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Chapter Fourteen

Carys

W e’ve made Valeriya’s apartment base camp while we sort through her papers, search for clues. Jay is phoning airlines, checking security footage, calling taxi companies. Finn’s on a conference call with an IT company. They’re supposed to be hacking into her phone records or her email—preferably both.

Seems like Finn’s right about Valeriya fucking me over. But since we don’t understand why she vacated her apartment, he can’t declare a complete victory yet. Or at least, that’s what I told him. Really the two of us sitting down for a sober conversation over dinner, discussing things beyond this work, terrifies me. There’s only the tiniest thread of my willpower intact.

As I sort through the papers in a desk drawer, I come across a pile that stops me short. The surrogacy documents she signed. Back when I was with Eric, Valeriya responded to an advertisement I ran for a surrogate to carry a baby for me. In the end, the timing hadn’t been right, and I changed my mind. But I liked her enough to offer her a junior job in my Russian office. She worked her way up to the second-in-command to Ekaterina. A lot of time and determination went into her getting this position. Why would she do this to me?

I’m about to rip up the contract when Finn appears in the doorway.

“Find anything?” he says.

I twist my mouth as I drop the pile of documents into the drawer. “Nothing useful.” Turning to him, I close it with my hip. “We need to follow the cash.”

“You got someone who can trace where her money went?”

“Maybe. I need to call Ekaterina.”

“And she is?”

“The lead person of this division. She’s in Moscow working on getting us more contracts, but she might be aware of something. We believed Valeriya was on top of the warehouse theft.”

Finn shakes his head, his shoulder on the doorframe. “The only thing Valeriya has been on top of is her own agenda.”

“Any luck with the IT company?”

“Gotta give them a few hours, and you’ll need to wire the payment to them.”

Finding her might cost more than backing down. I can’t waste time and resources on a dead end. “At some point, it’ll be more expensive to find her than to let her go.”

“I’m sure she’s counting on your levelheaded approach.”

I laugh. “And your approach would be?”

A hint of a smile touches Finn’s lips. “You’re aware.”

“Pursue her to the ends of the earth and burn her on a stake?”

He holds up his hands. “My revenge isn’t always rational.”

“Not always, huh?”

His expression is pensive. “Maybe never.” He cocks his head. “In my business, you needed a rep to keep people in line. Everyone in Boston understood you didn’t mess with the Donaghey family. First, because my old man was such a terror, and then because I was even worse.” There isn’t a hint of remorse in his words.

“You’re proud of that.” I cross my arms and stare at him.

Not an accusation, more of an observation. I’ve never considered how Finn feels about the reputation he’s built. Perhaps part of me hoped he regretted at least some aspect. Yeah, he’s impulsive, reckless even, but he makes himself sound as though he doesn’t even have a conscience.

“Come on, Carys. You don’t think I should be? After my father died, the organization didn’t collapse. We got stronger, bigger.”

On the tip of my tongue are the words, You also got raided by the FBI , but I’m the one who led them there. “When your father died.” I punctuate each word with a pause. “Finn, you played a role.”

“I didn’t kill him.” He springs off the doorframe and shoves his hands into his jean pockets. “I just didn’t stop the Volkovs.”

“Semantics.”

He shrugs. “Sure, but it’s also true. Are you that upset about one less bad man in the world?”

I cross the room so we’re standing close enough I can read his face. “I find it difficult to believe his death doesn’t bother you even a bit. Did you and your father have a complicated relationship? Yeah. Did he have your mother killed? Yeah, he did. But he was still your father.”

“And the world is a better place without him.”

His expression is hard, impenetrable. I’m heading into areas Finn doesn’t enjoy discussing. Even when we were younger, his father, the business, the things he did, they weren’t topics we delved into beyond a surface level. He didn’t dwell on the choices he made for his father, for the business when he was with me. To me, that meant he didn’t like making them, didn’t enjoy doing them.

“Look, Carys. I’m an asshole. I’ve never pretended otherwise. Whether or not you admit it, that gets your engine revving.” He closes the distance between us even more. “You might not want to want me”—he lowers his lips to my ear—“but you do.”

His breath breezes across my neck. My heart explodes, galloping, straining for more. His assessment is true. I don’t want to want him, and yet he’s all I want.

“People don’t change,” he says.

“Some do,” I whisper, and his jaw tightens.

“Too late for me. I’m an old dog.”

Jay clears his throat behind Finn, and we spring apart. I hadn’t realized how close we’d gotten, though my body is warm, languid with desire. Without Jay as a buffer, I would have slept with Finn on every conceivable surface at every location we’d gone to in the last twenty-four hours. The tension between us is almost more than I can bear.

“Valeriya?” I ask Jay, over Finn’s shoulder.

“No, but I got a lead on who intercepted your money transfer to Ricardo.”

I raise my eyebrows in question.

“Charles put a stop to it.”

A shot of annoyance mixed with confusion mingles in me. “My father? How?”

“He has privileges on the account you used. The bank says he would have received an automatic alert about the money in transit, and he would have rerouted it back.”

Placing my hand on my forehead, I make small circles with my fingertips. Why would my father bother to step in? He’d have no reason to interfere unless he found out why I was using the money. My relationship with Finn was a sore spot for him, partly because it ruined a business relationship, partly because it almost ruined me.

“The money went back into the same account?” I say.

“No, into a separate account.” Jay hesitates and then says, “Must not have wanted you to know Ricardo didn’t get the transfer.”

Motherfucker. “I’ll deal with him later,” I say. “Ricardo is dead, so the delayed payment isn’t an issue anymore. My warehouse, Valeriya, those are priorities.”

“And the threats,” Finn adds. “We don’t have any idea who was threatening you and why.”

“Even you said those were Mickey Mouse.” I close the desk drawers and step around him into the main living space. “As far as I’m concerned, that’s also on the back burner for later.”

“The threat in Switzerland was amateur, yeah. But if it was the same person opening fire at Ricardo’s piece-of-shit house, that ups the ante.” He doesn’t follow me, only increases the volume of his voice.

“Any news from the airports? Taxi companies?” I ask Jay as I grab my purse off the couch and riffle through it for my phone.

Finn’s sigh of annoyance echoes in the apartment. Those threats are the last thing I need to worry about. Doesn’t matter what he thinks.

“No record of her taking a taxi or leaving via a traditional airline. She could be traveling under another name. Fake documents are easy enough to get here,” Jay says.

“Finn, your IT guys were going to email me or text me information?”

“They’ll be in touch. I’ve used them before. They’re good. If there is something to be found, they’ll find it.”

“I want to go to the bank, talk to my contact in person, see if he knows where the money went. Follow the money, right?” I check with Finn and Jay for confirmation. “The money won’t lie.”