by H M Thomas
“Was he on his way back there when we came in?”
Grant shook his head. “No, he stayed in the private dance room. I don’t think he planned to follow her.”
“But he sent her?” Gretchen pressed.
“Yes, but—”
She didn’t hear anything else as she pushed past him and ran from the locker room.
Gretchen burst through the door of Carpenter’s office and stood panting as he lifted his head to meet her eyes.
“Who was your informant?” She knew the answer from the way he avoided her glare. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She moved closer to his desk. Why hadn’t Finn told her?
“He asked that I not,” Carpenter replied. “He came to me and wanted to do it.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” Gretchen leaned her hands against his desk and bent to meet his eyes. “He’s known about me for weeks. Why didn’t he tell me what he wanted you to know? It would have been safer for him.”
“For him . . . perhaps.”
“But not for me?” She straightened and paced to the window. She stood looking out at the forest beyond and saw nothing.
Behind her, Carpenter explained. “He came to me after Ronnie’s men attacked you. He traded his information for your safety.”
No, he’d traded his life for her own. That realization hit her full force in the chest, stealing her breath.
“I didn’t see how I could lose,” her boss finished.
“Of course not.” Carpenter still hadn’t lost, yet she fucking died as they spoke.
“This was the plan all along,” he confessed. “Our deep undercover told us—”
“You mean Grant.” She glanced over her shoulder in time to catch a glimpse of anger in Carpenter’s eyes before he pushed it down.
“He told you?”
She nodded.
“Grant told us two or so years ago Finn was our best bet to get inside and blow this organization apart. Finn was a good man in a bad world. We needed to find something he felt more loyalty to than that world and the people in it.” Carpenter shrugged as if Gretchen should be able to figure out the rest.
“And?” She turned to face him fully.
“And we had you. Finnegan James has loved you in one way or another since you were a child. We knew if we put you in that world, he’d have to make a decision, and we were certain he’d choose you.”
Gretchen shook her head as new tears sprung to her eyes. She and Finn had both been mere pawns in an elaborate game of chess.
“You bastard.”
“Gretchen, I—” Carpenter started.
She shook her head and backed away. She couldn’t listen to any more of this now. She had to get away from this office and these people and everyone who’d lied to her for months, or years. Hell, she didn’t know if anything she’d thought to be real was real anymore. She turned away, with the captain still calling after her, and made her way out of his office and to her car.
~ ~ ~
“What the fuck do you want?” Carpenter jerked his head up to glare at Grant as the agent pushed his way through his boss’s door without a knock.
“Did you tell her?” Grant crossed his arms over his thick chest.
Carpenter shook his head. “It’s too soon,” he reminded Grant. “She has to believe it or no one else will.”
“You don’t give her enough credit.” Grant shook his head. “You think she can’t pull this off? You think she can’t fucking fool people? Then why did you send her into that hellhole? Do you know what they would’ve done to her if they’d ever found out she was lying, that she was a fed?”
“Finn would never have let that happen,” he replied arrogantly.
“He couldn’t watch her every damn minute,” Grant raged. “You saw what they did to her because of Ronnie’s jealousy. They would’ve made her beg for death if she hadn’t been able to fool them.”
Carpenter tapped his fingers against his pursed lips. “This is too important. Besides, it’s for her. She’ll thank me for it one day.”
“Like hell she will,” Grant snapped. “She’s already slipping. She’s spiraling, Carp, and I don’t know where she’ll end up.”
“She’ll be fine.”
“And if she’s not? She hasn’t slept, she hasn’t eaten. It’s only been two days, and she’s already losing it. Be her captain and do something.”
“I am. This is the plan. I’m beginning to wonder if I should’ve told Jackson instead of you. I thought you could hold your shit together better than this.”
“This isn’t about me. It’s about that woman and what you’re doing to her. She’ll never forgive us if this goes wrong.”
Carpenter laughed sadly. “Goes wrong? How can this go any worse?”
“You need to tell Neil.”
“Hell no, he can’t keep a secret. Besides, they’re partners.”
“He’s in love with her,” Grant informed him. “You have a woman like Gretchen who’s out of control and a partner who’s in love with her. You’re asking for more trouble than you can handle. She might not ever come back from it.”
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Carpenter warned him. “We have a plan.”
Grant nodded though he’d already decided to fuck the plan.
“I see you. I know you,” Carpenter cautioned.
Grant only shook his head. Carpenter thought he knew him. The other man couldn’t possibly understand the ways Grant had changed over the last three years. It was why he wouldn’t underestimate Gretchen now. While it had taken Grant time to acclimate to Carlisle’s world and to warm up to the men and women around him, Gretchen had slid into that life like sliding into her favorite pair of jeans. She was too comfortable there, and the right amount of pressure could be enough to force her into a decision to stay there.
“You won’t be doing anyone any favors,” Carpenter threatened now. “Least of all you. Do you hear me?”
“Every word.” Grant smiled defiantly. “Every fucking word.”
Epilogue
Gretchen pulled her Jeep to a stop in front of Finn’s cabin. Though the small wood structure was still charming, without Finn, it seemed to have lost some of its magic. Instead of the wildflowers that had carpeted the ground the first time she’d been here, the frost covered path to the door was now covered in dead leaves.
She stepped out of the vehicle and grabbed her bag to walk up the steps to the mountain hideaway. Pausing, she closed her eyes and remembered how Finn had carried her over the threshold like a new bride when they’d been here months ago. Now, she’d enter alone.
A tear slipped through her lids and slid slowly down her cheek. They were like a second skin to her now, leaving her feeling naked when their tracks weren’t on her face. She opened her eyes and stared at the door. She could still turn around and go home, but the thought of returning to her new apartment, where she floated through the rooms like a ghost, made her stomach hurt. She was tired of not living, of only feeling pain. She wanted to look in the mirror and recognize the woman staring back at her again.
Maybe by being here where Finn lived so honestly, she could finally tell him goodbye and move on. Only, she didn’t think she really wanted to tell him goodbye.
Sliding the key into the lock, she turned the knob and pushed the door open, stepping into the small kitchen. The room made her feel warm and welcome. A fire burned in the fireplace and something had been set out on the stove to warm. She suddenly felt like Goldilocks intruding on someone else’s home. Only, this was Finn’s home, and no one else was supposed to know about it.
“Hello,” she called. Her bag hit the hardwood with a thud, and she reached for the gun at her back. Her waistband was empty. She’d stopped carrying a gun months ago, it was best not to live with the constant
temptation.
She crept past the couch. A battered paperback novel lay on the coffee table, and a worn photograph stuck out of the top. Leaning over the back of the couch, she plucked the book up and opened it to the marked page. Her own face stared back at her, unrecognizable. Her green eyes sparkled like jewels, small laugh lines crinkling at the edges and her teeth shown white in her wide smile. Had she ever been that happy? She wished she could remember what that felt like.
“I didn’t expect to see you here.”
She screamed and tossed the book in the air. It clattered to the wooden floor. The picture fluttered to the ground beside it. Her heart pounded underneath the palm she had pressed to her chest as she spun to face the intruder.
Her breath caught in her throat and new tears sprang to her eyes.
Finn?
“What?” She squeezed her eyes shut and gave her head a hard shake. Pulling a deep breath in through her nose, she filled her lungs and counted backwards. Although her therapist made her practice this every time they met, she’d never done it on her own. Of course, she’d also never run into her dead ex-lover, so she might as well give it a try. When she reached zero, she slowly opened her eyes.
Finn still stood there in a pair of worn jeans and a thermal T-shirt coated in sawdust. Raising a brow, he cocked his head. A wayward strand of his unkempt hair fell over his forehead.
“Finn?” It was too much to hope, wasn’t it? He couldn’t be here in front of her. She’d seen him . . .
Actually, she hadn’t seen him. He’d already been under a sheet when she came into Carlisle’s office. She’d seen his hand. She’d never seen his face or the gunshot wounds. She’d asked to take him back home, so Brock and her family could lay him to rest. So, he could be surrounded by love one last time, but Carpenter told her the body had already been taken care of per some legal document they’d found in Finn’s apartment. She hadn’t given a damn about legalities, but everyone told her it had already been done. She’d never gotten to say goodbye. Which is why she had chosen to come here.
“You’re dead.” She had to say that, to get it out in the open and let this ghost confirm it. Only, that didn’t happen.
Finn shook his head and pulled his bottom lip between his teeth in that way that drove her crazy. He took a step forward. She held up a hand and took a step back.
“I’m not dead.” He threw his arms out, stretching his shirt across his hard chest and rounded shoulders.
No, he wasn’t dead, and he was ripped. What the hell had he been doing for the past nine months while she’d been falling to pieces?
“You’re alive? You’ve been here the whole time?” Anger slowly seeped through her veins to replace her shock, and damn, if it didn’t feel good. She hadn’t even felt angry lately, having become that numb.
“Not the whole time.” He gave his head a shake. “I’m at the liberty of the feds. I come and go whenever they let me.”
“You come . . . go,” she muttered. He was alive, and he was coming and going? “What the actual hell is going on here?” That couldn’t be her voice that sounded so strange and snarly. Could it?
Finn’s eyes widened. “I guess I should start at the beginning.” He ran a hand through his hair. Hair that was longer than the last time she’d seen him—the night she'd told him they were just part of the job. The night she’d found him in his apartment with Ronnie. The night she’d been taken off the case, because he had decided to take her place undercover.
“You and Carpenter.” How had she not thought of this? Maybe because she hadn’t had a clear thought in close to a year now, especially when it came to one Finnegan James.
He nodded. “I went to him.”
“And had him take me off the case. You fed him information from inside.”
Another nod.
“But then the agents almost shot Grant and—"
He shook his head, cutting her off. “I thought so. I didn’t know Grant was one of them, one of you.”
“You didn’t save him? They made you sound like a hero and you were here hiding in your damn cabin?” She was yelling now. Her anger had reached a fever pitch, pumping through her veins.
“Gretchen.” Stepping forward, he reached for her.
Before she realized what she intended to do, she lifted her hand and slapped him across his face. His head swung sideways, and she jerked her hand back, squeezing it closed against the searing pain. When he pulled his head around to meet her gaze, his gray eyes were filled with tears.
“Why?” she choked out. Tears rose like a flood in her chest to battle with the myriad of emotions she’d dealt with since his “death”.
“Why would you do this to me?” Tears spilled over her lids, sliding down her face. “I thought you were gone. I thought I’d never see you again, and the last thing I said to you was I didn’t love you.”
“I knew you were lying.” His own cheeks were wet now.
She’d never seen Finn James cry before, not as a battered and neglected child nor as a man mourning his mother. Tears now fell unheeded down his cheeks.
“Like the lies you told me? Was everything a lie?”
Carpenter had lied to her. Grant had lied to her. The one thing she had thought she knew for sure was her misery.
He shook his head, and this time he pushed forward despite her evasions. He grabbed her biceps and pulled her close. “I did lie, and I’d do it again to save you from Carlisle and Ronnie and that world. But don’t you for one damn minute think I lied about the way I felt about you, the way I feel about you.”
“Then why? Why wouldn’t you tell me? Why wouldn’t you let me help you? I would have done anything you needed. I—”
“I needed to die.”
His words stopped her cold. He needed to die? She understood that, didn’t she? Isn’t that why she was here?
“You want to die?” She swallowed the words down. He couldn’t want to die now, not when she’d found a reason to live.
“God no.”
He squeezed her arms until they hurt. She didn’t pull away. This was a pain she understood, this was a pain she could end, and it was so much better than the pain she’d been dealing with for months.
“Jay Finley had to die,” he explained. “He wouldn’t be allowed to live if anyone found out what I’d done.”
“You said you weren’t a snitch.” She remembered the day she’d revealed her true reason for being in the club. He’d promised to protect her. He’d said she could trust him with her life.
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I’m not. They crossed a line when they came after you.”
“They?”
“Ronnie, but Carlisle always knew what Ronnie did. If you had stayed, she would’ve killed you, and he would’ve allowed it. If that had happened, I would’ve killed them both, Gretchen. I did what I could to save us all.” A battle raged in his gray eyes between honor and vengeance, love and hate.
“I’m sorry.” He finally told her, when it seemed neither of them would speak. “Please, tell me you’ll be able to forgive me. I killed Jay, so I could be free to spend my life with you. I’d still do it again to save you, but it would be so much better, if you’d agree to love me again.”
A sound somewhere between a wet bark and a cough, escaped her throat. “Again? I’ve loved you my whole life, Finn James. I’ve tried so desperately to stop.”
“Love like this doesn’t die, Gretch. You’re my soul.” He’d told her that once before, the night after her attack, the night he’d finally confessed his love for her.
“And you’re mine.” She finally allowed herself to touch him, to step into his embrace and press her face into his neck. As she breathed him in, the scent of sawdust and sweat filled her senses.
He circled her in his arms and held her close, so close her
ribs ached. She didn’t complain. She would take this pain again and again. This pain meant Finn was back, that his arms would never leave her.
~ ~ ~
Finn buried his nose in Gretchen’s hair, inhaling and pulling the smell of warm sunshine into him. His eyes drifted closed and for the first time in almost a year, he took an easy breath. They still had a long road ahead of them. He had maybe another year before he’d truly be free. If the feds had their way, he’d be on their payroll when that year ended. That would depend on Gretchen and what she wanted from him.
“What are you doing here?” he asked her. “Does Carpenter know?”
Blond curls tangled with his beard as she shook her head. “No one knows.” She pulled away and scrubbed at her face with trembling hands.
Finn ground his teeth together until his jaw ached. Grant had told him Gretchen was having a hard time with his “death”. The other man hadn’t been completely honest. Studying her as she stalked across the room, he could see that she’d lost weight she couldn’t afford to lose. When she turned back to him, her once emerald eyes now more closely resembled faded sea glass. He’d still never seen anything more beautiful, but she’d changed.
He hadn’t fared much better. At least he’d known she was alive though. He’d been able to hope they’d be together again when the trials ended. She hadn’t had any such reassurances. And he’d known she’d loved him, maybe he should’ve done a better job to make sure she knew that before he “died.”
“What happens now?” She stood on the other side of the room, hugging herself.
His arms itched to be around her, to pull her close and feel her skin on his. He owed her answers though.
“I’m helping the feds with their cases against Raymond and Ronnie. I have to stay hidden until we know they’re away for good and we’re sure everyone believes Jay’s dead.”