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“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, becausehehad 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 Ifeelabout 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.
