Chapter Twenty-Nine Alejandro
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Alejandro
Ryder rested his hands on the back of the couch, letting go of a steady breath, and I felt something coming. Something I didn’t want to hear. “There’s something we need to consider doing.”
My blood went cold, and I clenched my back teeth as I waited for the wound at my side to be peeled open again. “I’m not talking to her. I can’t.”
“Doesn’t have to be you, but right now, we have one close lead tied to Stratos. And while Will Hobbs may be dead, Beth’s not.” Ryder circled the couch to confront me head-on. “If she was close to him, maybe he told her something he shouldn’t have?”
I tore my hands through my hair, doing my best not to spin out. “I’d rather talk about the conversation you overheard upstairs than discuss my ex.” Totally normal morning. Nothing weird at all about any of this.
“You want to talk about that?”
My hands landed at my sides like two grenades, pins pulled. “Pick your poison. But one woman makes me want to jump from a cliff, and the other one makes me feel like I already fell.” Shit.
Ryder lifted his hands, nostrils flaring. Anger or concern? I wasn’t in the best state of mind to get a good read on my team leader. “Which woman is which?”
Forget grenades in hand—I was the ticking time bomb. Ready to go off. “Ignore me.”
Ryder gripped the front of his neck and rotated his head. At least he wasn’t wrapping a hand around my throat.
“What about Beth’s stuff?” I forced out as a memory punched through me. “I have a few boxes in a storage unit in DC. Stuff the government gave me of hers after she was locked up since she has no living family. I said I didn’t want it, that I was her ex, but they made me take it anyway.”
“You think there could be something in there that might help? Notes? Calendar and shit like that?” Ryder adjusted course back to where I needed him to be. You know, out of my head and not talking about my feelings.
“Maybe?” I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s stuff I should’ve just burned.” Including our wedding album. Our life together had somehow fit into one box, and the things the government had forced me to take fit into the other two.
“I’ll ask Natasha to send someone to your storage unit and go through everything. We may have more luck with those boxes than talking to her.”
I rattled off the information for my storage unit and then demanded, “If it comes to talking to Beth, though, let me make myself crystal-fucking-clear: no immunity deal.”
“Trust me when I tell you that I’d never let that woman go free. You have my word.”
“Good. Glad to hear,” I grunted.
Eyes on his phone, he shared, “Just got a text from the Secret Service, checking in to let me know all is still good on the home front. Our families are secure.”
Thank God for that. “Audrey’s mom know she has eyes on her?”
“No, Audrey doesn’t want her to know anything. Guess she takes after Trevor there, thinking it’s safer for her to be in the dark. But she also mentioned to me on the drive here yesterday that she’s barely spoken to her mom since Thanksgiving, so her silence might be for other reasons.”
He needed to wipe that guilty look from his face pronto.
“Thirty-three years growing up thinking one thing, only to find out another . . . Plus, she missed out on having you as her brother all that time. I can’t say I blame her.”
“I’m not her mom’s greatest fan, since she knew my dad was married when she hooked up with my old man, but at least Audrey didn’t have to feel abandoned her whole life the way I did most of mine.
” He blinked a few times as if shocked he’d made that confession to anyone other than the woman he loved.
“Anyway,” he said after an awkward throat clear.
I’d never be able to hear that word and not think of Audrey now.
“I should call Trevor soon and fill him in on what we learned,” he continued. “I’m sure Chandler’s already sent him an NDA to sign.”
“You think Trevor knew Will Hobbs? They were both team guys.”
“It’s possible. But Trevor’s, what, forty? So there’s a fifteen-year-or-so age difference between them, so maybe not. Will would’ve already been deep in Stratos territory when Trevor was only just getting started twenty years ago.”
“I think I’d rather him not know Will and risk losing a lead.” From the sounds of it, that man had been through enough. Last thing he needed was to have that asshole caught up in his past, too.
“I feel the same.” He rested his hand on his chest. “And speaking of my sister . . .”
“You mean speaking of your sister’s ex?” I grumbled, not liking where he was planning to about-face this conversation.
When he didn’t say anything, I couldn’t help but blurt out, “I know you’d like to kill me, but we’ve already got enough bodies on our hands.
” The hoarse laugh that followed was out of self-preservation.
“I’ll stay away from her. I hear you. Loud and clear. ”
He quietly eyed me, assessing me like he was about to negotiate with a terrorist who’d hijacked a plane. “I don’t know how I missed this before, this thing between you two, but I think Seraphina picked up on it the second you met.”
Not the direction I’d expected him to go.
“I don’t want you getting hurt.”
I scoffed. “You think she’ll hurt me?” I waved him off with a quiet never mind embedded in that gesture, hating that I was actually afraid of that very thing. “And who knows, maybe she’ll get back together with Trevor.”
I was hoping he’d shut down that possibility, but instead, he started his sentence in a way that didn’t bode well for me having a future with Audrey.
“Just promise me something.” That long pause after, nope, not good, either.
“Maybe hold off on—” He let his words die when an incoming call popped up on the TV, which was still synced to his laptop.
I’d never been so grateful for an interruption.
“We’ll finish this later.” He turned his attention on the laptop and accepted the call. “Hey, what’s up?” he asked Natasha as her face appeared on the TV.
“Gwen’s joining the call, too. One second. She’s currently in Switzerland, but we’ve got a few ideas on how to expedite the search through the files. Gwen also had a question about the ring. Where’s Reed?”
“In the kitchen. I can go get him,” I offered, hiking a thumb over my shoulder.
“Either bring Audrey in here to eat or keep an eye on her in there.” Ryder turned toward me. “Will you?”
Shit. “Yeah,” I huffed out. “Sure.” I made my way down the hall and hung back outside the kitchen at the sound of Audrey’s sultry voice.
“Oh my gosh, this has to be the best thing I’ve put in my mouth in a long time.” The light moan coming from her was going to send my blood pressure through the roof.
And now I was remembering the sounds she’d made while we kissed last night.
Reed laughed, which was unusual for him.
“What’s so funny?” She paused. “Ohhh. You boys and your dirty minds. Just say it, you know you want to.”
She gave Reed a chance.
Not too shockingly, he didn’t take it.
“That’s what she said,” she joked, probably using air quotes as well.
I took a breath and a beat, then let her words from earlier—There’s nothing between us—haunt me before rounding the corner.
Reed was sitting alongside Audrey at the breakfast bar, and he stood the second he spotted me.
“Natasha and Gwen need you,” I let him know, doing my best not to look at the most beautiful woman in the world sitting there. “They probably need that big brain of yours for something.”
A sly smile slipped across his lips.
“Mind if I stay in here? My brain could use a break from all that op stuff.” At Audrey’s tentative tone, I finally gave in and looked at her.
“Sure, but your brother doesn’t want you alone, so I guess I’ll be staying with you.” Just my luck.
Reed came over, then gestured toward the hall with his head. “I have to borrow him. One second,” he told Audrey without glancing back.
“Don’t start with me,” I said under my breath while following him out of her line of sight.
“I’m not going to press you about her.” Reed set his back to the hallway wall. “More like the other ‘her.’”
“Not interested in discussing either. Did that with Ryder already; I’m good.” I started for the kitchen, but Reed grabbed hold of my shoulder, stopping me.
“Do you have any of Beth’s belongings? I was thinking—”
“Already on it,” I cut him off.
Time to open the boxes I thought would remain untouched. At least I wasn’t going to be the one to do it. Audrey had more courage in that department than I did.
“Just go help Natasha and Gwen. I could use a brain break myself.”
“Maybe eat something, too.” He freed my arm. “How’s your wound, by the way?”
“It’s still there. Now, go. Don’t worry about me.” I rolled my shoulders back, drew in a deep breath, then entered the kitchen to confront the greatest obstacle I’d ever faced when it came to my sense of control.
“Now that it’s just us . . .” She sighed. “I think it’s time we talk.”