Page 57 of Destroy Me
The side door stood open. Backlit by the glow from inside, a tall, slender man stepped out, his torso strangely bulky in relation to the rest of his body. A Kevlar vest, Fionn’s mind supplied before he could analyze the strange proportions. He carried an Uzi in one hand as if it was an extension of his body, and in the shadow of his face Fionn caught the orange flare of a cigar being drawn on. The man could’ve been walking to pick up an after-dinner drink rather than walking into gunfire, and yet he was relaxed, unafraid. Almost amused.
Ferrina. No one else would have that kind of arrogance. Fionn’s finger twitched beside the trigger of his gun. Nothing would please him more than to take this man out—one shot, that was all he needed. But until they had the money, all Ferrina’s death would ensure was that whoever filled his shoes might come after Siobhan as well. Except then, they wouldn’t know their enemy.
Death would have to wait, no matter how tempted he was. Besides, Fionn had something far more like justice in mind for Ferrina. The man liked hiding—they’d see how he liked it if it wasn’t by choice.
In the darkness of the woods, he had no doubt Ferrina wouldn’t be seeing him. That didn’t stop him from raising a middle finger in salute before he turned and melted into the forest undetected.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Cathal says I have to stay in bed. I told him only if he’d stay with me.”
Lyse laughed into the phone. “Why would he object to that?”
“He didn’t; I did. When he was after telling me we’d be doing nothing but lying there.”
She could hear the pout in Sean’s voice. “You just had surgery very close to your fucking heart, Sean. I’m pretty sure sex is off the cards for a while.”
“My fecking heart can handle sex better than it can handle surgery.”
“I think you mean your fecking dick can handle it, not your heart,” Cathal shouted in the background.
Lyse chuckled. “He’s got a point.”
“You both are too much alike, always thinkin’ you’re right.”
“Because we are,” Lyse pointed out, laughing at Sean’s growl of frustration.
As she listened to the two men bicker over the phone, something giddy rose in her, that feeling that teen girls must get when they have a secret they want to share with their best friends, a secret that involves a boy. Sean was the closest thing she had to a best friend, and she had the biggest secret about a boy that could ever be shared, but she clamped her lips shut before the words could escape. Maybe it was because the relationship was still so new, or maybe because there was still an oh-my-God-did-that-really-happen-to-me quality to the memory that she couldn’t quite shake. Or maybe it was that she knew Sean would caution her to be careful, not trust in what was happening.
Whatever it was, she couldn’t tell him, couldn’t say it out loud. Hearing the words might make it too real, something she could lose, and her heart was too fragile right now to face losing Fionn when this was all over.
A loudbeepon the computer interrupted her thoughts. Lyse rolled her eyes at hearing Sean vowing not to make Cathal’s favorite pasta if he didn’t get a blowjob soon. “Think threatening him will get you what you want? Good luck with that.”
“I’ll try anything at this point,” Sean said irritably.
“Try waiting a few days. That’ll work.” She clicked on the report and waited for it to compile. “Speaking of work, I’ve gotta get back to it.”
She had to promise to come see him in the next couple of days, which she did. By the time she hung up, the list of transactions involving the aliases she’d dug up for Fionn’s dad was scrolling along her screen. She’d traced them not only through his and Ferrina’s company, but into the banks Robert had transferred through, then to international accounts and investment firms. But each transaction had one thing in common: every single one had been cashed out at the end of its line. Every single one.
This money hadn’t been hidden in an obscure account somewhere, waiting for the right eyes. It was actual, physical currency piled up in an unknown location—that’s why it hadn’t been found before now. Now she just had to figure out where that location was.
“Lyse!”
Siobhan’s voice pulled her out of the maze of numbers and possibilities. Leaving the report behind, she hurried down the stairs to where Siobhan sat in the living room, a radio connected to the men’s mics in front of her on the table. Lyse could hear heavy breathing, shouts, gunshots. A woman crying. “What the hell are they doing?”
This had been a no-contact mission. What had happened that they were now shooting at each other?
“Mack said something about a woman,” Siobhan told her. “I’m not quite understanding what went wrong, but I was afraid to ask.”
“Don’t.” She sat next to Siobhan on the couch, her gut twisting at the chaos coming across the line. “They need all the focus they can get.”
They sat together, listening, waiting, worrying, for what seemed hours but could only have been twenty minutes or so. Lyse picked up bits and pieces of the action, but no matter how much her skin crawled with fear, she refused to interrupt until the men were safely away. Only when the sound of the car moving came through did she key the mic. “Mack?”
“Yeah.”
Lyse looked to Siobhan, who rolled her eyes despite the white lines around her mouth.Stupid laid-back males, that look said. Lyse agreed.
“What’s going on?”
