40. Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty
T he next morning I’m sluggish. Semyon recognizing me, Carys revealing Finn’s part in his father’s murder, and my uncertainty over what to do about any of it don’t give me the headspace for a restful sleep. In the middle of the night, Lorcan tugged me flush against his body and whispered in my ear how much he loved me. Now that he’s said it once, it spills out of him at every opportunity. His voice, half-asleep murmuring those words in my ear led to even less rest.
He’s gone off to check on a few of their interests and left me in charge. Finn’s coming home this morning, so Lorcan asked me to stick around in case Finn wanted an update on anything. There’s nothing to report, and I’m worried as soon as he arrives there will be rapid progress in discovering who was responsible for his injury. The minute he remembers who I am, I’m dead. I know it, and I’m still here. There’s a voice inside my head that sometimes wonders if I have a death wish, if the decimation of my family makes me incapable of caring about my own life.
I check my watch. “Sean,” I call down the hall. “What time is Ian arriving with Finn?”
“Should be any minute.”
My phone pings in my pocket. It’s an SOS from Dai Qing. Her timing couldn’t be worse. I can’t answer it right now. Pushing my phone into my back pocket, I brush my fingers against my weapons. Dai Qing couldn’t know whether Finn remembers. It can’t be about that. Still, an SOS from her worries me with him on his way home. My life is on the cusp of exploding, and I’m not sure which grenade will have the pin yanked first.
Yesterday, when Lorcan went to see him, he said his brother was still a blank slate about the twenty-four-hour period around his injury. Neither of us wants him to remember. Lorcan thinks the helicopter leads to himself. Somewhere inside Finn knows it leads to me.
The front door opens, and Finn strides in. There isn’t a trace of his injuries in the way he walks or carries himself. If there’s one point I can give him, he’s a warrior. Surviving those wounds and being out of the hospital within a week is impressive. And scary.
“Kim,” he snaps. “I want you and Sean in my office. I want to understand why the fuck everyone here is so incompetent you don’t know what the hell happened.”
Rotating on my heel, I follow him down the hall. “Does that incompetence extend to your brother?”
He grunts. “No, it doesn’t. That fucker knows something, and he’s keeping it from me.” He glances at me over his shoulder. “You got one hand on his balls lately. You need to get me information.”
“To be fair,” I say from a step behind him. “It’s really a two-handed job.”
Finn chuckles and stops suddenly. His gaze skims over me. “I don’t want to see you again today until you have what I want. You can’t get it? I’ll find someone who can.” He raises his eyebrows. “I almost died. Someone needs to pay. You got me? Someone will pay.”
Unease races along my spine, but I hold eye contact with him. “Understood.” My stomach flips. Maybe I need to tell Lorcan about my conversation with Carys sooner than I want. My back may be against the wall, but I’m not in a corner yet.
“Well.” He angles his chin in the direction we came. “You can go. I’ll chat with Sean about what you’ve been doing and where the gaps are. Maybe I should have put a man in charge.”
I bristle.
Finn chuckles. “Ah, I thought that’d get you. I don’t care what’s going on between you and Lorcan. I’m paying your salary. Get me information.”
“I will.”
He motions with his hand for Sean to follow him, and I’m left in the hall, staring at their retreating figures.
When I get to the front entrance, my phone registers a missed call from a blocked number. My heart thumps in my ears. Lorcan’s been gone for a while. A blocked number could be Dai Qing trying to reach me another way. It’s dangerous to call me since she never knows what position I’ll be in or who I’ll be with when the phone rings.
Jorge nods as I head out the door. A pang pierces my chest at Antonio’s absence. In the garage, I punch in the lockbox code for the spare keys to the cars. Lorcan took an SUV, but with Finn home from the hospital, the other is there again. Snatching the keys off their peg, I relock the box then climb into the driver’s seat.
When I arrive at the payphone a short drive from the house, I ease out of the driver’s seat and glance around. With a shaking hand, I dial Dai Qing’s private number I memorized when Malik switched roles.
“Dai Qing here.”
“It’s me.” I fiddle with the cord to the receiver. There’s shuffling on her end, and her office door clicks closed in the background.
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
Dai Qing takes a deep breath. “I—God—I wish I was there. It feels inhumane to say this on the phone.”
“Malik?” I whisper.
“No, he’s—there’s an infection, but he’s stable for now.” There’s another tense pause, and then Dai Qing says, “It’s your mom, Kimi. She died this morning.”
“What?” My knees buckle, and I place my hand on the thick plastic of the payphone wall. “What?” Last time I saw her, she was frail, but not close to death. “How?”
“She contracted pneumonia a few days ago. They—I guess no one updated them about Malik not being the contact anymore. It took them a couple days to get connected. And I tried to get in touch with you this morning. But they called me a few minutes ago to say she’d passed.”
A sob catches in my throat. The lump feels immovable, but I swallow it. “Okay.” Chills race across my chest and along my arms. I stare at my hand pressed against the plastic wall. “Okay. I need to—I should—what do I do now?” I ease my back against the wall, sliding until I’m crouched, the receiver clutched to my ear.
Dai Qing’s voice is quiet when she says, “You can still go see her if you want.”
I shake my head, and tears slip down my cheeks. “No.” My voice is thick, almost unrecognizable. “No.” There’s more firmness in the word than I feel. “She’s been gone a long time.”
There’s silence on the other end of the line. Dai Qing breathes in my ear. “Then you need to collect her things. The facility said it isn’t much.”
“Yeah, right. Yeah. Malik helped my mother pack up and get rid of any extras while I was on assignment.” When I close my eyes, an echo of Lorcan whispering he loves me floats across my consciousness. I cling to it like a life raft. “I’m supposed to be finding fake information for Finn today. I’ll go to the home now.”
“Do you need me to meet you there? Or do you want me to get someone to meet you there? Or pick up the stuff for you? We can hold it for you until you’re ready.”
“No.” I swallow the bile gathering in my throat. “I need to do this.” My chest is tight, and I clear my throat. “I should have spent more time with her.”
“Kimi,” Dai Qing’s voice is filled with kindness. “You were a good daughter. I have no doubt she loved you, and she was proud of you, of everything you’ve done with your life.”
I choke on a sob. “I have to go.” I push on the lever to hang up. Tears stream down my face as I press my forehead against the top of the payphone. Without giving myself a chance to second-guess my choice, I slip money into the slot and let my fingers fly across the numbers I memorized months ago.
“Lorcan Donaghey.” The timbre of his voice is all business. He wouldn’t have recognized the number. I should have called from my cell, but I’m not thinking clearly.
“Lorcan,” I whisper.
“Kim,” his tone becomes guarded, and the noise around him quiets. “Talk to me. Are you okay? Where are you?”
“My mom.” I have to force the words out of me, and I can’t say the rest.
“I’ll meet you there,” he says. “I’m on my way.”
“Okay.” My speech is thick with tears. My finger hovers over the lever to cut off our conversation.
“Kim?”
Silence sits between us, and I listen to him breathe for a moment, a sliver of comfort across a phone line. Tears fall unchecked. I sniff and wipe them impatiently with one hand.
“I love you, my a chroi . Whatever’s happened, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” His tenderness eases over me like a blanket. An engine starts in the background.
I press my finger on the lever disconnecting the call before my traitor heart either says the words bubbling inside me or I collapse sobbing on the floor.
It takes almost no time to collect her things. I’ve signed the paperwork and picked up the two boxes before Lorcan even arrives. When he strides through the sliding doors, my heart leaps into my throat, and for the first time since I arrived at the facility, I’m worried I’m going to cry. Nothing seems real. Having him here is like being hit by a splash of water. It jolts me into the moment.
He doesn’t say anything when he sees the boxes clutched in my hands. Gently, he takes them from me and sets them on the counter. He draws me into his chest and wraps his arms around me with the right amount of pressure.
“It’s not going to feel real for a long while.” His lips move against my hair. “Maybe never.”
There’s a familiarity to the crushing grief, but I don’t have my mother to lean on. I push closer to Lorcan, and he tightens his arms more. His lips press against my temple. I’m grateful he doesn’t tell me everything will be okay. When Chad died, and then again when my father died, it was a refrain people couldn’t help saying. Be strong. It’ll be okay. Time heals. It’s bullshit. The ache might change, but it never goes away.
“Let’s get you home.”
Home. My mother is dead. Home. The last of my family is gone. Home.
I glance up, and his hazel eyes are filled with kindness. He brushes another kiss across my forehead. I sink deeper into his side.
With me tucked close, he slides the two boxes off the counter and juggles them until they are perched precariously under his arm. He leads me to his SUV. When I go to move away from him to my vehicle, his fingers dig into my hip. “I’ll send someone for the car. I’ll drive you home.”
I don’t argue. I’m not sure I should be driving right now. Waves of dizziness and nausea keep hitting me out of nowhere. He places the boxes in the back and helps me into the vehicle. I want to resent his help, but I can’t. My body is numb, and my brain isn’t too far off that.
On the way home, he holds my hand and doesn’t say a word. Having lost his own mother, he knows there are no words, and he doesn’t try to fill the silence with ones meaning nothing.
When we get to the house, he tries to guide me to his rooms, but I shake my head.
“I want to be alone.” I take the boxes from him.
He searches my face, and then his hand comes up to graze my cheek with his thumb. “I’ll stick around here for the rest of the day. You come find me if you need me, yeah?”
“Yeah.” I wander along the hall to my old rooms. The code hasn’t changed. After entering, I place the boxes onto the dresser.
Collapsing onto the bed, I stare at the ceiling. Finn pops into my head, unwanted. I don’t have any information, and I haven’t told Lorcan anything. There isn’t an ounce of energy in me to deal with it though.
I peer at the boxes a few feet away. What would my mother have deemed worthy of keeping? Curiosity gets the better of me, and I take the first box off the dresser, setting it on the bed. I dig through old family photos and a couple albums. The thought of looking at them right now makes me want to vomit, so I put the lid on the box. I put it on the top of the dresser and grab the second box. It’s smaller, lighter. With a finger, I flip the lid off and stare into a sea of papers. Frowning, I pick up the first piece. Chills run across my chest and along my arms like in the phone booth. It’s my father’s scrawl across the header. Notes on the Donaghey family.
I suck in a deep breath. “Oh, God.”
With shaking hands, I spread my father’s notes across the bed, putting them in order, sequencing his surveillance, his suspicions, and his mini-files on each member of the family. Every time I see Lorcan’s name, I avoid reading too much of the page and add it to his pile. It’s smaller than the others, but it isn’t insubstantial. I was fifteen when my father died. So Lorcan would have been twenty. He should have been in Ireland going to university. Finn would have been home by then, twenty-five, done with the fighting, done with Carys, neck-deep in the business.
When the box is almost empty, I glance at the bedside clock. I’ve been at this for hours, sorting, reading, trying to piece together what my father stumbled upon that got him killed. It probably shouldn’t be taking me this long, but it’s hard to keep my distance when each letter, each note is in my father’s familiar scrawl. The box is a glimpse into a history I knew nothing about. Near the bottom is a white envelope. I pluck it out and tap it against my hand. It’s sealed, but no one is going to care anymore if I open it. Sliding my finger under the edge of the seal, I rip it open.
Dear Kimi–
I knew I needed to write this before I couldn’t remember anymore. We both realize that time is coming, and I guess if you’re here, that time has already passed. I’m sorry. If I could have stayed, I would have. I wanted to. So much. But somebody somewhere had other plans.
You’re smart, so you’ve probably pieced together some of this box. Your father never did figure out exactly who killed Chad. I wish I could tell you he didn’t die in vain. The only thing I do know is the Donagheys had something to do with it. And while I can’t prove they murdered your father, I’m convinced it was them. I know it.
So when I learned I was dying, I took a risk. I used the money from the house to put out a hit on Eamon Donaghey. Did you wonder where that money went? Why I had none? I used my funds to pay the Volkovs to take him out. I thought they would. They promised me they would. As of now, they’ve done nothing. At some point, I won’t even remember I paid them.
I wanted you to realize I tried. I wanted your father’s death, Chad’s death, to count, to matter, for someone to pay for what happened to them. When I approached the Russians, it seemed like the most important thing, worth my money.
I’m sorry I never told you. You are your father’s daughter. I didn’t want to lose you, too, in this fruitless search for retribution. We were never going to win. The odds were stacked against us.
Maybe now, with your connections, you can finally figure it out. Lay it to rest. Maybe even find a path to justice for our family.
I love you—always, forever, no matter what. Even though none of us are there anymore in body, we’re around you, watching you, loving you from afar. If there’s one thing I know to be true, it’s that. Not even death can sever our love for you.
With all my heart, Mom.
The words blur as I read through the letter again and again. She’s right. I am my father’s daughter. My instinct is to dig, to dig so deep the truth has to surface. Did the Russians take her money and bide their time? Or did something else happen altogether?
Glancing at the clock again, I realize I haven’t eaten dinner, and it’s almost midnight. I’m not hungry, but sitting with these piles of paper, reliving my mother’s anguish and my father’s frustrations won’t get me anywhere.
I toss the letter onto the bed and press the heels of my hands into my forehead. Crying has given me a massive headache. With a sigh, I exit the room and close the door behind me. I fiddle with the handle to make sure it’s locked and then wander the hall to the kitchen. I’ve gotten used to eating in Lorcan’s kitchenette the last few days, and it’s strange to be going to the bigger space.
As I’m heating up milk, someone pauses in the doorway.
“Warm milk?” Finn’s attention rakes over me. “You’re feeling like a cliché tonight, are you?”
“No,” I snap. “I’m feeling like I need a bit of comfort. I’m not in the mood. Go somewhere else for five minutes while I finish up here.”
“Who pissed in your Cheerios?”
“My mother died.” It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud, and my voice catches on the last word. My bottom lip trembles, and I cross my arms and turn away from him.
Finn’s quiet for a moment, but he comes farther into the kitchen to the island. “Saying I’m sorry to hear that makes me feel like an inadequate dick.”
“Well, it’s all about how you feel, I guess.”
Finn snorts. “Still is, actually.” He runs a hand through his hair. “’Cause I understand what it’s like to have your mom die unexpectedly.”
Tears pool in my eyes, but I don’t want his concern.
“Do you want to talk about it? Does Lorcan know?”
“He knows. And no, I don’t have any desire to talk about it with you.”
“Fair enough.” He eases onto a stool.
I lean against the counter. When the microwave pings, I grab my milk then take a long drink.
Anger is coursing through me, chased by grief. I’m so tired of dancing around the things I want to know. Giving him a calculating look, I say, “I want to talk about you.”
Finn raises his eyebrows.
“When your mom died, Lorcan killed the mechanic who screwed with your mom’s brakes.”
With a sigh, he eyes me but stays quiet.
“Why’d you get mad at him?”
“’Cause it wasn’t his fight. I shoulda had that satisfaction.”
“What’d you do instead? You told me once you took care of it or something like that.”
“Why do you care?”
“My mom died, and I want to know it’s possible to feel better about it.”
Finn’s shoulders lift, and he grimaces, the first sign of any pain since he got home. “You’re never going to feel better about it. Never. That ache? It’ll be with you, a constant companion until the day you die.” He tries to catch my gaze, but I won’t let him. Silence rests for a beat. “You remember when you went to see Derry with me?”
I nod.
“What’d I tell him about screwing with my family?”
“That you don’t just come after him, you go after everyone.”
“Exactly. Exactly. Derry realized what I meant. It wouldn’t have been the first time I did it.”
“Who’d you go after with the mechanic?” I’m so numb from my mother’s death, this conversation isn’t sinking in. Finn’s sympathy over my loss is making him more forthcoming than normal.
“I killed his son.” He stares at his hands.
I suck in a sharp breath. “You killed his son.” My hand reaches for one of my guns, but I took them off hours ago and left them in my room. Stupid. Finn could remember everything at any moment, and I’m unarmed.
“Shoulda killed the sniveling little kid who stumbled on the scene afterward.” Finn searches my face.
I’m so far gone, I don’t even care what he sees there. “Why didn’t you?”
“Lorcan was with me. He doesn’t like the ‘kill-’em-all’ policy, and I was feeling generous that night. He begged me to go, to leave it alone. It was pretty dark, but I wondered if it’d bite me on the ass. She saw me, plain as day.”
“Probably too traumatized,” I whisper. Even as he’s telling me, I can’t access the memory. It’s gone which makes talking about it right now even more unreal. “Lorcan was there?”
“Yeah, why?”
“He stopped you from killing her?” He saved me. Lorcan saved my life.
“Yeah. That get you hot and bothered? Got a hero complex? My brother isn’t a hero. He’s got a smidge more of a conscience than me.”
That smidge is the difference. I drain my milk, drop the mug in the sink with a clatter, then leave the kitchen without looking back. My heart races as I stride to my rooms, my vision blurry at the edges. I need a gun. Then, I’m going to Finn’s room, and I’m ending this.
Chad. Chad. Chad.
Blood coats my hands, and they shake. I try to punch in the code to my room, and my hand falters. I’m on my third attempt before I get it to register.
When I open the door, I’m dumbfounded for a moment, wondering whether the world has toppled off its axis. Beside the bed, bare-chested, my mother’s letter clutched in his hand, is Lorcan. He stares at me, and his tense posture signals the depths of his anger.
Rage bubbles out of him. “What the fuck is this, Kim?”