Chapter 15 #2
“I was just showing her the track,” Luis says.
Rio pierces me with his gaze. “I wondered where you were.”
Luis looks between us, reads something, then steps back.
“I’ll leave you two to it,” he says, dusting his hands off on his jeans. “Don’t forget about learning to ride. In fact, why don’t you bring her tomorrow morning, Rio? We can get a few of us together?”
“Maybe,” he says, gaze still fixed on mine.
Luis smiles like that’s enough and heads off.
We watch him go, and then Rio turns sharply back to me. “What the hell was that?”
I lift a shoulder. “Your dad stopped by. Asked me to come out.”
“We said as little contact with my family as possible.” He grits.
“What was I supposed to do?” I fold my arms. “Say no?”
“Yes.”
A sharp breath slips out of me, edged with disbelief. “So you expect me to sit in your house all day doing nothing? My dog needed a walk.”
As if on cue, Tina trots up and paws at his leg, looking up at him expectantly.
Rio glances down at her, and he gives her that brief smile again. He likes her.
What would it feel like to be liked by Rio? I think back to how his good girl comment landed. How it’s a comment I would have thought to send me in a rage spiral, but instead it made my pulse flutter. And other parts, too.
His steely gaze whips back to me. “What did you talk about?”
I could tell him. It would be easier since it was nothing.
“None of your business,” I say, instead, just to wind him up.
“Don’t do that,” he says.
“Do what?”
“Make this harder than it needs to be.”
He’s right. I don’t need to give him any reason to think I don’t have restraint. I need him to believe I’ll never utter his name again after we find the women. I should play nice, but it’s hard. Men like him don’t deserve it.
I don’t care what he is to Luis. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing to me.
A beat stretches between us before he exhales and leans on the fence. His broad shoulders pull the fabric of his t-shirt tight, wrapping tight around his bulging bicep.
“We’ve got something,” he says, staring out at the horses who are doing a cool-down lap now.
I lean next to him on the fence. “What?”
“Does the name Joseph Rourke mean anything to you?”
That black leather envelope slapping down on my dad’s desk flashes in my mind. He was the one who left the passports there.
“The women were picked up at SFO in a vehicle with swapped plates. The plate belongs to Rourke.”
“I already told you the women are in the Iron Covenant system.” My grip tightens on the fence. “You said you’ve handled trafficking before.”
His gaze flicks to me. “We have.”
“Then you already know what happens next.” I shake my head, exasperated. “So why are we still standing here talking about license plates?”
His jaw shifts slightly. “Because I can’t go in kicking down doors.”
A short, disbelieving laugh leaves me. “Right. So this is it? You confirm they’re with somebody at Iron Covenant? That’s a day’s work?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Then what are you doing, Rio?”
“I’m tracking the next movement.”
I stare at him. “How?”
“Rourke’s the link. His vehicle’s in play; it’ll be in play again. I tag it, I follow it, and it takes me where I need to go. Hopefully, to where the women are.”
“That’s your plan?” I shove a hand on my hip. “What about the locket? Did you search for the image? Start looking for Isabel’s family?”
He holds steady.
My anger rises faster now. “You have an entire company built on breaking systems, exposing networks and—”
“And the second I use it,” he cuts in, sharply, “it logs.”
He doesn’t want anyone else at GhostEye to know.
Rio confirms. “Internal flags. Access trails. Eyes I don’t get to choose.” Every next word is harsher than the last. “Enzo sees it. My team sees it. And suddenly this”—he flicks his finger between us—“isn’t contained anymore.”
“Good,” I snap. “Maybe it shouldn’t be.”
He narrows his eyes. “Clearly, I have more to lose than you do.”
The words hit harder than anything else he’s said. A direct echo of that first meeting. That threat. That dare.
I curl my fingers into a fist, nails biting into my skin. “You still think this is a lie?”
“I think you walked into my office with blackmail and a story tied to a part of my life I buried for a reason.” His voice doesn’t rise, but it cuts deeper for it. “And I think you’ve got something to gain if your father goes down. That’s what I know.”
A livewire flares up my spine. I’m frustrated out of my mind. I need him to move faster.
“I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t, Rio!” My voice climbs. “Even if I tell you the truth, you’re going to doubt it anyway.”
“That’s why I move carefully.”
My laugh is brittle and loud. “Carefully? Right. While they’re moving women through the system.”
“We’re looking.”
“No,” I fire back, stepping closer. “You’re covering your ass while looking, and that’s not a fast way to move.”
“I’m keeping it contained,” he corrects.
“Contained for who?” I demand.
His expression darkens. “For me.”
“At least you admit it,” I say, my voice rising again. “You’re protecting your reputation, your company… while they’re out there—”
“If there’s something there, I’ll find it.”
“There is something there, Rio!” My voice cracks. I shout now. “I was there! I was with them!” I throw a hand in the air. “My dad lied to me. The jewelry…You think I’d risk coming to you if this wasn’t real?”
My eyes sting with emotion. There are innocent women out there being used right now. I could end up back with Luther at some point if my dad isn’t taken down. Rio doesn’t believe me, and I get it, but it hurts, too, because I brought it on myself by being the same kind of bad person my dad is.
The words swell in my throat. I choke them out.
“I get I’ve tried to manipulate you.” Tears of frustration threaten the corner of my eyes.
“But you would have never taken me seriously if I didn’t do it that way?
Don’t you remember? You told me to go to the cops!
Or the Feds. How was I ever going to get the right person to listen if I didn’t have leverage?
Nobody takes women seriously, Rio. Not in the world I’ve been raised in. ”
The words carry.
A stablehand walking the fence line glances over.
Rio notices.
I don’t care.
I’m over this world being like it is. I’m over being powerless.
“I hate you,” I snap, the words tearing out of me before I can stop them, and a lone tear streaks down my cheek. “I hate my dad. I hate all you fucking men who can’t just—just—”
My words cut off when he pulls me against him in an embrace. My face presses into his chest.
“You’re shouting,” he murmurs against my hair.
“Of course I’m shouting,” I fire back, but my voice is muffled, tangled in cotton. “I’m angry.”
My hands curl uselessly at my sides, but I feel an urge to wrap them around him.
I expect more words, more defense, more mansplaining, but instead, he offers me his touch. His hand splays across my back, and he rubs me, softly.
It’s a kind of calm I’ve never felt before. Certainly not in the arms of a man. Not in the arms of anyone.
“Hey,” he murmurs, close to my ear. “Just—”
“I’m not—” I cut him off. “I’m not overreacting. You don’t get to tell me to calm down when—”
“I’m not telling you to calm down,” he says quietly. “I’m comforting you, fool.”
His hand keeps moving, that same steady rhythm, trying to pull me back from somewhere I didn’t realize I’d tipped into. His touch reaches a deeper part of me. A part that has always ached for this kind of affection.
And I want to hate him more for it. For reminding me how shitty this world can be, because even my own parents never hugged me as kindly as my sworn enemy.
“Just breathe for a second,” he murmurs.
And with that, the comforting reverberation of his voice on my cheek, the feel of his hand rubbing me, the perfect hold of his embrace, my body betrays me and melts into him. I wrap my arms around his tight, muscular torso and hang on to what he’s giving me.
“I don’t want to breathe.” I still try to resist, but the words sound like the lie that they are.
My body’s already pulling in deeper breaths against him, syncing to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat in my ear.
His hand slides up, cradling the back of my head—steady, reassuring in a confusing way.
And for a second, everything in me goes quiet.
No panic. No anger. No noise.
Just him.
I remind myself not to like this too much. He’s not doing this for me.
He wants me quiet.
I place my hands on his chest and push back lightly, pulling out of his arms slightly. I look up at him, but don’t put as much distance between us as I should.
Staring up from his chest, I expect to see the same hard expression that’s always in his features. But his brows are drawn.
“Come on,” he says quietly. “We can talk. Just… not like this.”
My pulse isn’t racing anymore, but it’s still heavy in my neck.
“You still don’t trust me,” I say.
“No.” His gaze holds mine, but there’s something softer in it than before.
“But I’m still here,” he adds.