Chapter Thirty-Six Ryder
Chapter Thirty-Six
Ryder
“You good?” Alex asked as he and Reed surrounded us out in the parking lot.
“I don’t know about Ryder,” she began as I opened the side door of the Tahoe for her, “but I’m slightly more confused now than I was before we spoke to him.”
“They had cameras on us, so we couldn’t talk too much about what we knew,” I explained once we were all inside and the doors were shut.
“But I don’t think he has a choice in any of this.
He wants the cartel taken out, but Beth’s pulling his strings, same as she’s pulling the Sokolovs’.
Only difference, Ezra doesn’t know about it. ”
“So I take it we were right and Beth has had her claws in ángel, even after Andrej died, in case she needed him again?” Alex asked us, and we explained as much as we knew, which wasn’t a whole hell of a lot.
“Beth must’ve flipped someone else within the Sokolovs’ organization after Andrej died,” Reed said, reminding me of our earlier conversation. “I mean, she has to have, right?”
“His wife,” she blurted. “Nina’s Beth’s other asset. Beth turned her, too. And if we’re right, and Nina’s the one with ties to the Russians in charge, that gives Beth a direct line to what’s happening at the top of the organization.”
Beth was making my head spin with her fuckery in all this.
“Nina’s Ezra’s link to his boss in Russia, so he has to do whatever she says,” she went on. “We were right, we were just missing the link to Beth.”
Also right about why Ezra never set a hand on you. I was ready to kill that man all over again. Use his blood as paint, Stephen King’s The Shining –style. Red-Fucking-Rum . Murder the son of a bitch.
“So, are we really suggesting the CIA created a brother-and-sister team of assets?” Her question pulled me back to the present, reminding me we had a few hurdles to deal with before I could prove to Seraphina exactly what I’d told her—that I really was “that guy,” the one who’d take the life of a man like Ezra without a second thought.
“It could be why we can’t find Nina anywhere,” Alex answered her, and what was the question again?
I needed to focus the fuck up. “The Agency may have Nina stashed away for safekeeping until the cartel is handled. Backup plan in case things go south with Ezra. Move the queen into position if the king dies.”
“Ezra must’ve stumbled upon the fact someone was betraying him, and it was actually Beth who decided to throw Andrej under the bus to protect her most valuable asset. To protect Nina.” Seraphina concluded what made the most sense to me as well.
“Beth—or, well, her team—would rather let Ezra believe Andrej was double-crossing him than pull him out of the field.” Is Beth really that ice cold?
Apparently so. Well, assuming it was her call to make and not Director Johnson’s.
Something told me Johnson had a don’t ask, don’t tell policy with her.
“How could his sister be okay with that?” Her voice became fragile as pain from her own loss had to be catching up with her.
“Maybe Nina didn’t have a choice?” Seems to be going around when it comes to Beth’s manipulation tactics. Her whatever-it-takes-to-get-the-job-done mentality front and center.
“Or Nina’s enjoying the power and lifestyle she has a little too much courtesy of Beth, and she’d rather her brother died than give that up.
” Alex was probably thinking about Beth with that comment.
The man was going to need to see a therapist after the hell his ex put him through. One thing at a time.
“This would confirm our theory the CIA buried the story from the national news when Seraphina’s family was murdered.” Reed pivoted us in a new direction, and he was right about that. The pieces were all adding up.
“So,” she began, “are we thinking Beth’s team turned Nina and Andrej before or after Nina married Ezra?
What if ...” She gripped my leg and said something in Spanish that I assumed she’d translate.
“You and Hudson traced the information in my files to a shell company in Russia, to the same place where Nina’s been visiting, right? ”
“Yeah.” I rested my hand on top of hers, taking a moment to process where she was going with this. Then it hit me as I remembered what ángel had told us back there. “Not everything is always as it seems. The shell company is a front for—”
“Beth’s dark money team,” Alex cut me off, and he must’ve taken his foot off the gas pedal, because we were abruptly slowing down. “Ezra doesn’t work for the Russians at all. He works for Beth’s team.”
“And Ezra most likely doesn’t even know it, but clearly his wife does as Beth’s asset,” I said in agreement. “Nina’s trips to Russia are to sell the idea the organization is run by someone over there. Not just to throw off Ezra, but the suppliers and cartels. Hell, to throw off everyone.”
“Knowing Beth, she preselected Ezra as the mark for this whole damn thing,” Alex gritted out. “She knew his background. He was probably a shady motherfucker to start with, and she helped him up his game and take it all the way home. Set Nina up with him to marry.”
Talk about a case of entrapment. “Beth’s team is the real devil at the top. Beth would prefer to keep Ezra in power, but she has Nina off the grid as a backup plan to take over if need be.”
“At that rate, I’m shocked she doesn’t just let Ezra die and have Nina take over. No more playing games,” Alex grunted. He made a valid point. “Unless my ex-wife has something else up her sleeve.”
“Are we really saying what I think we are?” Seraphina whispered.
The doom-and-gloom guy on my team was about to lay it all out for us, I could feel it. “Director Johnson devised a way to take as much power from the cartels as possible by creating a fictitious enterprise that no one—especially the cartels—could compete with.”
“Not so much fiction anymore,” I tossed out.
“People will get drugs anyway, why not be the ones controlling the market and selling them? The US loves their monopolies,” Reed continued with the ugly truth. “Hell, I bet they’d have a better quality check on the drugs, too.”
“But, I mean, is this really what we’re suggesting?” she asked, shock hedging her tone.
I had a hard time believing the president had signed off on this.
“I think so. It’s speculation right now, but Reed’s rarely wrong.” Alex increased our speed as if we could actually outrun his ex. No, we’d be boxed in anytime now. “When did Nina marry Ezra, again?”
I deferred to Seraphina on that since I couldn’t remember. “Three years ago.”
“That tracks. I got divorced, what, sixteen or seventeen months ago? She started changing before that, though. Became a different person.”
“This can’t be just about drugs. That’s not CIA territory.” Doesn’t add up.
“Beth brought up the Chinese, remember?” she reminded us. “She said something about them being too close to our borders and working with the cartels.”
“Right, right.” Alex stepped on it even more, so I reached over and buckled her in. “Beth doesn’t want the Chinese finding out they’re not really working with the Russians. Her whole house of cards collapses, her illusionist act over.”
“The Chinese suppliers would switch back to working with the cartels and start flooding the market through Mexico again, and the CIA loses their new monopoly. Not to mention, the Chinese may retaliate in more ways than one.” That point wasn’t to side with the she-devil, but it was still a fact I couldn’t ignore, and a shitty one at that.
Looks like there will be an even greater need for Hudson’s new project after we take everyone down here in Costa Rica. I really had run into that man for a reason.
“The more cartels Beth’s team can wipe out, the better their odds are at keeping our main enemies off the borders and out of the US.
” It would have been a solid fucking plan if people weren’t dying by her hand.
If her team destroyed the drugs instead of selling them.
But the real world rarely operated in if s , more like in dollars.
“So, this is about a cold war with China.” I hung my head. And that’s CIA territory, for damn sure. “Not to mention funding that very war with the drug money Beth’s team is bringing in from taking over for the cartels.”
“And this all means,” Seraphina whispered, “that Ezra may have put out the hit on Andrej that led to my family dying, but in reality—”
“Their murders are my ex-wife’s fault.”