Chapter 19 Finn
FINN
Caroline sits in the back seat of the BMW. Liam’s driving, one hand on the wheel, the other tapping at the screen. “I can never find a good radio station,” he mutters, frowning.
“You should probably pay more attention to what we’re doing.” I nod at the car up ahead. It’s a dark truck, one of those fancy, high-end models that don’t ever get used for hauling a damn thing.
“He never pays attention. I swear, that guy lives in a bubble.” Liam settles on an old Rolling Stones song. He starts singing “Beast of Burden” and actually sounds pretty good. I glance at Caroline in the rearview mirror and she’s shaking her head with a smirk.
We circle the block a few times before parking alongside a dark construction site. The truck pulled in through a gated driveway nearby ten minutes ago and hasn’t come back out since. I get out and stalk around the fence.
“What is this place?” Caroline catches up with me. Liam walks a few paces behind, typing on his phone.
“Place your family’s building.” I nod at the skeleton of a new high-rise. “Luxury apartments. Major contract.”
“I didn’t know about this.”
“It was a huge deal when it was announced, but the developers were being hard-asses about using union labor. Your father somehow changed their minds.”
She tugs at her hair. “How’d he do that?”
“Rumor is he paid them off. But I happen to know for a fact that he beat the shit out of one of the partners and made the other two watch. Pretty sure that guy’s now walking with a cane at the ripe old age of forty-four.”
“Sounds like my father.”
“My brother was happy about it, so I can’t pretend like my hands are clean.” We reach a break in the fence. It’s late and the site isn’t operating, but there are lights among the beams, equipment, and materials. “What’s Redmond doing here, anyway?”
Liam speaks up. “He tours the place twice a week. My understanding is he took a personal interest in the project. Now he makes sure it’s on track.”
“Sounds like Redmond.” Caroline leans against the fence. “They never told me about stuff like this. I tried to ask Mal about business one time, but he just slapped me and laughed in my face. I never bothered after that.”
“If it makes you feel any better, Redmond’s a prick,” Liam offers. “I’m pretty sure everyone thinks he’s a joke.”
Caroline glances at me. She’s got a sly smile. “That doesn’t help, but I know what will.”
I gently put my hand on her ass. She doesn’t move, which is nice. “Got any ideas for me?”
“Not really,” she admits and finally steps away. I got maybe fifteen seconds, which I’m not complaining about. “All I know is we need to get away with it. I think we got lucky with Shane. I don’t want to take any risk this time.”
“Pretty sure we can all agree with that.” I look over at Liam. “How long will he be in there?”
“Thirty minutes at most.”
“Do me a favor. Go see where the other brothers are. Come get us in a couple hours.”
Liam shrugs and puts his phone away. “You sure about that?”
“We’re going to tour the construction site. It’s fine, I’m with the family.”
He laughs and walks off. “Suit yourself. See you two in a bit. Don’t get in trouble.”
When he’s gone, I look back at the fence.
The lights inside are bobbing and fading like Redmond’s walking a circuit.
Caroline stands beside me, facing the opposite direction, arms crossed over her stomach like she’s hugging herself.
She seems tense and we don’t talk. After a while, the flashlight gets stronger, until Redmond emerges from a side entrance.
I watch him until he disappears around a corner.
His truck pulls out a few minutes later.
I take Caroline by the hand and tug her along behind me. “Let’s see what we’re working with.”
It’s not hard getting inside. The fence is short on the west side and takes a second to scale.
I help Caroline over and we drop down together.
Nothing happens, no sirens, no flashing lights.
She sticks close to me as we walk through the gloom, skirting around stacks of wood, piles of fiberboard, and pallets of insulation.
“Creepy this late,” she whispers, her hand finding mine. “Why does Redmond come here so late?”
“No chance anyone will bother him. I bet he doesn’t like when it’s crowded.”
She makes a little grunting sound as we get nearer the site itself. I’m watching everything closely, looking for opportunities. It’s a standard construction area with lots of mistakes and accidents waiting to happen.
“Red always was a loner,” she whispers as we move into the structure itself. There are materials and tools everywhere. Big generators are set up. They’re quiet now, but they must be loud during the day. We walk around the exposed beams and the support pillars.
“He was quiet back when I knew him too.”
“I remember thinking he was the nice one.” She laughs lightly. Her fingers dig into my arm and she suddenly stops, turning to face me. “You know what he did? The very first time?”
I shake my head, listening. Her eyes are shining. I think she’s crying at first, but it’s only the moonlight streaming through the struts and glittering off the naked steel.
“He took me like this—” She reaches up and cups my chin.
It’s almost gentle and very intimate. “And he looked at me like this—” She gets close enough to kiss.
“And he told me, ‘Caroline, you’re pathetic and I’m tired of being your brother.
’ And then he slapped me in the face.” She squeezes and I step forward, catching her wrist. Her back bumps into a beam, her breath coming fast. Her gaze is far off in memory as I twist her arm down, pinning her back.
“What else did he do to you?”
“Red was the quiet one, but when he got going, he never shut up. He’d tear into me for an hour, always going on about how I’m weak, I don’t deserve the family, I’m not good enough for our father. He’d hit me sometimes, but mostly it was words.”
I tighten my grip on her. She’s wearing tight black jeans and a light sweater. Her chest rises and falls. “Words can hurt.”
“The hitting hurt more. He locked me in a closet one time. Barricaded it with a dresser. I was too small to move it. He said I had to learn self-reliance and left me in there for almost an entire day. Mom had to come let me out, and only after I screamed myself raw. I couldn’t talk right for a week. ”
I lean in closer. Her back arches, her hips pressing forward. My other hand finds her ass and holds it tight, this time tugging her in.
“You know how I can’t lift my right arm up all the way?
” I lean down and bite her lower lip. “Shane hit me with a hammer. Broke my collarbone, but they didn’t take me to the hospital.
Why bother? A doctor had to reset it later when I got back home and my mom realized something was wrong.
A day later, Redmond kicked me off a trampoline.
Made the break even worse. Said I deserved it for showing off.
I know you have a thousand stories just like that, don’t you? ”
She meets my gaze. The construction site is empty and quiet all around us. Ideas swirl in my head.
“Tell me I’m fucked up,” she whispers. She touches my cheek, hand shaking. “Tell me you know who I am.”
My stomach twists with excitement. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
She nods slowly. “I’m a mess. I’m a wreck. I really wasn’t good enough.”
“You are fucked, love.” I kiss her hard. I own her, possess her with my kiss, reveling in the soft moan she lets out. I pull back and she’s breathing hard, whimpering for me to keep going. I love how badly she wants it. “But you’re wrong. You were always too good. That’s why they did it.”
She lets out a gasp as I pull her hair. I roughly squeeze one breast, kissing her harder, biting her lip.
She pushes into me, groaning as I move my hand down her body and down the front of her jeans.
Her pussy’s wet under my palm and she grinds against my hand, needy and soaking.
I unbutton her, unzip her, tease her over her worthless panties as she whimpers and gasps, making the sexiest noises I’ve ever heard in my life.
“I want it here,” she says, rolling her hips into mine. “Please, Finn, please, I want it right here.”
“You dirty fucking girl,” I murmur, slipping inside her panties to slide my fingers deep inside.
Her head tips back and her eyes flutter in ecstasy.
“Look at you, grinding your pussy on my hand in public. What if someone catches us? You know what would happen? You know how bad the questions would be? You’re as fucked as I am, baby. ”
“God, yes,” she gasps, mouth hanging open.
I turn her, force her hands up against the beam as I rip her jeans down.
I spank her ass hard and pull her hair as I quickly unbuckle my belt and get my pants down.
I’m so fucking hard it aches. She pushes her hips into mine, grinding her ass along my hard dick.
I grab her hair in one fist and kiss her hard over her shoulder, biting her tongue and nibbling her lip as I shove a hand up to tease her breasts.
“Now,” she begs, leaning forward, her fingers ghosting white as she grinds them into the beam. “Fuck me, Finn. Fuck me like I deserve.”
This goddamn girl. She’s so fucking sexy. I can’t control myself, even though I know this is stupid. There are too many ways this can go wrong.
And I don’t care. I spank her ass hard and get her panties down around her knees before gliding my dick along her soaking slit. I get myself nice and wet before I slowly plunge into her tight, warm pussy.
A shiver runs down her spine. She lets out a low moan as she pushes back, driving me in to the hilt.
I stretch her wide and, god, it feels so good.
She’s brutally tight, exactly how I’ve been dreaming it feels.
I sink deep, grind back, sink in deep, roughly pulling her hair before wrapping one hand around her throat.
“You’re so pretty when you get fucked, Caroline,” I murmur, driving into her again and again. She’s gasping, panting, moaning. I love the little wet whimpers she makes. I glide a finger over her clit and she stiffens. I can tell she likes that, so I keep doing it, fucking her faster.
“More, please, more,” she begs, groaning as she bucks back into me.
I lean forward and shove her shirt up. She tenses, but I don’t stop.
I kiss her scars, linger on the nasty ones.
Some are short, others are long. A few look like they were deep, puckered puncture marks.
I kiss them all as I fuck her, ravaging her pussy while loving her flaws.
I keep going, driving harder, stroking her pussy, licking and kissing, until her chin tilts up and she begs my name, whispering it into the black construction site, out into the night.
“Oh, fuck, Finn,” she says, and I don’t stop.
I fuck her as she comes, as she stiffens and goes wild.
My dick’s sloppy and soaked by the time she finishes, and it’s so damn glorious.
I’ve never seen anything more beautiful, except for when I pull out of her and she drops to her knees, eager and flushed from exertion.
Her mouth opens and she sucks me, licking her own pussy and cum from my shaft, licking and sucking wildly.
I last barely ten seconds before I explode in her mouth, and she keeps going, tongue rolling up and down my tip, throat bobbing as she swallows every drop.
“Oh, god, you good girl,” I say, pulling her to her feet. I pin her back to the beam and kiss her hard, biting her, holding her as her body shakes.
If she’s crying, it’s not for me. I know that. What we’ve been through, it doesn’t go away, not ever, but times like this help. I think that’s what she’s doing: trying to exorcise the demons of what those monsters did to her.
I stroke her hair and hold her until she calms down. When she’s finished, she looks up at me with damp eyes. “You probably think I’m pretty nuts, huh?”
“Not even slightly.”
“It’s just, it all hits me at once sometimes when I come really hard. Sorry, it’s not you.”
“I know that.” I wipe at her cheek. “You don’t have to apologize. If anyone understands, it’s me.”
“That’s true, isn’t it?” She seems thoughtful, frowning slightly. “I’ve always felt so alone, like what happened to me was my own fault because I’m inherently worthless, and I figured nobody could ever understand that feeling. But you do, don’t you?”
I nod slowly. The way I think about what happened to me isn’t exactly like that. But I understand what she’s saying.
“Maybe that’s why we found each other. Two fucked-up people are like magnets.”
She grins and tugs her panties back on. “Magnets usually push each other away.”
“Only sometimes.”
We dress together. When we’re decent, I look around the site. Her hand finds mine, totally relaxed and casual, and I squeeze her fingers. She leans close to me.
“What do we do now?”
“We came here for a reason, right?”
She gestures at the empty space. “Red isn’t here though.”
“No, but he’ll be here again. And when he does…” I trail off, an idea starting to form in my mind. “Come on. Let’s go find Liam and get out of here.”
“You know how we’re going to do it, don’t you?”
“I’m working on it.”
She sighs, smiling happily. “Tonight’s a pretty good night so far.”
“Just wait. Every day’s going to get better.”