CHAPTER 15 #3
Connie laughs, but it’s not genuine. It’s sharp and bitter. “You used to know better than to bring outsiders into our world.”
“She’s not an outsider.” Not to me. Not ever.
“She works for the people who hunt people like us.”
“She doesn’t know what we do and she doesn’t want to know,” I find myself defending Josie.
“She’s the woman Mikhail is hunting and when he finds out she’s by your side, we’re all dead. And tonight you walked her into our place, let her stand cozied up to you, and I’m telling you she should not be there.”
“That’s not your call.”
“Then what is, Finn? I’ve been with you since we were just kids. I should be the one at your side.”
And there it is. The real reason we’re standing here. Oh, I’m sure she’s worried about prison and Mikhail, but when it boils down to it, she’s jealous.
“Connie, this isn’t fair to me.”
“Say it, Finn,” she says, tears brightening her eyes. “You owe me that much.”
“I don’t know what you want me to—”
One tear slips out. “Yes, you do.”
We look at each other for a long beat in the cold alley.
I do owe her this much.
I owe her this much because she’s been pining for me for almost two decades and I’ve spent all that time choosing not to put my feelings on the matter into actual words. I did it on the theory that not putting it into words was its own form of kindness.
But clearly that wasn’t the way to handle it, so I choose to be blunt. “I don’t feel that way about you,” I say with a sigh.
“I know that.” Her voice is strangled, beyond hurt.
“I never have.”
“I know that too.”
“You’re family, Connie. You’re crew. You’re one of the two people in the world I trust without thinking about it. That’s what you are to me. That’s what you’ve always been to me.”
She glances down the alley, unable to meet my eyes. “I know.”
“So why are we doing this?”
Her gaze comes back to me, hard as steel. “Because seeing her here with you tonight, being something I can’t be, I needed you to say it to my face.”
I throw my hands out. “All right. I’ve said it.”
“Now I need you to tell me one more thing.”
“What?”
“What do you feel for her?”
I look at her for a long beat. I take in her sexy dress and the mascara just starting to give at the corners, and I tell her the truth. “It’s the most real thing I’ve ever felt.”
Her face crumples and I have a genuine moment of sympathy for her. I even start to reach for her, possibly for a reassuring hug, but she spins away from me.
“Okay, Finn,” she murmurs, her hand dashing at tears that she refuses to let me see fall.
“Connie.”
I hear her suck in a quavering breath and then see her square her shoulders. “You know what would solve this?”
“What?” I ask, suddenly exhausted by this conversation.
Connie turns to meet me head-on, and I see retribution in her eyes.
“One phone call. Anonymous. I tell Mikhail’s people where she lives.
I tell them what time she leaves for work and the problem goes away.
You and I go back to who we were and the crew survives and you don’t go to prison and I don’t have to stand in your gallery and watch you look at her like that. ”
The blood leaves my face. I literally feel it go cold, even as I can feel the blood in my veins heating. It moves to my chest, hot and tight.
My feet move, my fists balled so I don’t do something stupid. I back Connie up until she hits the damp brick wall of the next building.
Leaning into her, I growl in a tone so savage, her face goes pale.
“If you do that… if you make that call or breathe a word of her name to anyone connected to Voronin, I will end you, Connie. I will end you myself. If you do that, you’re giving Josie a death sentence, and I’ll make sure my face is the last thing you see before you meet your maker. ”
Connie gasps, her eyes flaring so wide all I see are the whites. “You… you… you don’t mean that.”
“I have never meant anything more in my life. Now, tell me you understand, Connie.”
“Finn—”
“Tell me you understand,” I bellow at her.
She blanches, stammering, “I… I… I understand.”
Not good enough. “Tell me you’re not going to make that call.”
“I’m not going to make the call,” she says quickly, eyes darting to the side.
“Look at me when you say it,” I snarl, unable to get my rage under control.
She looks back at me, fearful and angry all at once. “Fine,” she snaps. “I’m not going to make the call.”
I take a step back and she slides sideways along the brick wall and away from me. She’s breathing fast.
We stare at each other a long moment and then she walks past me down the alley toward the street. I watch her until she gets to the corner, turns left and then she’s gone.
I stand in the cold air with my hands shaking inside my coat pockets.
My heart beats in a way I haven’t felt for years, and I tell myself, very quietly and clearly, that I’ve just threatened a woman who has been with me through thick and thin, and that the threat I made was the truest thing I’ve ever said in my life.
That version of me who made the threat is a version of me Josie hasn’t yet met and, if I can help it, won’t.
I take a breath.
I straighten my jacket.
I go back inside.