Chapter 9
9
Finn paced the floor in the garage, eying Eudorus like the prey he was. He had no idea how long he’d been at it. Time lost all meaning when he was in the garage beating the man who held the key to Fedir and Iryna’s murder.
It had become a kind of escape. A kind of meditation.
Here there was no ticking clock, no worry about the future. Sometimes he’d come to awareness almost as if he’d been unconscious, his hands aching, knuckles bruised and bloody, and have to remind himself that he was doing it for Fedir and Iryna.
For Petro.
The thought of them would bring him back to his purpose, igniting his rage like a fiery wind on a dying fire.
The man in front of him muttered something and Finn leaned closer. The tattoo on his arm, a tattoo of Achilles, now smeared with Eudorus’ blood, mocked him.
“Do you have something to say?” Finn demanded.
It wasn’t unusual for Eudorus to speak. The man often spoke words that were indecipherable to Finn. He listened anyway, hoping for a break, for one moment when Eudorus’ suffering would eclipse his determination not to give anything away.
The man spoke again, but the words were garbled. Finn took a step closer, craning his neck to hear as the man struggled to get the words out. He tried watching the man’s mouth, hoping it might help him decipher the words, but his lips were split and swollen, making it impossible to determine what he was saying.
It sounded like… boxgrove?
“What are you saying?” Finn stepped forward and shoved Eudorus’ forehead, forcing the man to lift his head. “Boxgrove? What is that?”
Eudorus’ eyes cleared for a split second, then shone with wild fervor. The only sound in the room was the man’s labored breathing. Or was that Finn’s?
Finn waited for him to say something else. Instead, laughter burst from Eudorus’ throat in a low, hoarse gurgle.
It took Finn by surprise. In the weeks they’d kept Eudorus prisoner, he’d run the gamut from stony silence to open defiance to incoherent rambling.
Never had he laughed.
Finn stepped closer. Eudorus’ close-cropped hair had grown longer in the weeks he’d been imprisoned. Finn grabbed a fistful of it and yanked his head back.
He looked into Eudorus’ eyes, for the moment clear. “What the fuck are you laughing at?”
It took a moment for his laughter to subside. “Your… your friends,” he gasped.
“My friends?”
“In Ukraine,” Eudorus said.
Finn froze. With all the rambling Eudorus had done, he’d never once mentioned Ukraine or Fedir and Iryna. There had been times — times when Finn had been alone, times he would never admit to anyone else — when Finn had started to wonder if they were wrong.
If they had the wrong man, if the events leading up to Eudorus’ capture had been a fever dream.
Then he would remember the incident off the highway in New York when he and Ronan had stolen the amber sample out of the armored truck, when Eudorus had fled into the woods. He would remember the invasion of the mountain house, the dead bodies they’d buried in the forest, the retreating helicopter, the debate over what to do with Eudorus, who had been left behind by the chopper when his arm had been grazed by one of the Murphys’ bullets.
Finn would know then that he wasn’t crazy. That Eudorus was connected to the man called Achilles, the man who’d orchestrated Fedir and Iryna’s murder.
But this… this was the first time Eudorus had given any indication he was involved in Ukraine.
“What about my friends in Ukraine?” Finn demanded.
Eudorus’ face contorted. Finn was almost positive he was trying to smile.
“They were so afraid.” He spoke in accented English, Eastern European maybe. “The woman — was Iryna her name? — she begged us not to hurt her son right before I put a bullet in her brain.”
He started laughing again. It echoed off the walls and floor of the garage, ringing through Finn’s mind until he had to fight the urge to let go of Eudorus’ head to cover his own ears.
“I made him watch,” Eudorus said. “Her husband. Made him watch us kill her before we did the same to him.”
The roar rose from the center of Finn’s body, traveling up his spine, filling his head until there was nothing but the sound of it emerging from his throat.
He punched Eudorus’ exposed throat and let go of his hair.
Then he punched him again.
And again.
The sensation of his fist meeting flesh, the vibration of it through his body, the sound of bones cracking and flesh splitting, was the only thing that stood a chance of blocking out the image Eudorus had painted — the image of Iryna begging for Petro’s life, of Fedir watching his wife die, knowing the same was about to happen to him, not knowing if the men responsible would take to the woods and snuff out the life of their son.
He delivered an especially vicious blow to Eudorus’ face and the chair tipped backward, the chain restraining his arms and legs clinking as he toppled sideways to the ground.
Now Finn could use his feet and legs.
He did. He kicked the man’s torso long after he lay still and silent, kept kicking him when the garage door opened behind him, a column of light leaking over Eudorus’ prone figure.
He kept kicking even when strong arms came around him from behind, lifting him off the ground, pulling him backwards. Eudorus got smaller as Finn was dragged away, up the short staircase and into the house.
He struggled against the restraint until it relaxed enough for Finn to shove the person away from him. He stumbled, falling to the floor, and stared up at Declan.
“What the fuck?” Declan’s face was a mask of shock.
“It was him,” Finn gasped, his breath coming fast and shallow. “He was the one… he was the one who killed them.”
Understanding lit Declan’s eyes. “Wait here.” He pointed at Finn. “I mean it. Don’t move.”
He disappeared into the garage and Finn fell backward onto the kitchen tile, trying to catch his breath, trying to block out Eudorus’ words, trying to block out the image of Fedir and Iryna just before the moment of their death.
He’d imagined it a million times, and it had been like death by a thousand cuts.
But this — knowing how it had ended, knowing for sure — was worse.
He struggled to his feet, barely registering the ache in his hands, the blood dripping onto the floor.
His or Eudorus’?
It didn’t really matter. They were one now in a way Finn was just beginning to understand, Eudorus’ words forever engraved in Finn’s mind, his presence forever embossed on the image of Fedir and Iryna’s final moments.
He leaned over the kitchen island, propping himself up on his elbows.
The door opened and shut behind him. He turned to face Declan.
Declan hesitated, his eyes piercing Finn’s through the silence.
“I’m not sorry,” Finn said.
Something like sympathy passed over Declan’s features in the moment before he spoke. “We need to call Ronan. Eudorus is dead.”