Chapter Sixteen Seraphina
Chapter Sixteen
Seraphina
Based on the surprised expressions hitting me all at once, that news was clearly not in whatever file they had.
Ryder stood and removed his hat, holding it by the brim. Eyes narrowed, he scratched his throat before driving his fingers through his thick hair.
I watched.
Waited.
Hoped for words to come back my way at some point.
If this was how they were reacting to this news, how would they handle the much bigger shoe I still needed to drop?
“Well, damn.” Alex, thank you for breaking the silence. “I guess Lainey only gave us the information she felt was relevant to finding you.” Something told me the bitterness in Alex’s tone wasn’t just the fact they hadn’t been completely read in on every detail surrounding my case.
And I am your case. Your mission. I had to remember that we had different goals. Theirs was to take me home, but I was there to face my enemies head-on.
For a woman who’d placed herself in the belly of hell for nine-plus months, you’d think I’d have a spine of steel and my nerves would be better equipped to handle these types of conversations.
But reliving what happened to my family, regardless of the audience, always produced the same results.
Tingling sensations in my body, an anxious feeling in my stomach, and a tightness in my chest. Because my family was everything to me, and they were taken away.
I should’ve been with them that night. “Ryder?” I stood, wanting to be a bit more eye level with him.
He tamed his unruly hair with his ball cap, parking it backward again while he waited for me to finish the start of what he could probably tell would be a question.
“Who assigned you to find me? You said it wasn’t the DEA, but who? Also, who’s Lainey?”
I’d swear the man’s eye twitched the moment I said her name, and I also didn’t miss the fact Ryder looked over his shoulder in Alex’s direction as if sending him a not-so-subtle message: Why’d you have to bring her up?
He kept his shoulders arched back, his posture firm. Battling the weight of the world as he stood there, which reminded me a bit of my father.
My dad never let anyone know how much he was carrying.
He’d held it all himself, and I had no idea the sacrifices he’d made to ensure my brother and I wanted for nothing.
Like the second mortgage on the house so I didn’t have to swim in student loan debt, or working twice as much to help put my brother through school.
The truth came out after he died, because the numbers told me the story he’d never told himself.
Shit, don’t cry. Not now.
“We took the case from Homeland Security.” Ryder finally relinquished his answer, a harsh breath floating right behind it. “The objective was to find you before Ezra got his hands on you.”
He proceeded to explain more facts, laying them out even faster than the bullet points he’d provided me about himself earlier in his bedroom.
Everything from the DEA-FBI task force being formed to pulling DHS in this week.
Then, lastly, he covered why his team had specifically been chosen to find me.
“So, you were at the party to help capture terrorists?” Time for me to be shocked. How lucky had I been that they happened to be there? Also, I had no clue Ezra associated with that kind of evil. How’d I not know that? And what else didn’t I know? “And did you stop them?”
“We provided the government with a target package, and they’ll be sending an active-duty team to take them out,” Ryder let me know. “I was on the balcony that night to get a better look of the property.”
“And I happened to come out there.” Everything really does happen for a reason. Had I not asked for air, I’d have never left the office while Lev threw me under the bus. “Then you were assigned to find me after that because you told Homeland what happened?”
Ryder nodded.
“And how much did the file they provided you reveal about what I did for the DEA?”
“Details were sparse.” He was standing so close I could smell his cologne, and he’d be able to get a whiff of my perfume. I’d taken time to apply it to the side of my neck and the inside of my wrist. I knew why I’d done it, and I was staring into the why ’s eyes right now.
“Are you aware I went undercover as Anna without their help, and I only reached out to them four months ago when I felt it was safe? I wanted to wait to ensure Ezra completely trusted me before I risked sharing information with a government agency.”
Round two (or were we at three now?) of shocked looks from them.
I took that as no, that they’d assumed I’d been working with the DEA that whole time.
“You lone-wolfed it for five months without them?” Ryder hit me with a hard look, one that told me he was terrified to hear what else I’d done. Like his heart wouldn’t be able to handle it.
He was in for one speed bump after another. Better buckle up.
Alex came closer, standing on the other side of the coffee table, drawing my eyes away from the man who could knock me off-balance with his. “No, it’s safe to say we didn’t know that. We assumed ‘Anna’ was the cover the DEA provided you.”
“How’d you pull it off? This friend in Mexico help you?” Reed’s turn to join in, but I couldn’t look in his direction—not when I was too curious to check Ryder’s reaction.
Was he simmering angry? Worried? Somewhere in between those two emotions at the news?
Would he call me crazy? Reckless?
And why did I care so much what this man’s opinion was of me? He was a stranger. Kind of sort of still one. Despite the bullet points shared and the hugging while I cried with him in only a towel. You know, despite that.
He answered my curiosity with a strained jawline paired with narrowed eyes.
His chest slowly rose and fell from shallow breaths.
He had the look of a father who’d learned his kid had snuck out after curfew and was in a car wreck but somehow survived unscathed.
Grateful they were alive and angry that they’d put themselves in a situation that could’ve killed them.
Shit, what was I supposed to be talking about again?
Right, my family friend here in Mexico. “You already know about Martín Gabriel. You have a mutual friend. He told me last night. And yes, he’s the one who’s had my back in all of this since my family was murdered.
So no, I wasn’t quite lone-wolfing anything. ”
Doubt that’d alleviate Ryder’s tense stance and hard look, though. Nope, pretty sure he doubled down on it. “Did he have eyes on you while undercover before you reached out to the DEA?”
You won’t like my answer. “No, Martín’s reach doesn’t extend outside Mexico.
He did as much as he could, including trying to talk me out of my plans.
He was the one to provide me with my alias, as well as a backup in case my cover was ever blown.
I would’ve been fine if I didn’t expose the truth about Lev on Saturday.
It’s my own fault. I had no idea I was sealing my fate by sealing his. ”
“Explain.” Ryder’s clipped tone wasn’t lost on me, but I wrote it off as being a worried old man. Okay, he wasn’t much older than me, but he was still playing the role of a concerned dad pretty damn well right now.
No sense in wasting time, so I unveiled the information as fast as possible, not interested in reliving Saturday night.
“Ezra asked me to verify whether or not Lev was stealing from him. I ran the numbers and confirmed his childhood friend turned. I just had no idea how much, being forced to work with the DEA starting a few weeks ago.”
“Which was when the joint task force was formed between the FBI and DEA,” Alex said. “Possibly not a coincidence, but also not enough for us to assume someone at the task force is dirty. If they were, they’d have clued Ezra in about the both of you.”
I glanced at Alex, remembering our conversation last night; I wasn’t sure how much he’d told Ryder about that. “It’s still possible Lev had no clue about me and he lied to try and save himself. Just got lucky. He’s definitely the type to do that.”
Ryder lifted his eyes to the ceiling before saying, “For now, let’s assume someone doesn’t have your best interest at heart on the task force. Rather be overcautious than sorry.”
I doubted that, but regardless, I was on board with being paranoid. Already was anyway. I waited for him to look at me again and asked, “And that means?”
“Our mission is now to keep you safe and help you get justice,” he revealed in a steady voice, “not to turn you over to DHS.”
Relief filled me, and I hadn’t realized I was possibly as tense as he was until the moment everything in me relaxed. I’d assumed I’d have a much bigger fight ahead of me to convince Ryder to break orders.
“But”—Ryder tipped his head to the side, eyes riveted on mine—“we need more details. I need to understand how you wound up in this situation and what you plan to do down here. That plan better not involve you placing yourself in danger.”
I could promise that. Mostly. Maybe not the last part. So some arguing was bound to happen. “Fair enough.” I stood and stepped around the table so I could better look at the three of them without straining my neck. “Thank you.”
“Hold off on that until we hear more,” Ryder remarked.
Back to growly and overprotective so fast, I see.
“I suppose you’re curious how I connected the dots to Ezra’s organization being responsible for my family’s death?
” I scanned the three men, landing on Ryder last, and he gave me a little go ahead nod.
I picked up my coffee, discovering it’d gone cold, but took a sip anyway.
“After my father’s client Andrej was murdered, Martín began looking into his death, and from what he found out, the cartel didn’t have my family or Andrej killed.
Believe me, if it were true, he’d have found out.
But someone wanted Andrej dead, so I had to think outside the box to figure out why. ”