20. Finn
FINN
She walks away.
I watch her go for half a beat, then Leonid and Andrej turn around and walk in the opposite direction, giving my brain the kickstart it needs to follow her.
“That’s it?” I ask when I catch up with her.
She doesn’t look at me. “For now.”
Tamara looks unscathed. I saw the Russian with his arm around her neck, and I wanted to punch a hole straight through his chest and toss his stone of a fucking heart into the water, but I couldn’t get to her quickly enough.
And here she is with her chin jutted towards the sky and her eyes fixed straight ahead, and that same sense of purpose that I love about her in her stride.
She stops when she reaches my bike on its side in front of a shipping container at the rear of the dock and glances back at the car rammed into the side of the truck.
Someone has emptied the contents of a fire extinguisher into the engine and killed the smoke, but the hood is buckled like an empty soda can, and the truck will probably live to travel another road.
I follow the direction of her gaze. “Aye, sweetheart, you can thank Leonid for the distraction.”
“Leonid?” She narrows her eyes at me.
“News travels fast when a beautiful Russian enforcer goes all superhero and tries to take on the world.” I try to inject some lightness into my tone but quickly realize this isn’t the time or the place. “He beat me to it.”
She shakes her head briefly. “It wasn’t Ivana?”
The desperation in her eyes fades into disappointment, cracking my chest like an egg and spilling my love for her out onto the dock. I fold her into my arms and hold her trembling like a caged animal until her spine stiffens and she steps back.
“I thought she… I thought if she saw I needed help, she would come out of hiding.”
I don’t remind her that she almost got herself killed. A smart aleck is the last thing she needs in her life right now.
“If you want to change your mind…” I glance at the vehicle carrying the Ivanovs away from the carnage on the dock.
“I don’t.” She tilts her chin even higher. “I want to speak to Aiden.”
I smile. “I think we should talk first.”
It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done keeping my eyes from lowering to her belly, but I vowed this would be on her terms, and I’m not stumbling at the first hurdle.
“Later.” Perhaps I’m not as adept at hiding my disappointment as I think I am because she cups my face with her palm and plants a gentle kiss on my lips. “After I’ve spoken to Aiden.”
I focus on her body pressed up against mine as we head back into the city to Aiden’s office on my bike.
Her arms around my waist. Her thighs squeezing mine.
She didn’t want Aiden to know about us, so I respected her wishes, and I don’t regret it for a moment, but the sudden change of heart is confusing the shit out of me.
I’m here for her whatever she wants to do, but jumping ship isn’t the answer she is looking for.
It took courage to walk away from the man who saved her life. But betrayal will bring her nothing but heartache, only I’m not sure if that’s what she wants to hear right now.
We’re waiting in Aiden’s office when he arrives with Connor.
My brother’s expression is non-committal when he sees me and Tamara together. He takes a seat across the table from us and sits back.
“I want you to use me as collateral,” Tamara opens the discussion the instant Aiden’s ass touches his seat.
Okay, so she’s still hell-bent on getting herself killed to save her sister. Not sure where this leaves me exactly, but I’ll take every bullet that comes her way to save her and our baby she’s carrying in her belly.
He gets back up, fills a cup with coffee from the machine on the counter behind him, and places it in front of her. “Don’t think I’m waiting on you two,” he addresses me and Connor. “She’s in shock.”
“I’m not in shock.” Tamara doesn’t touch the cup.
“You’re in denial.” Aiden shrugs. “Drink or we reschedule this discussion for another day.”
Tamara raises the cup to her mouth and sips it slowly. “I need to find my sister. Leonid has information about her, but he won’t tell me where she is. I want you to use me as collateral in exchange for that information.”
Aiden’s expression doesn’t falter. “Why do you think Leonid is refusing to share this information with you?” His eyes slide to me sitting beside Tamara and back again, giving nothing away.
They don’t need to. He has already assessed the situation and figured out all the answers, and relief floods my chest. With our relationship out in the open, I can concentrate on protecting Tamara without all the subterfuge.
“Because I’m a liability.” Tamara’s voice is strong and steady.
Aiden smiles. “He knows you’ll interfere and jeopardize whatever operation he’s in the process of setting up. You heard him. We no longer have an agreement, and your defection sealed the last nails in the coffin lid. Why would he tell me anything?”
“Because I know too much.”
I reach for Tamara’s hand on the table, but she pulls away before I can touch her. “Sweetheart, you don’t want to do this.”
She turns huge watery eyes my way. “You would do this for your brother.”
I glance at Connor, and I know she’s got me. I already sold my soul to the devil once for my brother, and nothing would stop me from doing it again. But I have to live with that on my conscience, and I don’t want that for Tamara.
“Aye, you’re right. But getting Ivana back will never erase that betrayal. It will sit inside your heart and fester until it destroys you, and I can’t let that happen.”
“You can’t stop me, Finn. I’ve made up my mind.”
“Okay,” Aiden intervenes. “I’ve considered your proposal and I respectfully decline, because,” he adds before Tamara can protest, “using you as collateral makes me as bad as the fuckers trafficking humans into the city.”
Tamara’s body is tense beside me. “You won’t help me find my sister.”
“I never said that.” A small smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.
“What are you saying?” she asks.
“I’m saying…” He sits forward and rests his elbows on the table. “Give me a reason to want to help you that doesn’t involve using you as bait and compromising my scruples.”
“I don’t…” she begins, and this time I don’t let her pull her hand away.
“I love her,” I blurt out.
Maybe she doesn’t want to hear it, especially with the pregnancy test results waving a banner in the back of her mind, but if now isn’t the time to acknowledge it out loud, then there won’t be a right time.
“I’ve loved her since the first time we met, and she threatened to shoot me because she thought I was working for the Petrovs. I want to spend the rest of my life with her, if she’ll have me. And if she won’t…” I shrug. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make her happy.”
It’s like setting down buckets of sand after carrying them across a desert with no respite. I feel lighter, cooler, freer. No more secrets, no more making excuses for helping Tamara when I should be watching my boss’s back, no more holding back when I want to tell her how I feel.
“Tamara?” Aiden looks at her.
She hasn’t moved. Her hand is still smothered by mine, motionless, cold, fragile. But I sense her natural shift into fight-or-flight mode, and I know that she’ll choose flight like a deer facing the hunter.
“You don’t have to say anything.” I lean in and tilt her face towards me. “He asked for a reason to help you find Ivana, and I gave him one.”
She nods once and swallows, her chest rising and falling with each breath.
Then she turns back to face Aiden. “I shot Connor.”
It isn’t an apology, but I know her well enough to know that it’s as close as it’s going to get.
“I guessed as much.” Aiden aims a lazy smile my way. “My friend here is a terrible liar, and the animosity between him and his brother… Let’s just say it was a dead giveaway.”
Here’s the part where he says he can’t trust me anymore. Where he accuses me of choosing my love for a woman over my loyalty for my best friend. And over my own brother’s life.
“Also, I recognized the symptoms,” he continues.
“The symptoms?” I furrow my brows.
“Do you remember where you were supposed to be the evening you were in Joliet, Illinois?”
Shit! Was I supposed to be somewhere else?
I’m still racking my brain when his smile widens. “I rest my case, your honor.”
“You knew? Why didn’t you say something?”
“Because love, my friend, is uncharted territory, and I didn’t want to risk losing you.”
I feel like a little kid again, looking up at Seamus Kavanagh and his son, and wondering if he’s playing some massive prank on me before he turns me over to Social Protection.
“You’re not angry with me?” I ask to be sure.
“I’m fucking happy for you, Finn.” He reaches across the table, shakes my hand, and then pulls me into a bear hug.
I’m grinning when I sit back in my seat, until my eyes meet Connor’s. I don’t need his approval to love Tamara, I’ll love her till the end of my days regardless of what he thinks, but I love my brother too, and maybe I’m being selfish, but life will be easier without this chasm between us.
“She’s a fucking good shot,” he says to the room in general. Then he faces her, and his expression grows serious. “If you ever hurt him, you’ll have me to deal with, and I’ll make sure I get the first shot next time.”
He meets my gaze and winks, and I feel like I might explode if I get any more kindness from the people I love.
“Deal,” Tamara says. “So, will you help me find my sister?”
Tamara doesn’t mention the pregnancy test.
She showers, climbs into my bed, and sleeps twelve hours straight.
When she rises at dawn the following morning, she rolls over and I’m instantly alert, conscious of the tiny ways in which her body is already changing, and the new life incubating inside her.
“I have a plan,” she announces.
I smile. “Good morning to you too, sweetheart.” I kiss her on the lips, and she watches me wide-eyed as if it’s the first time we’ve ever kissed.
Narrow lines appear between her brows. “Why did you tell your boss that you love me?”