Finch was silent for so long that I glanced over at him. His face was stony. I wasn’t getting out of this one with jokes. “Did you really think it was going to go any other way?” I asked him, turning my attention back to the road.
“Holding grudges never did anyone any good,” he muttered.
“This is not about holding a grudge. This is about betrayal. It’s abouttrust.”
I was almost relieved when he didn’t respond. We’d had this same argument so many times that I could play it out in my head, the things each of us would say, the exact moments our voices would rise, how we’d simmer down into a cold détente that we’d both pretend didn’t exist until it flared up again.
Which it inevitably would.
Inside the townhouse, Finch headed to the kitchen, and I followed him with weary resignation. The fight was not over. And it wouldn’t be over for some time; we argued in the entry hall, in the kitchen, up the stairs—
And that’s as far as we got.
Finch was right in the middle of shouting over his shoulder at me (You know what, Luca, you’re a real fucking—) when there was a screeching of tires, a burst of gunfire, and a resounding crash that shook the entire house.
Near the top of the staircase, Finch toppled forward, and I managed to grab the railing to steady myself. I took the stairs two at a time to get to Finch, who looked dazed when I reached him. “What the fuck—” he began, but I pulled him to his feet before he could finish the thought.
“Move,” I said firmly. He began to turn, to go upstairs, but I grabbed him back. “No, baby bird. Downstairs.”
“But…” Bewildered, he almost began to fight me. From the ground floor, we could hear shouts and more shooting, glass breaking.
But downstairs was our only chance. The only escape route from the higher stories was the fire stairs at the back, and that would make us sitting ducks to any waiting snipers or shooters from below. Because I already knew what was happening: an attack on my home base, just like Teo Vitali had warned me about after the attack on Hillview House in Boston.
There was no time for regret. Not then.
I half-hauled Finch down the stairs and we slipped through the hallway as unnoticeably as possible; the living room was already lit up with flames and the front half of a car had come through the window. Two men dressed in paramilitary outfits stumbled around the room, overturning furniture, dumping out the drinks cabinet, coughing already on the smoke.
What in the hell were they doing?
There was a solid thud on the front door, which shuddered in its frame. I knew the sound; it was a door ram. In another few seconds I knew the locks, if not the hinges themselves, would give.
“Luca, how are we—”
“Move.” I hustled Finch through to the kitchen as fast as I could, and pushed him down behind the end of the counter. I ducked my head around to the left to look down the hallway, to get a handle on where the IFF currently was. I could see flames starting to lick around the edges of the living room, but then the front door gave, bursting open, and demanded my attention. There was an influx of men, boots loud as they crashed immediately up the stairs, shouting at each other.
One of them paused in the hallway at the side table near the entrance and began looking through the drawers.
“What the fuck is he doing?” Finch said next to me, and I turned, startled, to see him peering around the side with me. I pushed him back into hiding.
“Get down and stay down!”
“I’m not letting you take on an army—”
“Of course not,” I snarled, because it had always been my intention to simply find a good place to defend, hole up with Finch, and wait it out. I wasn’t a fool; not only law enforcement but my own men would be on the way already. All we’d have to do would be to wait out the attack.
But the fire complicated things. The smoke was getting denser.
The end of the hallway was glowing orange and I could hear, over the shouting of men invading our home, the roar of the fire as it took hold. Faintly, distantly, the sound of sirens seemed to be getting closer.
And the firefighters, when they got here, would be faced with a paramilitary group with automatic weapons. There was no telling what the IFF would do.
I pushed Finch down behind the end of the island counter again and tried to think.
“Luca—”
“Please, angel. I’m thinking.”
“I’m sorry I called you an asshole before,” he said in a rush. “I’m sorry foreverytime I called you an asshole, and I’m sorry for fighting with you tonight, because I love you and I’ve always loved you and I—”
