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“No, no.” My voice is level. “Maybe him. Not me.”
Finn wobbles. “Coincidence—” The light catches his eyes when they roll back in his head.
As his body crumples to the ground, there’s a moment where I could break his fall.
But then, his head bangs against the flagstones with athud-thud, and the moment passes.
Chapter Thirty-One
Istare at Finn’s unconscious body. No one would know if I left him out here. Ian was supposed to have searched the grounds. He’ll bleed out. There’s already so much blood.
“Kim?” Lorcan’s voice travels across the field, and when I scan behind me, he’s silhouetted against the double doors.
Thoughts flick through my brain, almost too brief to catch. He’ll see me walk away. If Finn killed their father, I could get away with leaving him to die. We don’t know for sure. Could Lorcan forgive me? Would he understand?
Time’s up. Make a choice.
“Lorcan!” I scream. “Lorcan!”
He breaks into a run, and I drop to my knees beside Finn. Cradling his head in my lap reminds me of my brother and makes it impossible for me to do anything but sit there, staring at the blood leaking out of him and across the flagstones.
Once Lorcan reaches my side, there’s a flurry of activity as he struggles to staunch the bleeding while calling an ambulance and then a cleaning crew to collect and dispose of the other bodies. I want to tell him Antonio has kids and an ex-wife, and he needs a proper burial, but the words are stuck in my throat. I can’t stop staring at my hands covered in Finn’s blood. So much blood.
“Kim? Are you hurt?” Lorcan’s voice sounds like it’s underwater. “Kim, my love, you’re in shock.”
He grabs a first aid kit from the shed, and as he tries to patch up Finn, he yells at Sean and Ian to get the other bodies in the house, lock everything up; keep suspicion and the cops out. “Kim? Are you hurt? Do you know what happened?”
I shake my head.
It’s forever and only moments before the ambulance drives onto the lawn, arriving beside the shed. How did they get back here? I don’t ask; I can’t ask. Every time I look down, I don’t see Finn, I see Chad, and I can’t figure out how to make it stop.
Lorcan lifts me into his arms, and we trail the paramedics to the ambulance. As they put Finn in, I wonder if this is the last time I’m safe. He knows. An extraction, now, while I still can, is the best idea. Then he shifts me in his arms, and his distinctive scent settles around me. Can I walk away? Am I capable of that anymore?
In the car, he drives while I sit lost in thought in the passenger seat.
He taps his fingers on the steering wheel as he works out what happened. “Someone we rounded up was valuable. To who? And why?”
“Maybe the same someone who did in your father.” My words are sluggish, pushed out for no reason other than habit.
“It’s the same level of organization, that’s true…” He examines me before focusing on the road. “You okay?”
“I don’t understand what’s wrong with me.” Except, I do. I’m trapped. Unwilling to give up, not even sure what I’m fighting for anymore.
“We all have our weaknesses.” His hands clench and release around the leather-encased steering wheel. “Even Finn.”
“Oh yeah? What’s his?”
“A certain blonde arms dealer.”
“Carys?” It shouldn’t be surprising. Maybe it’s not. The way his voice dipped as he told her how he killed for her reverberates in my mind.
“Aye.”
At that, my brain clicks in and ticks through the sequence of events so far, everything that’s led to this point. “When you invited us to the house and had Finn answer, it wasn’t about the arms deal, was it?”
His lips quirk up, and he peers at me. “Seeing her at the benefit after all those years was a nice surprise. I’d been wondering how to nudge him. Let him realize he didn’t hold all the cards.”
“You were showing him you could lure Carys into this war.”