Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
“He’s in denial,” A.J. said while stretching his legs out in front of him.
Roman’s contact at The League had phoned him seconds after Carter had left the room to talk to (more like torture) Santiago.
Santiago was at a site two miles from Carter’s rental property.
Emilia had requested Roman’s presence in Sicily for an in-person meeting, and Luke had decided Echo Team and Rory should head out.
Jessica had plugged Jensen Fitzpatrick’s face into their facial recognition software program to track his whereabouts in the last two weeks before he died, in hopes of maybe discovering Danny with him at some point.
Danny seemed to be at the center of everything, given his ties to both Cutter and Santiago. If they could question Danny, they might finally get to the truth about The Italian.
Emilia chased down a few possible leads on the “new Danny” Jessica had provided her, and she believed The League had a beat on where Danny Fitzpatrick was currently hiding. Sebastian Renaud, one of the leaders in Ireland, was currently en route to that location.
“Ana was innocent. I’m not so sure about Rebecca, but I’d prefer not to speak ill of the dead.” A.J. shifted the brim of his ball cap to hood his eyes, then folded his arms across his chest.
“You think Carter will kill Santiago during their chat today? Or that he’ll get anything new out of him?” Chris asked.
“Liam and Asher went with him. If anyone can get Santiago to talk, it’s them,” A.J. casually replied. “If they come back empty, that means Santiago doesn’t know anything else.”
“I hate we won’t be there when Bravo and Carter’s people pick up Cutter later today.” He turned his focus to where Rory sat across from Harper, a table and laptop between them in the forward cabin.
Rory had been beating herself up the last several hours about the target list. The way Chris saw it, she’d taken down assholes who needed to be taken down.
It wasn’t like she’d gone after innocent people.
But to find out The Italian may have pulled her strings, well, yeah, all the more reason he wanted that fucker deader than dead.
She had way too much on her shoulders. To top it off, she was spooked about a cryptic message Elaina had tossed out over the phone last night but hadn’t fully explained.
Rory was worried that Elaina’s warning, Don’t let him go to the airport, referred to Chris, and if he flew to Italy with her, something terrible would happen to him.
Yeah, no way in this lifetime or any other would she travel to Italy to meet with some vigilantes without him. And he refused to leave Rory behind, too. Not that he didn’t trust Bravo Team and Bear to look out for her, but Carter . . . he just couldn’t get a read on that man.
He’d lost his wife. Blamed himself for her death. And now, it was looking like his wife might have worked with the enemy. The guy had to be losing his mind, and Chris was slowly coming around to feeling more sorry for him than hating him.
Carter stood by and watched while we were taken on Friday, he reminded himself, deciding he needed a kick in the ass about his opinion on the man.
“How are you not sleeping right now after expending all your energy doing whatever it was y’all were up to before Harper and Jessica dropped the mother of all hammers on us with that news?
” A.J. readjusted the brim of his beat-up hat, the American flag still bright and colorful, though, like a testament of hope.
“Expending all my energy, huh?” Chris asked in a low voice, stealing another glimpse of Harper and Rory, both of whom appeared fully awake and caffeinated. Rory lifted her eyes and sent him a tight-lipped smile, and damn if his heart didn’t skip a beat.
She was wearing jeans and a soft gray shirt with sneakers. Chris had accidentally matched his outfit with hers, and Finn hadn’t wasted a second before calling attention to that fact once they were in Carter’s limo and headed for the airport.
Chris peered at Wyatt and Finn sitting in the first row behind the cockpit, already asleep in their club chairs. Roman was MIA. Maybe hitting the head, aka taking a piss.
“Who says I ‘expended’ my anything?” Chris’s air quotes were useless since the hat still hid A.J.’s eyes.
“Come on, brother. You fell for that woman back in Bama. And then you spent all of last week alone with her at your place. Throw in a deserted island and some fancy suite in sexy Puerto Rico, and ya got yourself a recipe for”—A.J.
twisted his neck and lifted the brim of his hat to find Chris’s eyes—“expending a lot of energy.”
“And are you okay with there being an ‘us’?”
“Sorry to let you down, brother, but I’m taken,” A.J. said solemnly.
Chris smacked A.J.’s bicep. “Asshole.” Then he pitched his voice low to keep from being overheard. “Obviously, I’m talking about Rory and me. You warned me about Jesse back in Alabama, and I . . .”
“You wouldn’t have been bunking with Rory last week if I didn’t approve,” A.J. returned and pulled his cap back down, arms going across his chest. He had on his cowboy boots, jeans, and a plain black tee—his go-to look.
“And Jesse, will he be solid?” Chris wasn’t used to worrying about the opinion of family members of a woman he dated, not that he really ever dated all that much.
Before Rory, no one had made him want to take a chance on anything long-term.
He was fine with sticking his neck out when bullets were flying, but he’d never considered putting his heart out there until Rory.
“Jesse’s bark is bigger than his bite.” A.J.’s lips flipped into a grin. “Well, sometimes.”
And what was that supposed to mean?
“Speaking of Jesse, did you two really take out those pirates nine years ago? The ones who attacked Rory and gave her those scars?”
A.J. lifted his hat and found Chris’s eyes again. “Damn straight. It was a good thing we went, too. Saved three women they kidnapped from a yacht.” He positioned his ball cap to shield his eyes again.
“Back in New Orleans, Rory sort of mentioned she was in danger, but she begged me to drop it. I should have said something to you,” he confessed.
“Jesse told me something to that effect, so when I learned those people got the drop on y’all at the gala, I for sure beat myself up about it.
But if you’re looking to apologize, you keeping Rory alive is more than enough for me.
I mean, Jesse would kill you if that woman got a scratch on her while in your company, though. ”
Chris looked over to see Roman now sitting next to Rory across from Harper. “Roman got stabbed. Thank God it wasn’t bad, but he lost it when that asshole punched Harper.”
“I know,” A.J. replied. “He used my phone and scheduled a visit with the Trott brothers for next week. I guess he’s assuming we’ll be done with The Italian by then, and he’s looking for a little payback.”
“You better add my name to that job.” He moved his focus to Rory as she pulled her hair into a messy bun atop her head. Beautiful. And he’d make this right. He’d get payback, too. For every asshole who ever hurt her.
“Back to the whole, Jesse-approving-of-your-relationship thing,” A.J. began, “he won’t stop your wedding the way he did Ella’s.” A.J. flicked the bill of his hat with his index finger, pushing it up so he could see Chris.
Maybe just leave it up? Chris smiled.
“I mean, I’m not saying you’re planning on marrying her, but you know what I mean.”
Marriage? Chris looked at Rory, her gaze focused on whatever Harper was pointing at on the screen. “You know what I used to think about marriage when it came to my own life.”
“But I reckon that’s changed in the last week or so, huh?”
“Yeah, I reckon so,” Chris said, imitating A.J.’s Southern drawl.
Rory still had her Southern drawl as well, maybe not as pronounced as A.J.’s, but that bit of her heritage wrapped delicately around her syllables, fighting to stay with her even though she’d been running around the world for a decade.
“But really,” Chris said, sitting taller, “now I know how you felt when you met Ana for the first time, and you couldn’t even look at another woman the same again. It’s a crazy feeling, and it took me by surprise. And then to discover we both have a passion for animals, and she’s—”
“Hunting smugglers,” A.J. finished for him. “Man, Jesse’s gonna lose his damn mind when she tells him the truth. I’m thinking she’s avoiding that conversation, worried he’ll go full-blown big brother on her. Chew her out.”
“What would you do if it was Ella?”
“Strap her down,” he said with a laugh. “Never let her out of my sight.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t do that with Ana,” Chris reminded him. “And I don’t see myself ever wanting to tie Rory down.” No, that woman was born to fly.
A.J. winked. “Right answer, brother.” He slapped a hand over his heart. “That was a test.”
“Of course.” Chris rolled his tired eyes, then swiped a palm down his face. “Hey, remember those fortune cookies we had in our takeout, the night we were staking out Ana back in D.C.? You remember what the fortune said?”
“The one I made up?”
“No, mine.” Chris grimaced. “I saved that little piece of paper and had it in my wallet. Those sons of bitches on the yacht took everything of mine. That fortune is probably at the bottom of the ocean right now. But I memorized it. You will chase fortune but win a heart.”
“Why’d you keep it?”
“I don’t know, but it’s turning out to be pretty damn accurate.” Chris’s gaze drifted back to Rory and their eyes connected. “Only, I’m thinking fortune and heart are one and the same.” Rory’s the fortune. She’s everything. And he was pretty sure he was also finding love.