If that was the case, it all depended on how Louisa had constructed the operation, and how willing she would be to hang Finn out to dry in exchange for the promise of getting the scalps she’d sought further down the line. He’d jumped so readily at the chance of Sparrowhawk, so relieved had he been that they didn’t know about him and Naumenko, that he’d ignored the ramifications of it going wrong.
And now, he realized it was just as well he was getting out, because he’d prided himself on his skill, on his expertise, if not his professionalism. Yet in truth, he’d allowed himself to be set up as a scapegoat, and had perhaps been played by a foreign agent for the last twelve months—he’d never seen his business with Naumenko as real corruption, but this was certainly looking like real incompetence.
He took a taxi from the airport, and by the time it got close to the apartment, the streets were already filling up with stag weekenders, some of them dressed outlandishly, providing a boost to the local economy and tarnishing the reputation of the British all at once. Still, he thought, each of these interchangeable groups spilling along the street at least represented a future wedding—there was that to be said for them, if nothing else.
He took the stairs, and even as he pushed his key into the lock he could hear Sofi talking. He made an effort to be quiet opening the door, even though it seemed that she was on the phone. But as he closed it gently behind him, his caution paid off, because a man said a few words, the sound cutting Finn to the bone, and then Sofi continued.
Finn stood for a moment, not sure what to do. They were in the living room, but should he just go in there and confront them? He saw his summer coat hanging on the rack and remembered the gun he’d dropped into the pocket, grateful that he’d forgotten to remove it subsequently. He took it now, and stepped quietly into the living room.
They both had their backs to him. Sofi was standing, talking into the phone as he’d first suspected. A guy with dark, cropped hair and a fitted black sweater was sitting on the sofa, hunched over a laptop on the coffee table. It was Finn’s laptop.
It was the guy who spotted him first, perhaps sensing that someone was standing there. He turned, saw Finn, then said something to Sofi. She turned, jumped– unmistakably a jump . . . had she always been secretly afraid of him?—then ended the call and said, “Finn! What are you doing back?”
“I finished early. What’s going on?”
“It’s really embarrassing—promise you won’t be mad at me. My computer went down and I tried to use yours but I think I did something maybe wrong. This is Peter, our tech guy from the newspaper. He can fix it, I promise.” It was the intonation, the look on her face—if it hadn’t been for what Alex had told him, he would have believed her, as implausible as the story was.
“That’s a relief.” She smiled, the edges collapsing away as Finn continued: “So he’s not trying to hack into my laptop and you’re not a Russian agent who’s been screwing me for the last year in every way, and I didn’t fall in love with someone who pretended to be in love with me when she actually cared nothing.”
“That’s not true!”
“Are you in love with me?”
“Yes,” she said, but there seemed no conviction in it, and the lie leeched the blood and the energy out of him. He felt an odd disconnect at the sight of this woman who was so familiar and yet simultaneously a stranger, too. Because he knew now, in her eyes and her lips and the tremor in her voice, that she had never loved him.
“Were you ever even attracted to me? If you weren’t, then you should consider a career as an actress because you had me completely fooled.”
“Finn, it’s not what you think.”
“Yeah, I’ve been hearing that a lot lately—seems I got everyone wrong.”
“I cared for you,” she said, and in those four words the betrayal seemed complete. She’d cared for him, she had come to care for him, but not to love him. He struggled even to think of an appropriate response.
But he didn’t get the chance to speak again. Sofi couldn’t see the gun from where she was standing, but the guy could see it hanging by Finn’s side and had probably guessed how this would end. Suddenly, he leapt from the chair, barreling low across the room. He pushed past Finn and out into the hallway, heading for the front door.
Finn raised the gun, aimed at his back and said, “Open that door and I’ll shoot.” The guy froze, his hand on the latch, as if trying to judge how serious the threat might be.
And then, too late, Finn caught some movement from the corner of his eye and felt something hard crash and splinter into the back of his head. It knocked him forward, a percussive pain sounding through his skull. He thought he’d fired the gun for a moment, but it was the impact of the blow or the door slamming shut as the guy made his escape.