Chapter 29
My heart aches for Ryker as the silence stretches on after his admission about Trevor’s accusation.
June shifts but that’s the only sound.
“I don’t know if this lead is real,” Ryker continues. “Trevor is cornered and he knows how to find the pressure point. Mine is obvious. But we can’t leave it sitting. Which is why every word of it is on this table right now.”
As the team looks at him, he flattens both hands on the oak table. “I’m flagging a conflict of interest. If Brandt surfaces in this investigation as a real threat, I need to be considered for removal from point.”
Three seconds of silence follow. Thane breaks it with a decisive, “No. You identified the conflict. You disclosed it immediately, to the full team. That is the protocol. You doing that is you doing your job right. That’s not a reason to pull yourself off from lead.
That’s the reason you stay on it, your integrity. ”
“If his name surfaces again in this investigation—” Ryker starts, but Thane cuts him off.
“Every decision that has his name on it goes through this team.” He motions around the room. “We decide together. That’s how this works.”
Nobody disagrees.
“Fuck.” Ryker curses. “I want to argue. A part of me needs to. Just as a pressure release valve because standing here with Brandt’s name in this investigation feels like standing on cracked ice on a pond you don’t know the depth of.”
There it is. He’s a pressure-cooker inside right now. I reach for him and tug until he drops into the chair next to me.
When I put my hand on his thigh, he drops his gaze. His whole expression shifting as he lays his palm over top mine.
It feels so right, I can’t imagine life without this anchor.
Colt projects a map on the wall. “We’ve got a lot to cover. Where do you want to start, Ryker?”
He seems to find his footing fast. “Ranger. I need everything on Brandt. Financial ties, business associations, anyone he’s connected to that overlaps with what we’ve already discovered.”
“On it.”
“Jake,” he calls, “Cross-reference the shell companies from the auction site.”
“Copy.”
“And I want it clear to everyone in this room.” Ryker’s expression grows even more determined.
“If it comes back clean, it comes back clean and we move forward assuming Trevor played us. If it comes back dirty, we chase it to the ground. Whatever that looks like. Thane, you’re up.
Take us through everything. From the beginning. ”
“This means you can’t kill Trevor,” Axle says.
Ryker looks at the ceiling then stares at Axle. “I know. Make it happen. Transfer him to the feds. Now.”
The meeting ends twenty minutes later. My head is full of words I’ve never heard before.
Two hours later, Trevor’s being handed off.
Ryker passes by the living room, stopping to check on me. “You got what you need?”
“All good. You focus on work. I’m just writing a list of people my father regularly associates with.”
That’s the last time I see him for hours. And he doesn’t come to bed. The house turns into a hive of men packing equipment, low tense conversations and the constant ringing of phones.
I’m curled in the bed with the light still on when Ryker quietly enters the bedroom.
“Hey,” I say, sleepy, a yawn cutting off what I was going to say.
He comes to the side of the bed, lowering down, the mattress dipping under his weight. June immediately hops down and heads to the area rug, just like he asked her to do last time.
His eyes are still tired, but some of the stress seems to have eased from his posture.
“We’re rolling out in a few hours.” His hand moves to my hip, gripping it through the blankets. “All of us are heading to Utah, to the Agile Headquarters. You included.”
“Oh.” I shift, sitting up. “I am?”
“My house is there,” he says, gauging my reaction.
When I don’t respond he seeks out my hand and curls it in his. “I’m not good at pretty words, so I’m just going to say this—I want you to move in with me.”
The way my eyebrows shoot up would probably be comical if he didn’t just ask me to move into his home with him.
“I know this is fast,” he offers.
I sit up more, my heart beginning to flutter.
He kisses my knuckles and I suddenly find the voice he knocked out of me. “It is, but everything with us seems to be fast. I’m not sure what I’d think if it wasn’t that way.”
He searches my face as he roughly swallows. His throat working hard for a few seconds. “Does that mean you’re saying, yes?”
“That’s what I mean,” I whisper, blinking back the hot tears that suddenly appear in the corners of my eyes.
He leans in slowly, brushing his lips across mine. “I love you, Jade. I don’t want you anywhere but beside me.”
My heart expands painfully, then contracts equally as hard.
“But, Ryker, I don’t have anything to bring to the table. I don’t even have a job, or any—”
He cuts me off with another kiss. “You, that’s what you bring.”
“But,” I whisper.
“Let’s just take it one day at a time.”
His logic steals my argument which hadn’t fully formed. I just can’t picture myself in a home where I’m wanted.
“It’s a modernized farmhouse and there’s land.” He kisses the back of my hand. “It’s not far from Agile’s headquarters. It’s a nice little town.”
“Will you be there?”
His expression turns serious. “I’ll try to be there as much as I can. This job—”
He shakes his head. “We’ll have to figure out if this job is right for our future.”
Future.
I press my hand over my heart. “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to sleep tonight.”
He leans in, kisses my temple, growls roughly. “I wish I was going to be in bed with you, but I’m going to be tied up with the guys. I’ll just be loading gear, and going over intel. You need anything, I’m not more than a few steps away.”
I settle back into the bed and he tucks me in, his eyes a little bright, and mine definitely damp.
“Ryker,” someone calls in the hallway.
“Gotta go. Duty calls.” He plants a swift kiss on my forehead. “I’ll wake you up when it’s time to leave.”
“Wait,” I grab his hand. “What about June?”
“She’s ours. Scout gave her to us as a gift.” June pads over to the edge of the bed, her expression adorable as she looks between us.
He snaps his fingers. “Come on. Up.”
She leaps into the bed, snuggling down next to me. “Keep my girl safe,” he tells her with some scratches. Then he backs out of the door, watching us until the very last sliver disappears.
Oh my god. I’m moving to Utah to live with Ryker. “Did you hear that, June?”
I’m glad he’s gone, because I cry. June snuggles me. And I finally let it go. What happened in my past stays here. It’s not coming with us to our home.
Our home.