Chapter Twelve - Ryder
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ryder
“All in favor of the M.A.C. Project?” Moreno asks, and I clench my teeth as we wait for the results.
Moreno, Donovan, and Kade all raise their hands. I expected that, but when the man beside me raises a hand, too, I’m completely blindsided.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I snap, but Tripp remains unbothered.
I’d walked into this meeting with the numbers to postpone this vote. I’d known I wasn’t going to win, but half would’ve forced at least another week of deliberation.
Nicholas sits across from me with both hands firmly on the table, just as he said he would.
The traitor next to me shrugs. “I never liked this to begin with. If I could vote against the whole idea, I would, but since it’s happening either way, we might as well get it over with.”
“All right,” Moreno says as he pushes to his feet. “It’s done with, and there’s no changing it now. Nicholas, start making the arrangements.”
“Yes, sir,” he replies, courteous as always despite being on the losing end of this particular vote.
“Meeting adjourned. Ryder, stay,” Moreno demands, and the other capos scatter within seconds.
The door slams shut after them, and Moreno folds his arms over his chest. “I know this isn’t what you wanted, but the timing is too optimal to pass on.”
“The timing is exactly the issue.”
“Watch it,” he says with a glance at the door. I know he cares more about other people eavesdropping than my actual disrespect. “We knew this day would come.”
“But now? When the mother of my unborn child is here? Come on, Joshua. This isn’t safe for her, and you know it.”
“It’s perfectly safe as long as she continues to stay away from the base. You’re free to send her home when the project starts—or anytime, for that matter.”
“You know I can’t do that,” I grate out.
That would mean spending the end of the pregnancy apart, and there’s no way I’m doing that. She’s staying here where I can make sure she and the baby are healthy.
Moreno clasps a hand on my shoulder. “I know this isn’t ideal, but even you have to admit that this is the best opportunity we’re going to get. We can’t pass it up on the off-chance something goes wrong.”
The fact that he’s right only pisses me off more.
I shrug his hand off and storm out the door. My frustration doesn’t ease in the slightest as I walk the short distance between the base and the cabin. Usually, I’d feel some sense of peace at coming home to Rachel, but right now, nothing short of a re-vote is going to ease my black mood.
Things have been… strange since Rachel moved in two weeks ago.
Before finding out about the baby, we had a good thing going. Sure, we didn’t do much talking, but we had realistic expectations of each other, and we were okay with that.
Then the baby came along, I left for work, and Rachel’s health problems started. Suddenly, what was a simple, steady hook-up became a tangled mess of a relationship that neither of us knows how to navigate.
Eventually, we’ll need to sit and talk through the future, but I’m trying to give Rachel more time.
In the span of two months, she’s learned she’s pregnant with a stranger’s child, then moved to a new city with said stranger, who turned out to be a mafia underboss.
She’s had her fair share of surprises for a lifetime.
But she hasn’t shown any signs of wanting to talk, and since I don’t want to push her, I’ve just waited.
Since I’m working long hours at the base each day, all I know is that Rachel focuses on her schoolwork during the day and is normally tucked away in her room by the time I get back each night.
Alec assures me she eats three times a day, so I don’t have an excuse to check on her.
So, I haven’t.
But tonight, I’m home earlier than normal, so I hold out hope that her soft, still-nervous smile will drag me into better spirits.
That hope is crushed into a million pieces when I walk in to find Alec and Rachel hunched over a document at the table. They’re so engrossed in whatever it is they’re looking at that neither of them even notices my arrival.
I take slow steps toward them, and Rachel’s shoulders stiffen. At the same time, I realize what they’re looking at.
Rachel twists in her chair to look up at me with wide eyes, but I barely notice as I close the distance and snatch the paper off the table.
Alec, who’d been in the middle of saying something prior to my walking in, goes pale when he notices me. “Ryder, I—”
“You must be out of your damn mind, Alec,” I shout, a rare occurrence, though it feels more than appropriate now.
Rachel, who looks both cautious and annoyed, reaches out for the paper. “It’s not a big deal, Ryder. Calm down.”
I pull it out of her reach. “You have no idea what is and isn’t a big deal. You know you’re not supposed to involve yourself in what we do.”
“It’s only a food organization spreadsheet for next month,” Alec explains, far calmer than I would’ve expected of him. “There’s nothing incriminating there. I swear. I never would’ve—”
I take three slow steps toward the boy, who matches each of them backward but doesn’t avoid my gaze.
“Is the spreadsheet used at this base?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Then you have gone against a direct order to keep her away from any and all business. I’ll be taking this to Moreno.”
His eyes turn pleading. “Wait, you don’t have to—”
“Go,” I order.
He does, taking the spreadsheet with him before walking out.
When I turn, I do so slowly, expecting to see Rachel curled into herself, but that’s not how I find her. She sits up tall in her chair, eyes narrowed to slits as she glares at me with more force than I knew she possessed.
“What were you thinking?” I ask when she says nothing.
She breathes out a laugh devoid of humor. “You should be more concerned with what I am thinking, which is that you’re a complete asshole.”
“You both know the rules and blatantly went against them.”
“It was a spreadsheet to order food for next month! He needed help interpreting it, so I helped because I look at spreadsheets all day. If you’re mad, be mad at Nicholas for giving Alec a job he wasn’t prepared to do.”
“It wasn’t your place.”
“And what is my place, Ryder? Besides being stuck inside this stifling cabin with nothing but my schoolwork. You know, I thought when you brought me here that we’d be working together to figure out this whole ‘having a kid’ thing, but no.
You leave at the crack of dawn and come back late.
You never try to talk about the future, our child, or even just how our days are!
I barely know you, and what I do know doesn’t make me like you very much. ”
For a minute, all I can do is stare at her. I knew she was likely starting to get bored, but I didn’t think she felt like this.
Why didn’t she tell me?
When would she have had the chance?
She points after Alec. “And if that is how you act when you’re mad, then I’m not sure I want you anywhere near this child.”
Rachel’s gaze wanders, like she’s trying to make sense of how she ended up here. She breathes deeply, one hand over her heart and the other holding her stomach.
It’s only now that I remember I’m supposed to be keeping her calm, not riling her up and adding to her stress.
I step toward her, and when her eyes widen as she steps back, I freeze in place. That small ounce of fear in her eyes feels like a wrecking ball ramming into my stomach and stealing my breath.
“I shouldn’t have come here,” she whispers before disappearing into her room.