36. Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Six
I thrash around all night, my brain unable to process I should have died along with my father and brother. How was I spared? Why?
When I manage to quiet those thoughts, my mind strays to Lorcan. Is he home yet? Will he come see me? What am I doing with him?
Fed up, I throw off the covers to take a hot shower. More exhausted than I’ve been in years, I get dressed and head for Lorcan’s rooms. On the way past his office, light shines under the door. For a minute, I wonder if I left it on. But I was careful about replacing everything as I found it.
After only a moment of hesitation, I punch in the code Lorcan gave me. The light flashes red and beeps. Frowning, I raise my hand to input the code again when the door buzzes open.
He’s home. He already changed the code. I guess that answers how much he trusts me. Disappointment lodges in my throat as I walk into the room. Behind his desk, he sits with a glass of whiskey halfway to his lips.
“Anything I need to know?” His chair tilts back as he examines me from a distance. He doesn’t rise or come forward like I expected.
“No.” I cram my hands into my pockets. “I thought I might have left a light on.”
“Just me.” He lifts his glass, draining it, then pours another drink from the bottle. Beside him sits a shredder and as he talks, he drives a second stack of papers into it.
“How was your trip?”
“Not what I hoped it would be.”
“Do you have an idea what went on? Any leads you need me to track down?”
Lorcan’s gaze trails over me. He takes another sip of his whiskey. “You’re fired.”
“What?”
“I’m firing you. Pack up and be out of here by the afternoon. Go work for Carys or… I don’t know… Try out that second career you were talking about. You’re not welcome here anymore.”
“Lorcan.” My heart drops, but there’s also an unexpected queasiness in my stomach. “We don’t understand what happened to your dad yet. Why would you fire me?”
He sighs and downs another shot. “I have my reasons. I don’t need to share them with you.” Without looking, he pushes a third stack of papers through the shredder.
Leaning across the desk, I snatch his bottle of Jameson before he can pour himself another drink. “Why are you firing me?”
“Taking my alcohol isn’t going to help. It’s going to piss me off.”
I meet his look and take a big swig from the bottle.
“Drinking my alcohol is definitely going to piss me off.”
“Tell me why you’re firing me.”
When he doesn’t say anything, I knock back more of the bottle.
He comes around the desk and crowds my personal space. With a yank, he removes the bottle from my grasp and sets it on the desk. “I don’t want you here anymore.”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
His jaw hardens like granite. “I’m done checking into my father’s murder. Your job here is finished.”
“Job’s done. We’re done?”
“It was always just for now. Now came sooner than you thought.”
“You don’t mean this.” I ease my thumb across his cheek. “Lorcan, you don’t mean this.”
His hand grabs mine and brings it between us. He doesn’t look at me; he’s focused on our linked hands. “Don’t be one of those women who doesn’t know when to let go.”
My heart squeezes in my chest. Yanking my hand out of his grasp, I step away. I shake my head, at a loss, before turning on my heel and walking out of his office. One of those women.
As soon as I’m in my room, I get out my suitcase and start packing. Half of me is tuned to the door the whole time, expecting Lorcan to show up, to explain or to apologize.
But he never does.
Ian sits outside Finn’s room when I arrive at the hospital. Even though Lorcan’s fired me, I promised Finn I’d come to see him today with a nonexistent progress report. I understand what Lorcan believes and can say nothing to Finn or Lorcan himself. Even as I packed, I wondered what I was going to do now. Give up? I’m so close to finding out what happened to Chad, to my father, even to Lorcan’s father. I’m on the cusp of so much.
“Any improvement in his memory?” I ask Ian.
“No, nothing. It’s still a blank hole.”
“That’s too bad.”
“You’re telling me. Guy’s a bear. Better watch yourself. Nothing Finn hates more than being stuck doing nothing in a crisis.”
I should tell him Lorcan fired me. I can’t bring myself to say the words. It’s too much like admitting defeat. Part of me wonders if Lorcan suspects me and if it’s easier to let me walk away than to ask the hard questions. The answers to my questions are equally hard and just as impossible.
“Good to know.” I turn the handle and open the door.
Finn’s watching an MMA fighting program when I enter. He clicks it off and actually smiles at me. He must be bored if he’s happy to see me. “Finally, someone with news.”
“No news I’m afraid.” I give him a partial smile. “Well, that’s not entirely true. This will be my last visit.”
He scowls. “You don’t get to decide that. I do. I pay your salary.”
“Your brother terminated my contract. So I guess you’re not doing that anymore. What kind of severance do I get, anyway?”
“My deartháir beag fired you?” Finn’s voice drips with disbelief.
“He did.”
With narrowed eyes, he drums his fingers on the edge of his bed. “Why?”
“Don’t know. He went to track a lead yesterday and came home last night. I saw him this morning. He was getting drunk. I asked if there was anything he wanted me to chase down about the attack on the house, and he fired me.”
Finn’s face morphs from frustration to delight. “Ah, makes sense. You’re rehired.”
“He fired me. Told me never to darken his door again.” Not what he said, but close enough.
“Move your stuff to my wing of the house. Tell him you’re a free agent, and I snatched you up.” He chuckles. “God, I wish I could be there to see his face.”
“This is funny to you?”
“I need to amuse myself somehow.” Finn shrugs. “I’m stuck here. Being able to fuck with my brother while I’m in here is an unexpected bonus.”
“You don’t even know why he fired me.”
He holds up a finger. “I do know.”
“I don’t even know.”
“Then you aren’t that bright.”
I let out a frustrated noise. Pursing my lips, I try to think through moving to his side. It’ll be difficult to avoid Lorcan, but getting closer to Finn might help me slot the missing pieces into the puzzle. If he remembers… “I don’t know.”
“We’ve established that. Not that bright.”
I roll my eyes and give an exasperated sigh. “He doesn’t want me there.”
“I do.” He holds up a hand when I try to speak. “What I want takes precedence over everyone else. Always.”
“You can’t intimidate me. Certainly not from that hospital bed. I can walk if I want to.” That’s mostly true. I’m afraid of him but in a much more abstract way than is good for my survival.
His expression grows dark. “I should scare you, Kim. Most people know better.”
“You make working for you instead of your brother sound so appealing.” Every time he calls me Kim instead of Kimmy, a frisson of unease snakes along my spine. He hasn’t called me Kimmy once since he lost his memory. What does that mean?
“Move your stuff. Lorcan will stomp in here raging. All will be right with the world.”
“He fired me for a reason.”
A shadow passes across Finn’s face. “We don’t fire people. We terminate people. Do you see what I’m saying?”
I straighten up at the implication. “You’re saying he can’t fire me, he can only kill me?”
“I’m saying him firing you isn’t how we do things. Read into that what you will.”
I shove my hands into my pockets, contemplating what Finn is implying. The shredding Lorcan was doing, the conversation I overheard with Zahir, the way Lorcan couldn’t look at me when he accused me of being one of those women adds up to him trying to distance himself from me.
Still, it pisses me off he didn’t tell me the truth. “What would I do for you?”
“Find out how the fuck I ended up in here for starters. Once that’s done, you can do whatever you were doing for my deartháir beag . He’ll be over his tiny fit of rage by then.” Finn gives me a sly grin. “He comes around to my way of thinking, eventually.”
“Always?”
He raises his eyebrows. “We’re brothers. That comes before everything else, everyone else.”
I scan his face, but he seems sincere. For whatever reason, Lorcan’s love for his brother doesn’t supersede his love for his father. When push comes to shove, where will Lorcan’s loyalty lie?
“I’ll go move my stuff. I’m already packed, anyway.” I head for the door. My hand is on the knob when I remember Ian is outside and Sean is at the house, not to mention the others I didn’t know as well. “What do you want me to tell the rest of the men?”
He smirks. “Nothing. Act like you’re in charge of my business. They’ll fall in line or ask me. Probably fall in line.”
Antonio’s warning rings in my ears. Finn doesn’t like curious people. Was that only a few months ago? Feels like years. I’ve gotten away with asking a lot of questions. Not without raising suspicion. I need to be more careful. “And Lorcan?”
“He gives you a hard time, you send him here.”
I search Finn’s face for a moment, trying to figure out why he’s pulling me in. He’d be so much better off letting me go. Lorcan might not, but he would be. If someone is going to go down for these crimes, I won’t let it be Lorcan.
“Thanks, Finn.” Before he can say anything in return, I slip out the door.