Page 3 of Home Free

He just wanted Declan to leave already. Dispatches from the city felt like they were coming from another universe. He didn’t need or want them. All he wanted was Elise, and she would be here in a couple days.

“Will do.”

Declan opened his mouth like he was going to say something else, then seemed to change his mind. He rapped on the counter with his fist and left the room.

Finn sank onto the chair vacated by his brother. He sighed, exhaling the tension that had been between them. It hadn’t been the first time one of his brothers had expressed concern since they’d taken Eudorus prisoner.

Mostly, he was able to ignore them, brush off their concern, get back to business when the conversation was over, but deep inside there was a tiny voice screaming that they were right. Screaming at Finn to look at himself, to be honest about what he was doing, what he was becoming.

The problem was, that voice was smothered under the one screaming for vengeance, the one determined to get justice for Fedir and Iryna, for Petro.

And there was another realization too, one that was even harder to admit: he was trying to get justice for himself, to assuage his guilt at the memory of hiding in the woods with Petro.

It had happened so fast: their return from swimming in the river, the black SUVs in front of the tiny house, the gunshots from inside.

There hadn’t been time to try and help Fedir and Iryna. Finn had wanted only to protect Petro, to keep him from seeing what was happening or becoming a victim himself.

It all made sense. It was all true.

But that didn’t make it easier to swallow the fact that Finn had stood by, that he’d hidden in the woods with Petro while Fedir and Iryna were slaughtered in their own home.

Finn was no longer sure if the punches he landed on Eudorus’ pulverized face and body were punishment for the man’s complicity in Fedir and Iryna’s murder, or if they were punishment for Finn for not saving them.

It was too late to save them now. The only hope he had — for them and himself — was justice. And justice could only come if he figured out who had pulled the strings that had gotten them killed.

At what cost?

He silenced the voice inside with an easy answer.

At any cost.

He thought again of Elise and felt his mood lift. She would be here soon. Then, for awhile at least, everything would be better.

2

Sitting next to Alexa on the beach, Elise zipped up her jacket as a harsh breeze rolled in off the water. It was almost May, nowhere near summer in Boston. It wouldn’t get truly warm until July, but it was nice not to be freezing, nice to feel winter receding like a bad memory.

She watched as her sister Julia walked down the beach with John-Thomas, Elise’s nephew. At two years old, JT had lost the drunken sailor gait that characterized his first year of walking. Now he pulled on Julia’s hand, breaking free and running down the sand ahead of her.

Julia’s laughter carried across the beach as she took off after him, pretending to try and catch him while he giggled hysterically.

Elise smiled. It was hard to imagine Julia as she’d been before, guarded and cynical, mostly from all the years she’d spent bailing Elise out of trouble. Watching her sister become a mother — a wonderful mother — had been one of the only good things to come out of Elise’s kidnapping two years earlier. That and the Murphys — Ronan Murphy, who was an amazing husband to Julia and father to JT, and the rest of the family who’d welcomed Elise and protected her when she’d needed refuge, even before Finn had showed up a few months ago.

She still got a flutter of excitement in her stomach when she thought of him, but now there was something else too.

Worry.

Worry over what holding Eudorus hostage was doing to Finn. Fear that it was changing him in ways that would reverberate for the rest of his life.

“Something on your mind?” Alexa asked next to her.

Elise looked at her, sitting in one of the beach chairs they carried down to the water, her long legs stretched out in front of her, eyes hidden behind sunglasses. “Yeah.”

“About Finn?” Elise nodded and Alexa slid her sunglasses to the top of her head to reveal blue eyes so piercingly light they were otherworldly. Her long dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and a few strands had blown loose around her face. “Want to talk about it?”

It was one of the things Elise liked most about the Murphys — the brothers and the women who were their wives and girlfriends. They were always there if Elise wanted to talk, but they were respectful of privacy too, probably because of the nature of their work.

Elise hesitated. There were no secrets in the Murphy family. Not really. They would give you all the space you needed, but if it had to do with the family or the family business, everyone knew what was going on even when they didn’t talk about it.

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