Destroy Me - Ella Sheridan Page 0,81
Fionn had earned his freedom; she wouldn’t put him back in a cage.
Her silence made that vee deeper. “What’s the matter, love?”
She steeled herself, stiffening her knees when they threatened to buckle at the sound of that word on his lips. “I’ve made a decision.”
The air in the room seemed to thicken, tension ratcheting up as if Fionn could sense the enormity of what was coming, was readying himself to fight something he couldn’t even see yet. Deacon had gone silent behind him, and she knew from long experience working with the man that he was zeroed in on her too.
“What decision?” Fionn asked, gravel in his voice. When she didn’t answer, he stepped forward, towering over her, reaching for her arms despite her clear sign to back off. “What decision?”
She opened her mouth, thinking the words would fall out easily, but she had to force the air from her lungs, the sound from her throat.
“I’m going back to the States with you. Back to Global First.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Tell her she can’t, Mam.” Fionn dug his fingers into his hair as he paced the length of Mack’s kitchen, desperation making it hard to breathe. “Tell her she has to stay here. Feck, help me tie her up till I’m gone. Anything. Just help me!”
His mam sat at the wide wooden table, her smile small and secretive. Maddening. All he wanted was someone to help keep Lyse safe, help protect her from this insane idea that she should turn herself in. She was trying to make things right—he got that—but it didn’t mean he wanted the woman he loved locked up in prison. He wanted her free. Secure. Protected.
He’d forgiven her. He didn’t want to escort her back to her punishment.
“Son, sit.”
He paced another lap around the island, just because he thought he’d be going crazy if he had to contain himself in a seat, but his mam wasn’t one to be ignored. He pulled the chair at her elbow out and sat, his elbows going to the table, his face landing in his palms. He was going to hyperventilate; he knew it. Nothing he could do about it. Nothing anyone would help him do. He’d argued with Lyse until Mack came back to the hotel room. Argued all the way home. When they’d arrived back at Mack’s, she’d walked calmly into their bedroom and began packing. That had been the final straw.
“I can’t take it, Mam. I can’t do this.”
A warm palm landed on his forearm, gripped the muscle there, holding on tight. “You’re capable of so much more than you know, Fionn. Always have been. We knew that when you were a child, and when you became a man, you proved it. Look at all you’ve been through. Do you really think you couldn’t do this and so much more?”
He fisted his hands, digging them hard into the sockets of his eyes. “I don’t want to,” he finally admitted. Though it wasn’t really about want; want was too simple a word. This was about begging for an alternative, desperately seeking anything to save the one person he had no power to save, not if she refused him. This was about the choking fear that something would happen to her because, where she was going, he couldn’t stand in front of her and take any bullet headed her way.
“You know,” his mam said, her voice washing over him like a warm blanket, “I wondered for a long time what I would’ve done had your father come to me, confessed. Would I forgive him? Turn him in? Help him make it right?” Her grip on his arm tightened. “Stay silent?”
When he glanced up, surprised, she chuckled. “I’m not a saint, Fionn. Of course I considered just running away, the three of us, not saying anything to anyone. Not that it was a practical option, considering, but one could dream. I loved him more than life; I’d have done anything to keep that dream.” Her smile held the same warmth as her hand, her voice, steadying him as his world turned to chaos. “All kinds of crazy things went through my mind, but in the end I wasn’t given that choice, was I? Your father made it for me, and Ferrina killed him.”
He covered her hand with one of his own. “I know.”
“You have a choice I never got to make. You could run away; you could turn your back on her. You could hide with her.” Turning her palm, she laid it