Page 83 of Redemption

He must have told them the final plan on the sly behind my back. Give the little woman what she wants, but not too much. Being pursued down this narrow highway isn’t a winning strategy. My heart gallops in my chest. I shouldn’t have come. If I make it out of this, I’m cutting my father out of my life for good. I can’t keep doing this to myself because it’s not just me anymore.Lucas. My gut clenches.

SUVs flank us on either side. Bullets hit the vehicle in sharp succession, and I flinch. When one of the SUVs inches ahead of us, I throw a quick glance at the driver who is sweating buckets now. Once the SUV is a full length in front of us, it wheels into our path.

The move is so sudden, so swift, I don’t have time to think, and I brace for the impact.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Finn

Lorcancruisesalongthehighway 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’thaveto 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 ajust.” I stare at him. “You want that with Kim?”

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