Page 20 of Home Free

She took a deep breath for a count of four seconds, held it for four seconds, and exhaled for four seconds.

The water turned off in the bathroom, followed by the sound of drawers opening and closing in the bedroom. A few minutes later, Finn entered the small living area they used when they weren’t hanging out with the rest of the family in the great room.

He was wearing gray sweatpants and a long-sleeve black T-shirt, his feet bare.

“Feel better?” she asked.

He nodded and sat next to her. He stared at his hands.

She reached out and touched his back. “We don’t have to talk about it if you’re not ready, but we can if you want.”

He didn’t look at her. “I don’t know what happened.”

She didn’t say anything. Platitudes and cliches wouldn’t help, and she couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t sound like one of those things.

“I…” He swallowed and looked at her and the anguish in his eyes almost stole her breath. “I killed him, El. He was talking about Fedir and Iryna and I… I killed him.”

She nodded and reached for one of his battered hands.

He pulled her to him and wrapped her in his arms.

She held him tight as sobs wracked his body. “I killed him… I killed him…”

“Shhhh… it’s okay.” She stroked his back. “It’s okay.”

It wasn’t. None of this was okay. What had happened to her wasn’t okay. What had happened to Fedir and Iryna wasn’t okay. What Finn and his brothers had done wasn’t okay.

But it was done. It was all done.

And that meant that somehow, they had to make it okay. What else was there to do?

11

Finn woke up, momentarily disoriented. Was he in the mountain house? In Ukraine?

He felt the weight of Elise in his arms and remembered. He was in Boston, in his brothers’ house.

He’d killed a man.

The room was dark, the house beyond his suite of rooms silent. Elise’s breath was soft and rhythmic, and he had a flash of the moments before they’d fallen asleep.

He’d lost his shit. That was the short version.

After holding it together for twenty-four hours, waiting for Ronan to get to the mountain house with Nick, silently helping his brothers bury the man named Eudorus in a deep grave in the woods, he’d finally lost his shit.

It had been Elise. The sympathy in her eyes.

The love.

He’d felt safe with her, and everything had come pouring out of him. All the horror he’d been holding inside since the moment Declan had told him Eudorus was dead, all the shame that the man had died by Finn’s hand, even the secret thrill of satisfaction he’d dared to tell no one about.

Satisfaction that Eudorus had died a slow and excruciating death, that the man who’d so cruelly taken Petro’s parents and mocked their dying moments had died alone in the middle of nowhere, that he was buried in an unmarked grave in a place where no one would ever find it.

Finn had searched Elise’s eyes for signs of disgust but hadn’t found any. There had been only sympathy there, his own agony reflected back at him, unconditional love.

He lifted his head and inhaled the scent of her hair, then kissed the top of her head.

She craned her neck to look up at him. “You okay?”

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