Chapter 28
RYKER
Once Bass left, the house felt less crowded, but my head wasn’t quieter.
He’d helped me build a plan I could live with. Come clean. It wasn’t because I owed Sloane the truth. But if someone was pushing her toward me, the only way to stop being a weapon in someone else’s hands was to take the blade back.
My phone buzzed on the counter.
Sloane:
I need to see you… now.
My stomach dropped like I’d missed a step on the stairs.
Me:
I need to talk to you too. Come over.
I sent my address before I could talk myself out of it. It was risky and stupid. If she’d been circling me for answers, she already knew where I lived.
Ten minutes later, the doorbell rang.
I checked the cameras anyway, the front porch, driveway, street. I watched her car sit at the edge of my property, hesitant and idling.
She looked small through the lens. Not weak. Just … alone.
I hated how that landed in my chest. I opened the door and stepped outside, forcing myself not to move too fast. I didn’t want her to know I’d been listening for her.
“Hey.” I scanned the area beyond her, the reflex automatic.
Since I quit numbing myself, my senses stayed sharp. Everything did. The world didn’t blur anymore—it cut.
“Hi.” She didn’t smile. She didn’t look at me until I shut the door behind me.
That set my nerves off. Sloane didn’t come to anyone’s house with her guard down.
She wrung her hands once, a tiny motion that didn’t belong on her.
I stepped closer until the toes of our shoes almost touched. I wasn’t trying to intimidate her. The opposite actually. I wanted to anchor her before she came undone.
“What’s wrong?”
“Ryker.” Her voice was so soft it barely made it out.
“Tell me.”
She glanced down the hall as if she expected my walls to listen. “Maybe we should sit.”
Every instinct in me hated that. If she came to put a bullet in my life, I wanted her standing in it. Owning it.
Sloane walked past me without waiting, already carrying herself as though she belonged here with me. That did something ugly and warm to my insides at the same time.
She sat on the edge of my couch. Stiff. Guarded. Like she’d rehearsed the way she was holding herself.
I remained standing.
“I didn’t come here for comfort. Someone was in my house.”
The words hit and my body went cold. “What the fuck?” I crossed to her so fast I almost forgot to breathe. “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did they touch you?”
She briefly looked away then back to me. “No.”
That answer didn’t help me. It lit a different kind of rage.
“I called a friend,” she said. “Eli. He came over.”
The name landed wrong in my mouth before I even spoke it. “Eli,” I repeated, the name bitter on my tongue.
“He works at Red Thread,” she said quickly. “We’ve been friends for a long time.”
I shoved the jealousy down where I kept everything else that could get me killed. “Tell me what happened.”
“I was working Nate’s case like I always do.” Her pitch kicked up a notch. “I went to my bedroom to grab my phone and there was a—” She stopped as if the word might bite.
“A what?” I forced.
“A rabbit.” Her face went pale. “Painted in blood. On my wall.”
For a second, the room tilted. I understood what that meant. My fingers flexed like they were reaching for my new knife that wasn’t there. I sat beside her, close enough that my knee brushed hers. “Look at me.”
She did. Tears rimmed her eyes, and something in my chest cracked in a place that wasn’t supposed to exist anymore.
“You’re a detective.”
“Was,” she corrected.
“It’s who you are. What still drives you. The need for truth and justice.”
A bitter breath left her. “Yeah.”
“What did you hear? What did you see? Anything. A footprint. A smell. A latch out of place.”
She looked away, then back as if she’d decided something. “Someone has been in my house before. They left … a head in my refrigerator.”
My blood iced over.
“My head,” she clarified. “A replica. I have no idea who it is.” Her voice shook once. “But I’m pretty sure it’s the same person who—” She swallowed hard. “Who told me to get close to you if I ever wanted answers about Nate.”
Silence punched the air out of the room. I stared at her like she’d lit the fuse inside me. She had.
“You mentioned the text messages said, ‘find Ryker.’ That’s way fucking different than get close to me, Sloane.” I spoke slowly.
Her eyes glistened. “Ryker—”
“So the Ritual games weren’t random,” I cut in, heat crawling up my neck. “You didn’t ‘run into me.’ You were sent?”
“No.” She stood quickly, as if she needed space to breathe. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t come looking for you. But when it happened, when I realized who you were—I …” Her voice cracked. “I didn’t tell you everything because I didn’t want you to think exactly what you are right now.”
My hands curled into fists so tight my knuckles burned. Then, a worse thought slid in. If someone had pointed her to me, they weren’t only after me. They were using her to get to the others.
My friends.
My family.
My crew.
I surged to my feet. My hand shot out and I grabbed her arm too hard.
Her breath caught.
She’d been in that house when they did it, and I hadn’t been at her side. The last time I wasn’t where I should have been, I’d buried my son. That truth ripped through me, nearly stealing the air out of my lungs.
“What have you told them?” The question scraped out of me. “Sloane. What did you give them?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head, her expression pleading with me. “Nothing, Ryker, I swear. Once I met you, I couldn’t.”
My hand stayed on her wrist, but the pressure changed, softened.
Her eyes didn’t drop. They held mine, fierce and terrified.
“When they asked, I said we’d only seen each other at the games.
I told them that I needed more time. Right then, I chose my side …
you no matter the cost. Whether I lost my lead on Nate or not.
” She took a beat. “I bought you time. Then, you started to help me track the rabbit. You were invested when I told you Nate was my brother and had the same tattoo.”
“If you’re lying to me—”
“I’m not.” Her voice turned sharp, offended through the fear. “And you’ll know it. Because whoever these people are, I won’t survive long enough to lie twice.”
That stopped me in my fucking tracks because I suspected it was true. And what would your life look like without her? The thought alone fucking turned me inside out. If she died because she crossed their line to stand in mine, I would never come back from it.
I stared at her arm in my hand as if I didn’t recognize myself, and I released her.
She rubbed her wrist once.
“At some point …” She held my gaze. “This stopped being just about Nate.”
My pulse jumped.
She looked away like the words hurt her to carry.
“The three days you kept me in that bunker,” she continued, “I saw someone else under the monster. And I hated myself for wanting more.” She shook her head.
“I’m not sure why you killed that man. But there’s more to you than violence.
It was an easy choice to protect you, but then at some point I fucking caught feelings for you, Ryker. ”
She lifted her gaze again, steady now. “I found myself wanting to be around you.”
That hit harder than the rabbit ever could have because it was her choice. It wasn’t about me chaining her, controlling her.
“I wouldn’t be here right now if I didn’t care,” she said, voice trembling but honest. “If I weren’t on your side.”
I stared at her, looking for the lie. The angle. The trap. All I saw was a woman who’d lived her whole life braced for impact, standing in my house anyway.
“You’re on Nate’s side,” I growled. “No one else’s.”
A beat before she stepped closer. “That used to be true. Until those days with you. Then meeting your family…” She looked at me like she was memorizing something. “You’re different around them. They love you. You weren’t the man you show the world. This one you keep locked up.”
A dark sound escaped me. “Baby, make no mistake. I am a monster.”
She didn’t flinch. “If you’re just a monster, then nothing that happened to you matters. And nothing you do matters. It’s easier to tell yourself that.” Her gaze remained on mine.
My jaw clenched.
She touched my chest with one finger, light, but it landed like a brand. “Tell me.” Her chin lifted with a challenge. “Why did you kill that man?”
My control flickered. One second, I wanted to kiss her.
The next I was ready to throw her over my shoulder, carry her out of my house, and toss her sweet little ass on the ground.
Then, all I wanted was to protect her from whoever it was that was in her house.
Whoever the motherfucker was dangling Nate in front of her nose to manipulate her.
I leaned in until my nose nearly grazed hers. “You want the truth?”
“Yes.”
I sneered. “Because if you think I’m a monster, then you should have met him.” I paused before I said, “He sold his daughters.”
Sloane went still.
“A minor.” My voice was lethal. “He traded her like property. And I walked into that warehouse prepared to get his blood on my hands.”
Her breath was shallow.
“Can you imagine,” I said, the words darkening, “your own father selling you when you’ve barely hit puberty?”
Her eyes flashed, old pain surfacing like a bruise pressed too hard.
“I work with dangerous men.” I forced the words out.
“With. Not for. We find women and kids trapped in hell and we pull them out. We give them new names and new lives. Clean starts where no one can hunt them ever again. We call it the Horizon Society. My team gives women and kids a new outlook on their lives.” From her reaction, my gut told me I could trust her with that information.
Sloane’s lips parted as if she didn’t trust herself to speak.
“And the bastards we pull them from?” I let the silence sharpen. “They don’t get to keep breathing because the world and justice system are too fucking polite to deal with them.”