Page 116 of Retribution
While I wait for his response, I listen to Lorcan’s even breathing. I almost think he’s fallen asleep when he says, “I suppose that’s been true in the past.”
“I know about the mechanic. Have you ever killed anyone else for Finn?” I’m not sure I want this answer, but I have to ask.
Lorcan sighs. “I might have done. Does it matter?”
A tense silence settles over us. I should dig further, push deeper. I may not like what I find. “I went to talk to Antonio’s ex-wife today.”
“Ah, I see. That was kind of you.”
“Do you think?”
“She’s not the easiest woman.”
“Women are supposed to be easy?”
“I plead the Fifth.” He secures me tighter against his side, as though he’s worried I might try to slip away. “I don’t need easy. Reasonable will do.”
I laugh. “I notice you didn’t say logical.”
“There isn’t much logic in what we’re doing right now.” His other hand brushes the hair off my shoulders, making it fall against the pillow. “Feeling the way I do about you, in the situation we’re in—it’s dangerous. That people realize I care is doubly so.”
“Finn would use me against you?”
“In a heartbeat. As would others.”
Silence sits between us for a few beats while my thoughts return to Josafina. “She said she was sad about Antonio, but also relieved.”
“Relieved?”
“The family policy.”
Lorcan sighs. “Finn’s policy.”
“You don’t share his penchant for killing an entire family?”
He shifts on his side, and I face him. “That surprises you?”
“No,” I whisper. “She also said Finn can be persuasive.”
His knuckles trail across my cheekbone. “He can be. Doesn’t mean I can be persuaded to do something I don’t believe in. I wasn’t lying when I said I needed the violence to be justified. I might look like my father, but Finn’s the one who inherited his heart, his ability to flip the humanity switch. I’ve never figured that part out.”
“Never? You’ve never killed someone who didn’t deserve to die?”
“Who knows?” His thumb strokes my cheek. “Not intentionally. Sometimes I even managed to talk Finn and my father around. Rare, that was, though. Like piranhas at the hint of blood.”
“They didn’t give you a hard time about that?”
“I learned early to pick my battles. They both loved me in their own way.” He scans my face over and over. A smile plays at the edges of his lips. “I don’t know what brought you to me. Destiny, maybe. Do you believe in that?”
Did I? If I believed he and I were fated to meet, doesn’t it also mean my father and brother were fated to die?
“No,” I murmur. “We make our own luck, our own opportunities. And we make our own failures.”
He grins. “I shoulda known.”
“I want to prove Finn killed your father.”
Lorcan’s grin fades. “What kind of luck do you think that’ll bring you?”