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ONE
Moe gripped the pay phone’s handset, the edges digging into his fingers. Inside the main area of the restaurant, Parker, Rory, and Amelia's laughter blended with their animated conversation about the menu options. They acted the way normal people with normal lives did.
Some days, he pulled off normal, too, but the rage inside him never went away. Tonight, on this date with the woman who meant as much to him as the one he was calling, he struggled to keep his shit together. He was equal parts exhausted, elated, and completely off-the-wall lost.
The line on the other end rang and his insides turned to liquid. Maybe she wouldn’t answer. Might be better if she didn’t.
He was a goddamn coward delivering the news that he’d helped stop the Concordia Group like this. He should fly to London tonight and tell her in person.
He couldn’t. Couldn’t face her and wouldn’t risk putting her and her tidy, beautiful family in danger.
What danger is there now? The pricks who’d killed their older brother, ruined their parents’ marriage, and sent their father into the dregs of a bottomless free fall of vodka and painkillers, while their mum chose tranquilizers with her Earl Grey, were behind bars. They were never getting out.
Still, it wasn’t enough. Notnearlyenough.
Just like this phone call.
Being estranged from his sister and adoptive parents for all these years because of Jordy’s death was Moe’s doing, but it was easier for all of them.
He lost track of how many rings blared in his ear from Sarah’s end. Three, four? What would he do if her husband picked up? What was the chap’s name? Moe couldn’t remember.
“Hello?”
He squeezed his eyes tight, fighting the emotion scorching his throat. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t seem to form coherent thought. Floundering, he pulled the receiver from his ear and numbed himself.
It’s a job, mate.Nothing more.
Pushing past his constricted throat and clamped jaw, he ground out the important fact. “It’s done. I stopped them.”
A long, stiff pause was the reply. It had been three years since they’d spoken. Had she forgotten the sound of his voice?
“I saw the news.” Four words. That was it.
So his call was as worthless as he was. What could he say to that? To her, the younger sister who had once looked up to him, counted on him, begged him to bring Jordy home? There was nothing more to say. Jordan Bouchard was dead, there was no bringing him back. There was only justice, revenge.
“Good.” He was again at a loss for words. She deserved closure and a better brother than he had been.
Her voice was strained, her British accent fainter than his, even after he’d lived in the US for so long. “Can you come home now?”
His world tilted. Was it a request? A wish? A fear that he might show up on her doorstep and ruin her life? He slapped his free hand against the wall to keep from falling. “Best not,” he said.
“I see.”
Was that disappointment or relief in her tone? Why did everything have to be so strained between them? She didn’t understand who he was now. No sense pretending otherwise. He was tired, so very, very tired. His job, his life’s mission, was done. Over. The bad guys were behind bars. After the hunt had consumed every waking hour for fifteen years, he could lay down his armor and be himself again.
Except he didn’t know who that was. “You’re safe now,” he assured her. “You and your family.”
“Come home, M. I miss you.”
His knees buckled. If not for the hand on the wall, he would be on his ass. He squeezed his eyes shut again and damned the warm moisture leaking out of the corners.Just a job, he reminded himself. He had no home and didn’t want her to ever know how he’d turned out or the things he’d done in pursuit of their brother’s killers. “Someday.”
It was better thanI can’t.
Another long pause, his guts twisting. “I’ll leave the light on,” she said.
The connection went dead.
A saying their mum always used when their dad called to say he was working late. After they’d lost Jordy, she’d insisted they leave a light on for him. “In case his spirit can’t find its way home to us,” she’d said. That was before the Earl Grey and tranquilizer cocktails.
