Page 77 of Retribution

I shrug and push my hands further into the pockets of my coat, and he closes the door behind him. “I like to be sure of things.”

“The time to be sure.” Lorcan drags a hand down his face as he surveys the bloody mess before us. “Was before we went to war. We’re in it now. Whether we’re right to be here doesn’t matter anymore.”

Finn mocks opening a book and pretends to flip pages. “Ah, there we are. Lorcan and I on the same page. Feels good, doesn’t it?”

He shakes his head and glances at me out of the corner of his eye. It’s brief but in that moment, I know what he’s thinking regarding Finn.

“That recon rounded up two men?” Lorcan circles the chairs, unimpressed.

When Finn speaks again, he’s switched to Irish. “Settle, brother. The rooms are full down here. We rounded up a dozen or so men.”

I scan the room, taking in the stains, chains, and the methods of torture littering the small table in the corner.

“A dozen men?” Lorcan asks.

With a frown, I examine the corners of the room and turn to them. “You don’t have cameras down here?” I saw the list of men they were rounding up. They were Zhang’s heavy hitters. Twelve sounds about right.

Finn shoots me an annoyed look. “Yes, because we’d love to keep a record of what goes on down here.”

“You also don’t want people escaping.”

“Anyone we bring down here isn’t going to be running to the police,” Lorcan says. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“What have you been doing with the sex-and-child-trafficking rings you’ve been disrupting? What about those women and kids?”

The brothers exchange a heavy glance. Finn winces. “We’ve been offloading them to someone else.”

“Someone who helps them?” Even as I say it, I feel naïve. The exchange between them didn’t suggest they were helping anyone but themselves.

“Maybe. Sure. Does that make you feel better, Kimmy? They’re being helped. They’re certainly helping us.”

Rage boils in me under the surface. I try to get Lorcan’s attention, but he’s focused on the two unconscious men.

“Well, it seems like the two of you have this figured out. I’m going back upstairs. I don’t want to see either of you anywhere near me until we’re leaving for The Cage.” I yank open the door.

As it slams shut, Finn’s chuckle echoes behind me.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The ride to The Cage is silent. Anger spills out of me every time I breathe. It’s directed at them, but I’m angry with myself. My head is screwed on so crooked, I convinced myself we were doing a good deed by going to war with the Zhangs. We were disrupting the cycle, giving those women and kids another chance. Instead, Lorcan and Finn were lining their pockets at the expense of those helpless people.

“So far,” Finn shifts in the rear, and I tense, anticipating a comment I won’t like, “this is turning out to be a stellar night. Thanks so much for inviting me and Lorcan, Kimmy. So kind.”

“Fuck you, Finn.” I focus on the front passenger window as night falls across the city. “You invited yourself.”

“At some point, you’ll be thanking me for doing that.”

“Doubt it.”

“Leave her be, Finn.”

Out of the corner of my eye, Finn points his finger toward me. “She’s pissy because she had some Robin Hood fairy-tale bullshit in her head. Money and power. That’s it. It’s pretty simple. If we’re not getting one or the other from a transaction, it’s useless to us.”

Attaching himself to Lorcan stretches my anger almost to the breaking point. Deep down, I realize he’s right. Lorcan gave me the same money and power speech when I first started working for them. It shouldn’t surprise me. But in the last few months, I’ve been lulled into a sense that, even if there isn’t more to Finn, there is to Lorcan. He’s not all bad. There’s goodness in him. There isn’t an ounce of goodness in what they’re doing with the trafficking victims.

“I don’t want to hear your theories on why I’m angry.” The car butts up to the curb, and before anyone else can get out, I throw open the door. As I climb out, a hand grips my elbow with surprising firmness.

“You’re angry.” Lorcan’s lips are close to my ear. “I get it. Being reckless on a night like tonight isn’t good. Keep a lid on it.”

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