the CIA. Hell, even I might turn them over if the CIA says they’ll get rid of those last three pesky years in prison. Trouble is, I’ve got nothing to offer them on the Byrne brothers, and they’re being extra cagey with the information they have on the PLA.
“We’re not going to get anywhere,” Lorcan growls. “If you can’t be more open with what you know.”
The men exchange uneasy glances.
“I’ve given you my word.” He presses his hands into the table.
Thomas squints at Lorcan and then nods at his brothers.
“Shanghai and Russia were the two main places of discussion between us and the PLA.” Thomas sticks pins in those areas.
“Was Russia Volgograd?” I grab another pin to narrow our focus.
“Aye,” he admits. “We were going after Demid’s assets.”
Lorcan picks up different colored pins and sticks them in the cities where bombs were delivered.
Carys frowns and peers over the table. “These are places where Van de Berg Ammunitions has branches.”
“Except Cork,” I say. We already deduced as much about the other locations.
“Even Cork.” Thomas gestures to his brother Connor. “What’d you tell me the other day?”
“Met Charles in Cork for lunch last week. He reckons the new build is on track.” Connor clicks something on his phone and passes it to Lorcan.
I peer at the phone around Lorcan’s shoulder and the banner across the top of Van de Berg Ammunitions webpage declares their expansion. The grand opening of their office building on the outskirts of Cork is in four days.
“Four days?” Carys stares at her phone and at probably the same image I’m seeing. “How did I miss this?”
Her father hasn’t been returning her calls, so there’s that. We’ve also tried very hard to separate ourselves from him. One stint in jail for Carys at her father’s hands is more than enough. Most of the illegal activities she was accused of were deals Charles and Eric did, and yet she was poised to take the fall.
“Finn.” Lorcan eyes me after passing Connor his phone. “Whaddya say we check in with Francois?”
Would they have told him not to speak to us? Roughly three hours to get there, and if Thomas will give us some extra men, we might learn something about the PLA’s bigger plan.
Thomas folds his arms over his chest. “You got them the McCaffrey men.”
He doesn’t put the pieces together for me or Lorcan, but the implication is clear. If the PLA is planning to bomb or attack the grand opening of Van de Berg Ammunitions’ building in Cork, we gave them the tools to do it. Beyond frustrating.
“I’d say we plan for some kind of strike on the building the day of the grand opening.” I run a hand along the top of my head. “Are they setting off the other bombs on the same day? They could. Or maybe they want us to think they will.”
“Divide our resources.” Lorcan stares at the map.
“We have to tell the CIA.” Kim is on the other side of him. “We’ve got locations and a rough time frame. We need to report this.”
Thomas’s jaw clenches. Like me, he’d rather deal with the PLA without intervention. Kim is right, though. We can’t be everywhere. We might be able to cover Cork, but we haven’t got a hope in hell of doing anything in Chicago, Switzerland, Shanghai, Volgograd, Mexico City, and Cape Verde. As much as I hate to admit it, their reach is bigger and better than ours. I’d have needed months to foil every threat.
Looks like we’ve got four days.
“Kimi, you meet with your handler and give them what we’ve got. Thomas, can you spare us a few men? Lorcan and I will pay Francois a less friendly visit.”
“Should I warn my dad? Some of his employees?” Carys’s phone is cradled in her hand.
“Not yet,” Lorcan says. “Don’t want anyone spooked from Van de Berg Ammunitions. If we’ve sussed out the PLA plan, we need them to move ahead.”
“So, is going to see Francois wise?” She cocks her head at me and raises an eyebrow.
“Smash-and-grab.” I shrug. “We’ll kidnap Francois and mine him for information.”
“Can we trust what he tells us?” Kim’s hands are shoved into the pockets of her light jacket.
“Only one way to know for sure,” I say. “The PLA is going to expect us to do something.”
“Quick, decisive moves.” Lorcan makes eye contact with each of us. “We’ve got four days. No time to question if we’re right. We have to act like we are—like we can’t be bested.”
“Buckle up, buttercup. We’re headed to Cork.” I rub my hands together. We’re taking the fight to them.