Chapter 39
SLOANE
Ryker’s house held tension the way some places held warmth. It didn’t creak. It didn’t settle. It stayed alert, as if it was waiting for someone to try the door.
I’d tried to pretend the quiet was restful. It wasn’t. It was the kind of quiet that left room for thoughts to get darker.
Jade had been relentless about coming in person. Ryker hadn’t liked it, but she had information we needed, and he’d finally given her the address with silence that made it clear it wasn’t a habit he planned to repeat.
Ryker stood near the kitchen entryway, positioned where he could see the front door, the windows, and me on the couch all at once. Like he couldn’t relax unless every angle was covered. Like he didn’t trust the world to behave because the lights were on.
My phone buzzed.
JADE:
I’m outside.
Before I could answer, there was a knock.
Ryker moved first. He checked the camera feed on his phone, then he opened the door with his body angled.
Jade stepped inside with a manila folder tucked under her arm. She paused right past the threshold. “Hi, I’m Jade.”
Ryker didn’t answer immediately. His expression stayed flat and dangerous in the way men got when they went into protective mode.
I stood up before the air could turn into a standoff.
“Jade,” I said. “This is Ryker.”
“Ryker, it’s nice to meet you.” Her eyes shifted to me. “Are you okay?”
No pity. Just the question.
“I’m upright.”
“Thank God. I’m glad you’re not alone right now.” She looked at Ryker. “Thanks for keeping my girl out of trouble.”
Ryker’s chin tipped slightly. “Of course.”
Jade gave me a pointed look. “What happened at your house wasn’t a prank. It was fucked up.”
Ryker stared at her for a beat longer than necessary.
Then, without a word, he stepped aside and motioned her in.
Jade walked deeper into the house, and I led her to the kitchen. She glanced toward the door, then set the folder on the kitchen counter.
Ryker didn’t sit. He stayed close enough I could feel him beside me.
Jade opened the folder and slid out a printout.
“This is unofficial,” she said. “But it’s real.”
Ryker looked at it. “Unofficial from where?”
Jade’s mouth tightened. “A lab tech I trust.”
“Why would they risk it?”
“Because I asked,” Jade said simply. Then she looked at him. “More importantly, I didn’t ask through a system that can be compromised.”
That word compromised made my stomach tighten.
Jade tapped the page with her long, dark pink polished nail.
“There’s a sedative in the pig blood,” she said. “Not poison. Not something meant to kill. Something meant to fog.”
Ryker’s head lifted a fraction. “Airborne?”
“It can be,” Jade said. “Depending on how it was delivered. Fine mist. Soaked cloth. Even a surface you touch and then rub your face. The point is absorption. They didn’t need to hold you down. They only needed you to breathe it in or get it on your skin.”
A cold, crawling sensation moved across my skin. My mind flashed to my living room. The light. The rabbit head. The way my pulse had gone strange, too fast, too loud. “The blood was… a carrier.”
Jade nodded. “Exactly.”
“What about memory?” Ryker asked.
Jade looked at him—sharp, assessing. “Yes. That category of sedatives can fracture recall. It doesn’t only knock you out. It interrupts the sequence. People wake up and swear they’re fine because their brain stitches over the gap with whatever it can tolerate.”
I looked at him.
He wasn’t looking at me.
He was staring at the page like it had opened something in his head he didn’t want to see.
Jade didn’t push. She just kept going. “There was an additive. A stabilizer. Something to keep it viable longer. That’s why it held.”
Ryker’s shoulders went tight.
Then Jade said, “And there was a smell.”
My brow arched, and Ryker’s head lifted slowly.
Jade watched him and chose her words with care.
“It was so subtle that if you weren’t close enough, you would have missed it,” she said. “Sweet-clean. Medical. Not hospital disinfectant. Not bleach. Something else.”
My stomach dropped, and my brain gave me a memory I hadn’t asked for.
Nate.
The last time I’d seen him alive. The second Jade said sweet-clean, it came roaring back.
My hands went cold.
“He smelled that way,” I whispered.
Both of them looked at me.
I forced air into my lungs. “Nate. The night before he disappeared. I remember thinking it was weird. Almost … like he’d showered twice and scrubbed himself clean.”
Jade’s expression tightened as if she hated how well the pieces fit.
Ryker took one step closer to the island. “What else?”
My pulse slammed against my neck. “He was quiet. Not normal quiet. Like he was listening to something that wasn’t there.” My voice shook. I hated it. “And he flinched when I touched his shoulder.”
I looked down at my hands as if they belonged to someone else. I’d spent nearly three years trying to solve his disappearance. I’d never once allowed myself to look at that night as a warning.
Jade slid the report closer to Ryker. “If he had that on him, it means someone was already working him. Controlling him. Or preparing him.”
Ryker’s mouth went hard. “Preparing him for what?”
Jade’s gaze held his. “My guess? To go missing without making a sound.”
Ryker didn’t move. But his presence shifted, closing the space beside me. “I know that smell.”
Jade didn’t react. “From where?”
Ryker’s eyes went unfocused for half a second. And then he blinked slowly, and I saw him fight for the memory as though it was stuck behind glass.
“A table,” he said quietly. “Bright light. Plastic. A mask.”
My chest tightened so fast it hurt.
Jade’s voice softened by one degree. “The hospital?”
Ryker looked at her as if he didn’t appreciate her saying it for him.
Jade added, careful, “Sloane told me she was with you the night you were beaten. I’ve helped her on Nate’s case. I know enough to understand this isn’t nothing.”
I stepped closer without thinking, my fingers brushing Ryker’s forearm. His muscles jumped as his hand closed over mine.
“Someone leaned down.” Ryker hesitated. “And he said … breathe.”
My heart slammed against my ribs like a wild animal trying to break free from its cage.
I whispered, “Ryker …”
He looked at me then. For a second, the man I knew—the controlled one, the brutal one—wasn’t the only one in his eyes. There was a man there. A trapped one.
Jade watched him, focused. “Do you know who said it?”
Ryker’s mouth twitched as if the word tasted bitter. “I didn’t even remember it. Not until she said the smell.”
Cold prickled along my scalp. “So, Nate and me … and you.”
“It’s the same method,” Jade said.
I stared at the floor, fighting the nausea.
Ryker focused on the report. His knuckles went white around the edge of the paper.
“That smell,” he said, voice low. “It was on me.”
My breath caught. “When?”
“The hospital. When I couldn’t move.”
Jade’s brow arched. “You smelled it?”
“I tasted it,” he said, and his expression shifted as if it disgusted him. “Sweet. Clean. Wrong.”
“Nate had it on him,” I whispered.
Ryker’s attention snapped to me. That was the moment the pieces clicked.
“Sloane,” Jade said, “if this is connected, then your case wasn’t a coincidence. And you need to accept that before you try to out-stubborn it.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “I already did.”
Jade’s attention landed on Ryker. “Good. Then neither of you tries to play hero. If this is connected, you move together and you move smart.”
Ryker’s mouth curled slightly. “She won’t be alone.”
Jade’s expression softened, barely, but it was there. She gathered her papers, slid them back into the folder. “I’ll dig on my side. If I find something concrete, I’ll let you know.”
Then, as if she couldn’t help herself, she looked at him a second longer.
“And Ryker?” she added.
He waited.
“If you hurt her,” Jade said, “I’ll ruin your life.”
Ryker didn’t even blink. “Noted.”
Her mouth twitched. “Fantastic.”
I snorted a laugh I didn’t mean to make.
She turned to me. “You call me if you feel unsafe. Don’t try to be brave through this.”
I nodded.
Jade said her goodbyes, then the door clicked shut behind her.
And the house went quiet again. Only now the quiet wasn’t empty. It was full of Nate’s last hug. Full of that smell I’d ignored. Full of Ryker’s expression when he said breathe, as if he was hearing it again.
Ryker didn’t move for a long moment. He looked at the floor like he was trying to keep his mind from falling through it.
I stepped into his space anyway. I lifted my hands and touched his chest, right over his heart.
His gaze snapped to mine. “You’re thinking.”
“I’m trying not to drown in it,” I admitted.
His jaw flexed. “They didn’t dangle Nate by accident. Whoever did this knew exactly what you would chase.”
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth before I was finally able to continue. “Then they started to control me …”
“To get to me,” he finished.
The words sat between us, heavy and ugly.
“I’m sorry.”
Ryker’s expression went hard. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t know what I was doing,” I said, voice cracking. “They were dangling Nate over me, but now things have changed, and there’s so much more at risk.”
He took my wrists and brought my hands down like he needed to control something so he wouldn’t shatter. “You didn’t know.”
My eyes burned.
He looked at me as if he was deciding whether he could afford the next sentence. “I don’t want you to be a tool. I want you to be mine.”
Heat moved through my chest—sharp, frightening, real.
I didn’t flinch.
“I’m here,” I said. “Because I chose you.”
He leaned in, forehead to mine, breathing uneven.
“Say it again,” he murmured.
“I chose you,” I whispered. “I’m still choosing you.”
Something in his expression cracked open enough to show the man under the monster.
His hands slid to my waist. He pulled me in until the fear had nowhere to hide between us.
And when he kissed me, it wasn’t soft. It was a claim made with his mouth instead of his hands.
I kissed him back. My body had been wanting it since the first time he’d looked at me like I was the only thing in the room worth protecting.
He kissed me again, deeper this time, and the heat under my skin spiked.
His mouth moved to my jaw, then my neck, slow and punishing in the way that made my knees go weak.
I gripped his shirt.
He made a low sound against my skin. His hands tightened on my hips, and he pulled back and looked at me. The control in him was still there—steel and violence leashed tight. There was something else now, too.
Need.
Fear.
Maybe a future he wanted and didn’t trust.
“I’m going to end whoever is trying to hurt you,” he said quietly.
“Be careful.”
He nodded. He lifted me and carried me down the hall.
The last thing I thought before he closed the door behind us was that Nate’s case had never been just a case.
It was a rope.
And Ryker and I were both tied to the same end of it. The noose.