Page 69 of Redemption

“I’m going to second Carys on this one. She can wait to tell him until our families are wherever you’re going to stash them, so you feel protected. But she needs to inform him before he finds out on his own.”

Semyon tips back his drink. “He threatened to saw off the limbs of anyone responsible for the Cape Verde bomb. While I’d like to believe he can’t get to me, today proves otherwise, doesn’t it?” He gives us both a long look. “You’re confident you can control him?”

“Yes,” Jay and I say at the same time. I’m tempted to smile. There’s no way either of us are certain. We’re desperate.

“This ‘kill them all’ strategy he employs is not one I’m keen to see in action. My family will retaliate, and itwillbe bloody.”

“I understand.” I slide my finished glass onto the table. “Do we have a deal?” I hold out my hand, and Semyon embraces it.

“Send them to Boston.” He sets his drink on the nightstand. “My best compound is my home in Boston.”

Jay is already taking out his phone to get in touch with the pilot. “I’ll message Dominic the details,” he says.

“I’ll have men collect them from the airport.” A hint of a smile touches Semyon’s lips. “Good luck with the PLA.”

I don’t acknowledge his sinister well wishes, and we back out of the room with the deal done.

Outside the door, Finn has propped the four security guys up against the wall. He lifts his eyebrows in question, but I shake my head. Shift change for the guards will be happening any minute, so we need to get out of here. We hustle down the back stairs, and when we get to the bottom, Finn grabs my wrist. “What’d he ask for?”

“I’ll tell you as soon as we’re sure our family is safe.” While we’re still within striking distance, I can’t be certain his temper won’t get the best of him. “You’re not going to like it,” I admit. “But it could have been much worse.”

With our family on the way to safety, we’ve taken hotel rooms under aliases near the airport. I’m too jacked up from my meeting with Semyon to sleep, so I’m drinking more whiskey from the minibar. Jay’s room is on one side of us, and on the other is Lorcan and Kim.

Their handler is pissed we abandoned the PLA compound when we seemed to be making progress. Kim and Lorcan assured them we got enough information to track and foil the PLA’s plans. I don’t know what Finn and Lorcan discovered, other than Pearl’s identity, but there’s been no concrete talk of disrupting the PLA’s plots.

I’m in the en suite bathroom washing my face when Finn leans against the entrance clad only in his boxer briefs, arms crossed, and muscles bulging. In the mirror, I drink in the sight of him. We need to figure out and foil the PLA as our top priority now that we’ve secured protection for our family, but I can’t help the pang of sadness when I realize Finn will be going back to jail when this is over. We’ll have another three years of separation to battle through before we get to be together for the rest of our lives.

Given how much has been going on since I arrived in Ireland, we’ve had little quality time together when we didn’t have to worry about someone listening in or danger dropping into our laps. Are we safe now? Hardly. But it’s a relief not to have to watch our words. For conversations to be real and genuine rather than coded and, sometimes, riddled with false starts.

“What’s that look for?” he asks.

“When I decided to break you out of jail, I did not see it going this way.”

He glances at his feet and then meets my gaze in the mirror. “We took your sister’s threat to your mother seriously months ago, but we turned up nothing. Too many aliases, I guess.”

“She sent the confetti bomb—sent all the bomb threats.” I pat myself dry and face him. “They’re the ones who raided the house in Russia too.” His jaw tightens a fraction. “Did you kill Eric?”

Finn searches my face for a beat, but whether he says the word or not, the truth is in his eyes. He’s debating whether telling me will make the future harder or easier. Either way I know, so he might as well say it.

“Yes.” He holds my gaze. “There was an opportunity, and I took it.”

My heart thumps at his bluntness, at the danger in his words. He killed my ex-fiancé, the biological father of our son, and I’m not even fazed—the briefest twinge of anxiety at explaining the circumstances to Lucas, but that’s it. There must be something wrong with me, but I’m not going to question my sanity. As much as Finn might rage against others, he loves me with the same fiery intensity. Who wouldn’t want to be loved like that?

“Was he—was he conscious? Jade mentioned she gave him a message for me.”

“They tortured him. You wouldn’t have wanted to see him. Did he have a note somewhere on him? Not that I found. Did they tell him something? Maybe. He wasn’t in any shape to speak.”

“She said if I knew what was coming, if I’d known all this time, I’d be terrified.”

He straightens, tension oozing out of him. “She wants you afraid.”

“She wants me beyond afraid. Terrorized. Said she watched the video of me trying to diffuse the confetti bomb in my office on repeat. She gets off on the power.”

He rubs his face with both hands. “We should’ve looked harder when your mother told us Pearl was hell-bent on seeking revenge for being left behind.”

“Not just for being left behind—for being left behind with a man who abused her.”

Finn gives me a long look. “Assuming we can trust that motive.”

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