Chapter Thirty-One Ryder
Chapter Thirty-One
Ryder
I closed the bedroom door and turned, preparing myself to face the team, to get back to the mission, but fucking hell, the pressure in my chest was unbearable, and I couldn’t budge.
She was doing a number on me in so many ways, and something inside me actually hoped she’d keep at it. Never stop. Never give up on me. For the first time in my life, I could see beyond six feet in front of me. Beyond war, the missions.
But I also knew how easily the future could collapse out from under me and be taken away, so I had to keep that in mind.
“Hey, you good?” Alex, of course, sensing there was an issue since I’d yet to haul ass to the office and join him after his cryptic message through the door.
At the sight of him standing at the other end of the hall, I finally got my ass moving. “I’m fine.”
He gave me his signature look, one that read The fuck you are.
“Just tell me you found something.” I motioned for him to start walking, and I’d continue on mission and do the same.
Another sideways glance from him, coupled with a shake of his head and a low hiss before he began walking. “Reed pulled Andrej’s images from a few security cameras the week he was killed, but there was nothing suspect about anything he found. So he called for an assist.”
We stopped outside the office door. “Let me guess ...” I smiled, but at least the achy pain in my chest was starting to let up and I could breathe again. “To the hacker on Carter’s team? Gwen?”
He nodded. “We really need to get better funding. The tech we’re working with feels like we’re stuck in the Stone Age compared to the software Carter has.”
“Yeah, well, he’s a billionaire. Tough to compete with.”
“And Homeland’s discretionary funds are well into the billions, and yet they expect us to MacGyver our way through our problems.”
He wasn’t wrong, but we were also not answering to anyone but ourselves right now, which meant we had even less to work with.
“So I take it Gwen pulled off a miracle and that’s why you interrupted me?” I checked my watch. It was going on 23:30, which meant ángel would be reaching out with a location soon.
“And what, exactly, was I interrupting?” he asked while we went into the office.
“A heart attack,” I deadpanned.
In part, that was true. A metaphorical attack on my heart, at least. Because I’d opened up to Seraphina about my service time, spilled a drop of truth about my old man, then nearly broken down when she told me her dad would have been proud of me.
“Just tell me what you have.” I went over to where Reed was working at one of the two desks in the room.
He looked up, but instead of focusing on me, his gaze cut to the doorway. I turned to clock who was there, assuming it’d be my girl.
And she was mine.
Fuck, was she ever.
Seraphina hung back in the doorway in jeans and a white button-up blouse, which was partially tucked in. Her wet hair was in a braid at her back, and she gave me a nervous little smile. “What’d you all find out?”
Alex motioned for her to head over to the desk, and I worked the lump down my throat and faced the laptop again.
“We found something out about the brother-in-law,” Alex told her, which was also news to me since he’d yet to fill in the blanks about what Gwen had helped them find. “Something that we think is relevant to our meeting with ángel.”
Seraphina came up next to me, and I caught a whiff of her coconut-scented shampoo. “And, um, what are we looking at?” She began massaging her arms as if cold, and I had to curb the impulse to tug her to my side and warm her up myself.
Alex explained to her what he’d already told me, then added, “Andrej met with someone while he was here two days before ...” He cleared his throat, circling Reed’s desk to face us. “... well, before your family was killed in Cabo.”
“They were careful never to be seen on any security footage together, but there was one camera that caught them. It took a lot of work to clean up the image and the angle was shit,” Reed began while typing, “but—”
“Wait,” she blurted once Reed had the image on screen. “Andrej was with ángel ?” She set a hand on the desk, leaning forward for a closer look. “You’re saying ángel met with Andrej the same week he died?”
“Yes,” Reed answered. “Looks like ángel took Andrej for a ride, and they used the privacy of his rental Suburban for their meeting.” He zoomed in on the open door of the SUV and to ángel sitting there, facing the street with Andrej outside on the sidewalk.
“No real-time footage, just a static image?” I asked him.
“This photo wasn’t taken from CCTV footage. It’s from a selfie a tourist posted online,” Reed explained. “Thanks to Carter’s software, Gwen was able to do a more advanced search than I was and find this.”
“I need to sit.” Seraphina went over to the leather couch in the middle of the office. “Why would ángel meet with Ezra’s brother-in-law?” She clutched a pillow to her chest, looking my way, and I wished I had answers for her.
I rested my fist on the desk, trying to come up with a plausible explanation for their meeting—particularly the timing of it—and I landed on only one.
“What if Andrej was going behind his sister and Ezra’s backs, helping the cartel?
He could’ve been using ángel as an intermediary and this wasn’t their first time meeting. ”
“But it was his last,” Alex muttered. “And maybe Ezra and his sister found out and had him killed. They just didn’t know about this meeting, or they wouldn’t have sent a hit team to Cabo first.”
“The payments from the cartel to Andrej’s account were a frame job, though,” she reminded us, sitting taller.
“Is it possible Ezra didn’t know Andrej was meeting with ángel, just assumed for some reason he was betraying them and helping the cartel?
” She grimaced, shaking her head. “I know Ezra, and he’d have sent a team after ángel if he knew about him.
He’d never let him live. He’d tie up loose ends. ”
Like he’s trying to tie up with you now.
That thought had me pushing away from the desk.
“Ezra may have believed Andrej was betraying them, but maybe he didn’t have proof, so he had someone hack Andrej’s accounts to add those wire transfers from the cartel to set him up; that way his wife didn’t question the decision to have her brother killed. But why would ángel work with Andrej?”
“Because Ezra’s operation was interfering with the cartel’s business, and ...” Her eyes widened. “Ohhh.”
I quickly rounded the desk and went over to sit next to her. “What is it?”
“What if working with Andrej was how ángel bought himself extra protection from his own family bothering him? I offered him a similar deal last night. The cartel is ángel’s enemy, and Andrej must’ve viewed his sister and Ezra as his enemy.
They may have made some type of deal to help one another out. ”
Alex pitched an idea. “We’re assuming Andrej betrayed the Sokolovs, since he was murdered, but are we certain it wasn’t the other way around and it was ángel selling out his family to Andrej to help the Sokolovs?
And the Moraleses didn’t know it was their own blood helping Andrej, or ángel would have been killed.
” He turned his attention to Seraphina. “You’re sure those payments to Andrej from the cartel weren’t legit? ”
“I am,” she said with confidence, and I trusted both her gut and her numbers.
“Our government stages hits like this all the time. They frame others for their handiwork so they’re not culpable,” Reed said, sitting back in the desk chair, eyes on me.
“He’s right. It’s not like we weren’t part of CIA ops like that overseas doing the same damn thing,” Alex responded.
“I think there’s a third possibility,” Reed said. “Andrej was a CIA asset and Ezra found out and had him killed. Someone made his death look like a cartel hit to cover their tracks.”
“And who’s powerful enough to make a story like that never make it into national news?
” Alex crossed his arms. “The same group who doesn’t play well with others and would never let DHS, the FBI, or DEA know they already turned someone inside the Sokolovs’ operation,” he went on, answering his question himself.
“This is why we were pulled off the op and the task force was killed. The CIA found out we were tangled up in something they already have an inside track on, and they wanted us off the case.” That realization had me standing, tracking a hand through my hair as I put it together.
“The CIA probably turned someone else after they lost Andrej, and they’re worried we’ll screw up their op. ”
“If only they shared intel with other agencies, this never would have happened,” Alex grumbled as Seraphina set aside the pillow to stand.
“We need to talk to ángel and have him confirm this.” I just had no clue if the man would put his own interests, like self-preservation, above what was morally right.
“That means when ángel texts the location, you’re going to let me come, too, right?” She stared at me expectantly, and it killed me more than anything to do this, but I deferred to Alex for an answer.
“I’m not sure what the best call is, to be honest. Any number of things could go wrong. It could be a trap, for starters.” Alex tightened his lips, shaking his head.
“We have a narrow window of time to meet with ángel. It’s a now-or-never kind of thing.” Seraphina bounced her gaze back and forth between the two of us, waiting. “Without him and without me, this whole thing falls apart.”
“I’m aware.” I went over to the Nespresso machine at the bar on the other side of the office. It was going to be a late night. “It doesn’t change the fact your safety trumps everything else.”
“We didn’t come to Costa Rica for nothing.” She was right on my ass, tugging at my shirt. Of course she wouldn’t back down. Did I really expect her to, just because Alex was now coming around to my side on this? “We have to make this work.”
“And we will,” Alex told her. “We’ll figure out the best course of action,” he added, and she let go of my shirt. “Still nothing from Lainey yet?” His redirect was appreciated.
“Lainey’s kept the director off our ass, and she’s still chasing down leads for us.
” I started the Nespresso machine, then faced the room.
“And as for that other contact of mine,” I began, about to share the update I’d yet to tell Seraphina but had already told the guys, “he sent three of his guys to Moscow. They’ll arrive in the morning. ”
“Wait, what? Why?” she asked.
“Sorry, I meant to tell you this before”— but got distracted by our shower together and conversation after —“but that friend of mine I mentioned earlier, Hudson, spent the day poring over the files you gave us with his team.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “And that conversation led Hudson’s people to Russia?”
“Your numbers did,” I revealed. “Hudson and I were able to follow the trail you gave us to a bank in Moscow, which then led us to what we believe is a shell company for the Sokolovs’ operation there. As in, a front for whoever is really in charge.”
“Okay, that’s good news.” Her eyes lit up. “That’s a huge find.”
“Never would’ve found it without your math.” I semi-smiled, impressed by everything she’d accomplished while working for Ezra. It still hurt my chest to think about, but I had to focus on the fact she was standing before me and had survived.
“Well, thanks to you as well. You find people, right? It’s what you do.” She returned my smile. “Guess we make a good team.”
Fuck yeah, we do. I cleared my throat, remembering we weren’t alone, so I couldn’t haul her into my arms and kiss her. “Anyway, this, uh, squares up with Nina’s visits there, too.”
“So we might find out who the Sokolovs are actually working for?” Her lips parted, and she flipped her tongue up, covering her teeth, like she had a habit of doing.
“And if we find out who’s in charge, we—”
“We don’t need to question Ezra,” she finished for me, her shoulders falling. I wasn’t sure how to read that. Disappointment, or relief?
I can just go ahead and kill the fucker instead. “So, you see, if that’s the case, there’s no need to place you in any unnecessary danger.”
She closed her eyes, and fuck , I knew what was going to come from that gorgeous mouth of hers next.
“But we don’t know for sure if they’ll be successful or how long it’ll take them to hunt down the lead in Russia.” She confirmed what I thought she’d say. “We can’t afford to lose this opportunity to get our hands on Ezra while he’s here.”
“She’s right.” Not what I wanted to hear from Alex. “We need to cover our bases, have multiple plans in place—and if Sera wasn’t in the middle of this, you’d be saying the same thing, and you know that. Which is why you—”
“I know,” I cut him off, hanging my head. “It’s why I asked you to be in charge.”