Chapter Forty-Three - Ryder
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Ryder
I have no idea how Moreno managed to convince me to come to the base for a shower, but I stand under the stream of steaming water like it can burn away every horrible part of the last week from my body.
He’d first suggested that I go home, but having Lyla see me blood-covered and disheveled sounded like a less-than-genius plan, so the base was a better choice.
I never lose the nagging sensation that’s been bothering me since Moreno filled me in on everything I missed.
I try to reason that I’m only worried for Rachel or that my mind is a muddled mess from my propofol kick, but this feels different.
Since I still can’t place where the nagging is coming from, I force myself to play everything I remember on a loop over and over, but all I end up repeating is the peaceful look on Rachel’s face right before she stabbed herself.
I thought she, like me, was soaking in the memory of our last time seeing each other before I was taken—but she decided she’d be the one to go instead.
If I lose her, there will be no moving on. There will be no other women, just as there has been no one since I met her.
She’s it for me.
It killed me to see the way Ethan Diaz touched her in ways that only I was meant to.
Seeing the notoriously violent Diaz capo with his hands on my Rachel was its own form of torture.
It will forever be one of my greatest regrets that he had a quick death.
If I’d had it my way, he would’ve spent the rest of his life groveling for mercy I never would’ve granted.
Just the thought of what I would’ve done to him fills me with an intoxicating bloodlust that I have no intention of quenching through anything aside from the acts themselves.
I guess Clayton Vance will have to take the torture for both of them.
Pity.
It’s only when my skin is near boiling that I finally turn the water off and step out of the shower. I’m barely dressed before I can’t wait a second longer and pull out my phone.
“There’s no update on Rachel,” Joshua says by way of greeting.
“When was the last update?”
“You’re sure?” he asks, voice muffled—and I know he’s covering the phone’s mic. “I want to see that security footage.”
“What’s going on?” I ask, barely concealed panic edging the question. “Is Rachel okay?”
“I haven’t had an update on Rachel since before you left, but there’s something else.”
“What?”
“Knox is gone. He wasn’t officially discharged, but he’s nowhere in the hospital.”
That nagging sensation comes back with jarring force, begging me to remember something, but I can’t sort through what exactly it is that’s so important.
“Any idea why?”
“None,” Joshua answers. “Can you think of anything?”
“He’s always been quiet. I barely know a thing about him, let alone his habits.”
Moreno mutters a curse under his breath, and something about the low tenor of his voice takes me back to the airstrip.
I see Rachel’s face above mine as she antagonizes Mary for answers while Vance talks to the Diaz soldiers. From the small slit that I had my eyes open, I’d caught a distorted image of Mary’s face.
What had they been talking about?
“You okay?” Moreno’s voice sounds far away, but this time, it’s due to my racing thoughts.
I ignore him, focusing all my willpower on replaying the memory. Each time I play it back, more of it comes into view. At first, it’s only Mary’s distorted features, then it’s a look of desperation, followed by pinched brows.
Finally, Mary’s statement comes back to me.
It was just some office supplies. I never thought it’d go on this long…
There’d been too much going on for me to decipher what the confession implied at the time, but it hits me now like a punch to the gut—and almost as painful.
“I’ll call you back,” I tell Moreno, racing from the locker room bathroom, across the base, and down three flights of stairs to an old bunker-turned-torture-chamber.
Unlike what should be the case, it isn’t just Vance in the room.
Vance hangs from the ceiling by chains on his wrists, but the fearful, pleading look that almost always accompanies the entrance of a capo in an interrogation room is missing.
His lifeless eyes hold no gaze at all.
“You really shouldn’t have come here,” Knox tsks as he pulls the needle from Vance’s arm.
“I’ll give you thirty seconds to explain.”
The boy—and he really isn’t much older than a boy—finally turns to look at me, and the most sinister, condescending look gleams those usually bland eyes.
“Don’t act all high and mighty, Bates. You’re just as much a traitor as I am. Do you really think being abducted will make Moreno forget that you traded his bride-to-be for your kid?”
“That’s not an explanation.”
“I mean, come on, Bates. Moreno might pity you, but he sure as hell doesn’t trust you.”
Since he’s clearly not intent on filling in the blanks, I do it myself. “Mary only stole from office supply funds. The Rohypnol was all you.”
He taunts me with a bored expression.
“You knew they were stealing, but you let it happen so you could hide your own embezzling with theirs. You even knew it would be traced to my I.P. address, giving you plenty of people to pin the blame on if someone caught you.” I take one menacing step forward.
“You were contributing to Mason Consoli’s funding. ”
“Contributing?” He barks a laugh. “You want an explanation, Bates? I organized every base’s contribution to Mason.
The Rohypnol shipments have been a mess since the prostitution rings came down, so no one noticed when I rigged them.
Mason’s entire army was built on what I gave him.
I told him over and over to instigate in-fighting instead of going for brute force, but the only time he listened was when he took your whore and kid.
I take another step toward him, feeling all sanity drain from my body and mind.
Knox takes a step back, eyes going wide with a frenzied panic that I delight in.
“I’m leaving, and you’re going to let me,” he blurts, squaring his shoulders—though his voice deflates with every word. “If something happens to me, Moreno gets evidence of every time money was stolen from the base that will tie directly to you. You think he’ll believe—”
My fist connects with his mouth with a sweet crunch, and two of his teeth fall to the ground. Knox stumbles back, the realization dawning in his dull eyes: I couldn’t care less about consequences right now.
It doesn’t matter if Moreno thinks I stole from the base. It doesn’t matter if this man is the reason Mason had the funds to nearly overthrow the family. It doesn’t matter that he’s the most vital tool in eradicating the rest of Mason’s followers from the Moreno and Consoli families.
None of that matters.
All that matters is the euphoria that flows through my veins when the first droplets of blood flow down Knox’s face.
My second punch knocks him to the ground, and I take my time towering over him.
“I should really thank you,” I say with a smile. “I’ve had a week from hell, and since everyone responsible is dead, I’ll get my pound of flesh from you.”
My fists rain down on Knox’s face until my hands go numb—and I mean potential nerve-damage numb—but I don’t slow. In fact, I marvel at the unrecognizable, smashed-in skull of a man I used to trust.
He loses consciousness far too soon, and there’s no telling which of the blows actually ends his life, but I don’t stop even when I know he’s long gone.
All I can see is my Rebel driving the blade into her stomach, and every time the brutal image replays, I’m filled with a renewed fury. She could be dead. Our daughter might have to live without her mother.
All because I didn’t stand by her when I should’ve.
I vow, in this moment—as I heave deep breaths over a lifeless, mangled body—that if my Rachel does make it through this, I will never, ever, leave her side again.
And like an answer to my unrighteous vow, my phone rings.