Instead, Faina waves at the port official and leads the way down the ramp toward Valencia.
“How did you pull that off?” I ask in a low voice as soon as we’re far enough away.
Faina winks at me. “Where’s the fun in telling you?”
“What if I need to use a technique like that?”
She snorts. “I would do it.”
“But what if you aren’t here?”
She arches one perfectly curved brow. “Are you planning on getting rid of me?”
“No, but you don’t know what will happen. Neither of us do.”
“Well, it’s simple. You need to find the names of people on board the ferry and swipe their details. It helps if you can ensure a way to delay their leaving the ferry through… oh, I don’t know, breaking the lock on their room or something. Then you pronounce the name in an unexpected way and chalk it up to spelling when they find you on the list. Although you lack a few ways to ensure this works.”
“Like what?”
Faina stops at the crosswalk and turns to face me, smirking. “Tits, Cian. You don’t have the assets or the charm.”
Oh.
Her arm tightens on my elbow as she grins, then she pulls a small piece of paper out of her pocket and waves it in the air to flag down a passing taxi. Yet another place we can’t talk about what happened last night. Maybe it really is for the best.
The taxi takes us swiftly through Valencia to the address of the bank Faina has written on the paper. After paying the driver, I stand next to her while we stare up at the sign. “So, what’s the plan?”
“We’re a newly married couple looking to open an account here, but I need you to play dumb.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to find a way to hook Erik up to the system so he can find us what we need.”
“You’re in contact with him?”
“Not directly, but the new access port will alert him and he’ll know what I’m after. So, you ready to lean into a terrible Irish stereotype to buy me some time?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really.” She reaches across and pats my cheek. “But just think, it’ll all be worth it in the end.”
She’s right, and I cling to that as we enter the bank and head straight to the desk. Requesting a meeting with a manager in order to open up a new account is the easy part, and it gets even easier when we’re invited to his office for a discussion as my loud, rather obnoxious Irish drawl draws a few looks of distaste from other customers. Once seated, it’s my job to keep him distracted while Faina accesses his computer. Something that grows impossible when he’s sitting at a desk staring at the damn thing while taking our details. I thicken my accent and after four attempts, I finally have the manager understanding my request for coffee, which he hurries off to collect himself.
“Can you even understand yourself when you make your accent that thick?” Faina laughs softly as she busies herself with the manager’s computer.
“Yeah. My father talked pretty thickly. The longer he spends in Ireland, the thicker it gets.”
She glances briefly at me with a question she’d never dare ask, but I give her the answer anyway.
“He’s alive. And no, he doesn’t know. I haven’t told him. It would be pointless, really. He wouldn’t remember, and the last time I got to see him properly was to tell him Brenden was dead, so I’d rather not become a death omen.”
“I’m sorry,” Faina murmurs as her fingers fly across the keys. “I wasn’t going to ask.”
“I know.” I cast my gaze out the window to the warm spring sun that filters through the net curtains. “I haven’t dared to check on him since I left, but I’m sure he’s fine.”
Faina suddenly clicks her fingers and points at the door as the manager’s return footsteps echo in the hallway. Leaping to my feet, I head out the door and corner him in the hallway with another flurry of questions that are mostly the same security concerns but worded differently. Throughout the entire conversation, he keeps trying to hand me the coffee and I continuously move as if to take it before distracting him with another question. His frustration grows and I can see he’s about to snap when Faina appears and slides her hand into mine.
“I’m so sorry, I’m not feeling well. Can we pick this up another day?”
