Chapter Forty-One Alejandro
Chapter Forty-One
Alejandro
“You doing okay?” Ryder joined me in the bathroom as I redressed my wound, clearly taking my closed bedroom door as an invitation to come in. “I should have asked you that already. The call with Beth couldn’t have been easy.”
“None of this has been easy, man.” I washed my hands and put my shirt back on.
“But I’ll be fine.” I didn’t feel like getting into the thick of anything right now.
That text-talk with Audrey had also done a number on me.
I was still trying to wrap my head around how I’d be calling her Mrs. Rodriguez, calling her my wife when I’d never planned to call anyone that ever again.
Now, there I was, terrified about the days after when I’d have to stop.
Stop calling her my wife.
Stop calling her mine.
Stop wanting the woman I was quickly (crazy or not) learning I wasn’t so sure I’d be able to live without.
“You do realize the word fine is just as bad when a dude says it as a woman, right?” He’d given me a few seconds to spin out in my head before calling me on my shit.
“At least let me out of the bathroom before you Freud me.” I gestured for him to make room to leave. “Hate when you try to hijack my job like that.”
He smirked but followed my orders and went into the bedroom.
“Just tell me you have new information.” I sat on the bed, resting my forearms on my legs, doing a bang-up job on selling the idea of fine.
“The flash drive was in the bear. Heavily encrypted. Gwen’s working on it. So, yeah, Beth told the truth. Well, that she performed surgery on a stuffed animal and stitched it back.” He observed me like I was both his patient and his friend, not a Tier One operator.
Didn’t feel like I was myself right now, so I didn’t blame him.
“Chandler wants us on a flight to New Zealand as of yesterday. If there’s even a remote chance Hobbs told Mitch about Bravo and Echo—”
“I know. I’m on board with the plan.” I sat up taller, eyes on my best friend, trying to figure out how I’d wound up falling for his sister, a sister he’d only just found out about. Not on my 2027 bingo card, that was for damn sure.
“Good, because Natasha also confirmed the two co-owners of Helix are in Queenstown, not even twenty minutes away from where the auction is being held on Friday. Highly doubt that’s a coincidence.”
“So, Mitch is drawing us all there so we can kill each other, and he can walk away with the cash and Audrey.” I got my ass back up to standing at that news. “He wants us focused on Helix. Look one way while the real magic happens somewhere else. Oldest trick in the playbook.”
“And he’s had a year to plan this out, and we’re running on borrowed time.”
“How the hell does he think he’s going to get Audrey away from us?” I grunted, the idea of that happening un-fucking-acceptable.
“I don’t know what to think about anything anymore to be honest. The fact your psychotic ex is the one helping us now?” he hissed, pushing off the dresser. “None of this makes sense.”
Yeah, same messed-up page. Still a dangerous one, too.
At the sound of Reed’s voice gaining ground, clearly on the phone with someone as he walked and talked, that reminded me . . . “Hollis,” I said under my breath.
“Who Reed is talking to now, actually. And we didn’t tell you about her because I didn’t want you to have to lie as well.”
I lifted my chin toward the door. “What’s her story?”
“A thing of make believe,” he said with a smirk.
“And that means?”
He removed his phone from his pocket, then swiped it open before tossing it to me. “Have a look for yourself. You’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.”
I swiped through the screenshots of intel he had on Audrey’s best friend, shaking my head in disbelief. “This is real?”
“Yup.” He accepted his phone back. “Chandler’s the one that gave me that information,” he added as the door opened and Reed entered. The man looked pissed.
“Hollis has arranged for us to fly out of Denver on her Boeing 747 that she apparently owns. One of three, actually,” Reed let us know.
“At least it’s a jumbo jet, since my sister can’t handle small planes.”
“Chandler okayed this?” I asked in surprise. “He’s allowing her to hijack the mission?”
“Join. Support. Follow our lead.” Reed brought the phone back to his ear. “Right?” He huffed out a low, anguished noise while grimacing. “She’s also secured our invitations to the auction. I don’t even want to know how. Don’t care.”
The man really couldn’t stand this woman, which was saying a lot.
“Yeah, I hear you. Got it,” he said into the phone before taking a deep breath. “She has another team that’ll be meeting us in New Zealand for backup, too. Approved by Chandler.”
“Yeah, well, this just took an interesting turn,” I said as he ended the call just as Audrey came up behind him to join us in my bedroom.
It was getting a little crowded in here. Perhaps the guys needed to leave. She could stay. Problem solved. Fuck. No. What happened to after? To waiting. To giving her time and space to think, breathe, and ensure she and Trevor didn’t belong together?
“What’d I miss?” Her blue-green gaze journeyed around the room, landing on me last as she pulled the side of her lip between her teeth.
Mrs. Rodriguez. Wife. Mother of my future child. Yeah, that’s where my head was currently. In that dangerous, dangerous place of hope. I am so screwed.
I cleared my throat, trying to remember I’d negotiated with terrorists before. Taken back a hijacked ship from literal pirates. And survived walking in on my parents “doing the tango in bed,” as they’d called it when I was ten.
So, you know, I could survive another few days with this woman without wanting to pull that lip between my teeth instead.
I blinked my way over to Delta One, realizing words were being spoken and I’d been so busy staring at his sister’s mouth that I hadn’t heard a single one. “Who’s going where?”
Ryder shot me a funny look, reading me loud and clear, I was mentally hedging on FUBAR status right now. He jerked his chin like a command. An order to focus up.
Roger that.
“Chase and Trevor are going to be transported by way of a military escort to Buckley. They’ll stay on base there while we’re in New Zealand.
” Ryder clued me in on the exchange. “Echo Team’s on their way to Colorado.
Echo Four and his wife won’t be joining; they’re stuck in New York.
But the other four will be picking up Rhett and Eden when they land and taking them to the base, too.
Chandler wants to have his own people question Rhett.
I don’t think Chandler wants Beau knowing much about this. ”
“Classified. True,” I remarked in a low voice, doing my best to refrain from looking at Audrey so I could stay on mission.
“At least I know Chase will be on a military base while we’re gone. Can’t get much safer than that, I suppose,” she whispered.
“Something tells me Trevor will agree with that and want to join Echo Team as their fifth when they fly to New Zealand to meet up with us,” Ryder said steadily, eyeing his sister to get a read on how she’d handle that.
“Will Hobbs tricked Trevor into thinking he was joining Bravo before, and he risked his life for that. Then he turned down Charlie Team because of it. Now? He might actually work with Echo . . .” Her voice trailed off, leaving us with a nonanswer on her opinion about him rolling with us down there.
“Musical SEAL chairs,” Reed joked, earning himself a death stare from Ryder and me. “Told you I wasn’t funny,” he said to Audrey. “Sorry.”
She patted his arm. “You’re funny to me, don’t worry.”
I had no choice but to look at her again. I basically told you I want to marry you over text, didn’t I?
“I should pack, then.” She tipped her head toward the door, letting us know she was about to leave. “Just need one bag, I guess. We’re not going too long.”
I stepped forward, and the words fell from my mouth before I could make sense of what I was saying: “Which bag?”
She slowly turned to the side, glancing at me, and my heart slammed against my rib cage as I waited for her to respond. Like her bag choice—the one I packed or his—might be a clue as to where her heart was. Getting back with Trevor. Or trying out a future with me.
Crazy. It was crazy to think this way. To hope.
But then she met my eyes and, in a steady voice, answered, “Rosa.” Her eyes narrowed, almost appearing glossy as she whispered, “I choose pink.”