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“You don’t have to worry about me, Finn. I’m a grown-ass man,” I told him as I carefully settled my chin atop Jake’s head.
I loved my brothers. I’d go to the ends of the earth for them. But for Jake? None of them knew the hell I’d reap for him.
Shit, Shay too.
But Shay was different.
Shay was already formed into the man he’d be one day.
Aela had done a bang-up job with him.
“You’re my brother,” he stated calmly, the word seeming to slip with more ease off his tongue than usual.
“We’re blood,” I corrected, wanting to make the distinction.
He cleared his throat. “Yes. Naturally, we worry. Especially after these last couple of months.”
I’d lost my shit after Da died. I didn’t need him to tell me that. I knew they’d been concerned about me—no sleep, little food, and a lot of work. Grief for me was hectic. Violent.
They just didn’t realize I’d been mourning the loss of two people.
My da and Star.
“Things have been rough,” I agreed. “But this wasn’t about that.”
“No. It’s about the United Brotherhood and Prince Edward of Midlothian,” he mocked. “You have two goose eggs on your head. At least they’re symmetrical. You should appreciate that.”
My nose crinkled as I reached up to carefully prod them. “I think I might have had a concussion.”
He straightened. “And we let you rest? Why the fuck didn’t you say anything?”
“Because there was no way in hell I was going to be able to stay awake anyway. Damaged brain or not.” Yawning, I closed my eyes. “I’m still exhausted.”
“What happened?”
My throat bobbed. “You don’t want to know, Finn.”
“That bad?”
“Yeah. That bad,” I admitted with a sigh.
Silence settled between us as we studied a sleeping Jake.
It enabled me to relax some, to let my brain slowly start to stir to life. I hadn’t been firing on all cylinders since the moment Temper had tasered Reinier, had been reacting instead of thinking, but nothing, I slowly accepted, had changed.
Reinier was out of the picture, waiting in the wings for Star to deal with him when she was back in the country.
Temper’s position hadn’t been burned in the CIA.
When I checked my laptop, I’d know if I had any missed calls from Riggs, but the doors to Finn and Aoife’s house hadn’t been blown off in a raid while I slept and I hadn’t been arrested under the PATRIOT Act, so I had to assume my position as a governmental asset was still in play and I wasn’t a wanted man.
That meant I could still go to Moscow—I had permission.
I could see if Star had anything to do with that bombing in Petrovsky Park.
I could pin down my woman at long fucking last because the government had already owed me a goddamn break before they tried to assassinate me for being too good at my job.
It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was a start.
