37. Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Finn
L orcan cruises along the highway toward Cork. His phone is in the cup holder, and mine is beside his. He’s tense, but I don’t know if it’s because Kim went to their CIA handler without him or if he’s worried about what we’ll discover in Cork. While he might be an overthinker, he’s not a worrier. Surprisingly, there is a difference.
“What’re you worried about?” I ask when I can’t take him flexing his hands on the steering wheel anymore.
“Our CIA handler is a prick.” Lorcan glances at me. “Not that Kim can’t handle him—she handles him better than me—but I don’t like sending her alone.”
She took me down several notches and hardly broke a sweat, so he’s not going to get a lot of sympathy from me about her having to handle a CIA dickhead. “This what you two are doing for the rest of your lives? Working for shithead government agents?”
“Government says I have a debt to pay.”
I like the way he phrases it. As though, like me, he doesn’t buy into their bullshit. The FBI and CIA posture themselves as heroes, but I bet if someone dug deep enough, they’d come up with lots of people who weren’t so heroic. Sometimes good and evil is arbitrary.
“I’m in it until Kim decides she’s done,” Lorcan amends.
“How badly would it fuck you over if I ducked out of the country once we foil the PLA plans?” I’m already out of jail, and I gave my word I’d take down the PLA in exchange. It would be so easy to vanish. Three more years of incarceration after solving their problem rubs me the wrong way, even if I might deserve it, even if I might deserve a lot more.
“Don’t know.” Lorcan eyes me. “I suspect they’d be a tad pissy with me.”
“Only a tad?”
“They like to think they’re the good guys.” Lorcan flexes his hands. “Wouldn’t bother me except it’d land Kim in the shit. She’s already on some sort of probation for what she did for me. So, if you ran, brother, I’d hunt you and drag your arse to America.”
I sigh. It’s the answer I suspected, but I had to ask the question. No point in going back to jail if I didn’t have to return.
“They’re already none too pleased about Donal.”
I wave him off. “Price of doing business. I made that clear when I signed on the dotted line. Nothing was off the table if it got me an inside track.”
Lorcan makes a noncommittal sound and remains silent for a few minutes. “You’re going to live in Cape Verde with Carys when you get out?”
“Assuming I’m alive.” I rub a hand down my face. “They reduced my sentence to three years, so I suspect the odds of me surviving must be low. That’s the plan, though. Cape Verde. Me, Lucas, and Carys. Set up a legit hotel and casino. Live the good life.”
“You’re going to be a father to her son?”
I stare out the window as the scenery passes. Why does his question bother me? We grew up with the same shitty father, but his experiences with Eamon Donaghey and mine aren’t the same. The five-year age gap between us, the death of my mother at the request of his, and his mother’s excruciating battle with cancer don’t accumulate the same in us. We’re damaged by the same events in different ways.
“Think I’ll be any good at it?” I ask, not meeting his gaze.
Lorcan is slow to respond. “I reckon you’ll be as good as you want to be.”
I chuckle. “Not much of an answer.”
“Means you’ll set your own course and make your own fate. ’Tis not a bad thing.” He glances at me.
“I never thought much about being a parent, or marriage, or any of that other shit. Once I—once I lost Carys the first time, none of it crossed my mind again.”
“And now?” Lorcan gives me a steady look before focusing on the highway.
“Now it’s all I think about—how do I get that life with her? Coats everything I say and do. My goals used to be how much money I could get, how much power could I accumulate, but now it’s just her and Lucas. Except—it’s not a ‘just.’ So much bigger than a just .” I stare at him. “You want that with Kim?”
He rubs the back of his head. “Eventually, maybe. She’s not sure about kids. We’ve got a lot to sort out once this version of our life is done. I reckon we can’t live like this forever, but she’s not ready to quit.”
“Christ, you picked a complicated one, didn’t you?” I chuckle. The women who came before Kim were brief flings, glossy, with little substance. Pretty women who serviced his dick but didn’t touch his heart. Suppose we weren’t so different in that regard.
He sighs. “And like you, I wouldn’t change it for all the power and money in the world. ’Tis a tough thing to reconcile sometimes, though. How much a heart can love. How one person can so completely consume you.”
He passes a car, and I gaze out the window, thinking about our history together. “We should have talked more.”
Lorcan lets out a mirthless laugh. “Talked more?” He raises his fist. “We were men of action. What would be the point of talking?”
I smirk and shake my head. “Might have done both of us some good, maybe. When I’m out, and you and Kim have done your time with the CIA, you should come to Cape Verde for a beer… or two.”
The GPS speaks through our phones, a reminder for Lorcan to take the next exit. He doesn’t comment on my suggestion, but a comfortable silence lapses between us.
Lorcan turns down the long farm laneway, and wariness coils in me. The other vehicle full of Thomas’s men follows behind us. Ahead, the charred remains of the farmhouse looms.
“Doesn’t look good.” Lorcan mutters. The SUV crawls along as the gravel cracks and pops under the tires.
“As long as the barn is still standing…” The sentence doesn’t need to be finished because the barn behind the farmhouse becomes visible. A cement foundation and a pile of charred wood. We park well back from the destruction and remove our guns. We signal for everyone to stick close together as we approach the buildings, keeping an eye on any of the secondary structures for people or animals. Gone are Francois’s gruff brother, the barking dogs, and the smattering of farm animals.
We designate people to search every structure, and then we stand at the edge of the burned barn. Lorcan steps in and wades through the debris while I try to make sense of the carnage.
“Do you think they’re dead? Francois and his brother?”
“Aye.” Lorcan points at a boot in the rubble. There’s still a foot attached.
“The McCaffrey family seeking retribution?” The other option isn’t comforting. “Or the PLA making an adjustment to their crew?”
“Could be either,” he admits. “Francois is no use to us now. We could try to contact some lads at the pub. I doubt they’re all dead. Could be an ambush or a waste of precious time.” Frustration colors his voice.
“Let’s see if anything useful survived, since we drove here.” I take up the search with Lorcan, picking through debris, overturning beams, looking for discarded papers or anything the PLA might have forgotten.
When my phone buzzes in my pocket, I take it out to check the display.
Thomas.
I’m inclined to ignore him, but this trip looks like a bust. Maybe he’s got better news, or he needs his men back. Best I don’t send his call to voicemail.
“This has been a waste of time,” I say by way to greeting. “I hope you’ve got better news.”
There’s the briefest hesitation, as though Thomas is holding his breath. “Carys’s father called her asking for help. She insisted on going to him in Kilkenny. I sent her with seven guards and armored cars. They were supposed to check in once they’d made contact. I haven’t heard from any of my men.”
I stare out into the fields, his words dropping like boulders. My heart does a funny thing, as though it can’t decide if it should stop in its tracks or start racing. “When was this?”
“Too long ago. I’ve got another group of men headed there, but you’re as close to Kilkenny in Cork. My man will send you the GPS coordinates.”
I hang up on him before a slew of curse words escapes. “Get in the cars,” I yell out across everyone searching. Everyone stops in their tracks to stare at me. “Now!”
“What’s happened?” Lorcan jogs beside me toward the car.
My phone beeps with the GPS coordinates, and my stomach clenches. “Carys has been ambushed in Kilkenny. Thomas called.”
“Why was she in Kilkenny?”
“Excellent question.” I clench my jaw so hard I can barely get the words out. “Charles called her.”
“Fecking hell.” Lorcan starts the car and whips it around to race down the driveway.
“If the PLA does anything to her,” my voice cracks, “I’ll hunt every single member to the ends of the earth.” There’ll be no redemption for me if anything has happened to her.