Page 35 of Redemption

“Kim and Lachlan are doing that.” Lorcan’s new name gets stuck on his tongue for a moment.

“I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving until you can come home with me.”

“Apparently, you didn’t listen to my whole story very carefully. The PLA knew you were in Ireland before I did. They tried to frame you for crimes you didn’t commit. They were probably meeting with Valeriya when she was murdered. Pierre-Jacques practically invited you to lunch tomorrow.” He thrusts out his arms, annoyance sparking off him. “The FBI and the CIA are both okay with you being here.”

“If I’m here, I can help you get to the bottom of whatever is happening. They want me here for a reason.”

“Which means it’s not safe.”

“You think I’m safe in Cape Verde?” Throwing this in his face might not help me and acknowledging the danger causes my stomach to roll with anxiety. Jay and I left Lucas, Sofia, Luciana, Rosa, and Lena on the island because they were safer than here. None of us knows if that’s true. “My hotel was blown up a few weeks ago by a remote-controlled bomb. The day the FBI raided the Van de Berg offices in Chicago, someone sent me a confetti bomb. It appeared real.”

“A bomb threat you never fucking told me about,” Finn growls.

“It didn’t seem important then,” I mutter and rub my temples. Not exactly the truth. The threat was important, but I needed to be out of jail to address it and to talk Finn out of a murderous revenge spree if he found out who’d done it.

“Not important,” he scoffs. “A threat to you outweighs anything else. You got me? I went to jail believing you were safe. Protected. Both you and Jay woulda known that wasn’t true.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t exactly run your plan to turn yourself in by me, did you?” The memory of seeing him outside the glass window in handcuffs causes my stomach to flip. He blindsided me.

“The safest place for you is on the island.”

I clench my jaw and stare him down. “The safest place for me is with you.”

“That’s not true.” He shakes his head, but his resolve is weakening.

I hold up my casted wrist. “The last time we were together, I was grazed by a bullet. You saved me from something worse.”

“I can’t always save you. There’s a scar next to your heart as proof.”

Shit. Shit.Stupid.I walked into that one. I’ll lose this battle, and he’ll send me home if we end on this note. I crawl across the bed and straddle his lap, so we’re eye to eye. The physical contact causes a shudder to go through me. We stare at each other in silence, and both of us are convinced we’re right.

“Sometimes.” I test out my answer. “We have to save each other.”

He searches my face then he cups my cheek. “If anything happened to you because I let you stay, I’d never forgive myself.”

“Would you forgive yourself if you shipped me home and something equally bad happened?” It’s a low blow, but we’ve never been on the same page about my safety versus our happiness. At every turn he’ll choose my safety, and even now that I have Lucas, I’ll grab my happiness wherever I can.

When Finn’s not with me, I can almost convince myself I can be happy without him. As soon as we’re breathing the same air, I realize I haven’t taken a long, deep breath since we were together. Being without him is a slow suffocation.

His jaw tightens, and he breaks eye contact. His hands form fists at his sides.

“Would you forgive yourself if you sent me back and Lucas was hurt because they want me here, and I went home instead?” Cracking his resolve in half might be cruel, but I’m not any safer in Cape Verde. When I think about our situation too much, panic creeps up my throat. I left my baby on the island, and while I’d never admit this to Finn, heissafer there than here. I’m not convinced the same applies to me. “There are no guarantees.” I caress his jaw and rotate his chin to force him into eye contact. “As long as we’re together, we know the score, right? Safe or unsafe, we’re in it together.”

“You have to fire Evander.” His voice is rusty, as though the words were dragged out.

I frown. “Fire him? Can’t I tell him I found you?”

“The fewer people we have to explain ourselves to, the better.” He lifts me up and sets me back from him. “I can’t think straight when you’re this close.” A strained chuckle escapes. “Maybe I’m thinking about the wrong things.” He smirks.

I can’t disagree. He’s a drug to my system. The more I get, the more I want. “That’s it? You don’t want to explain yourself?”

“Is he gonna believe I agreed to work for the PLA without a fight? That I’d rather do that than go with you?”

I flush. He might have if I hadn’t been so confident otherwise. “This is why we need to keep each other in the loop. Icouldhave convinced him of that if I’d known I needed to.”

There’s a light knock. “Housekeeping,” a female Irish voice seeps through the wooden door.

“Kim,” Finn mutters as he grabs his clothes off the floor and gets dressed.

---