Chapter 39
Ryder
This is a building I never thought I’d find myself in. The FBI field office in Miramar, an imposing building of glass and steel. And I’m in the heart of it. In a less-opulent looking room; green, rough rug and gray walls. A screen shows my father seated in a secured room down the hall.
I study him in silence, cataloging what’s left of the man I grew up with. The control is still there, the pride intact, the anger tucked beneath the surface where it won’t cost him anything. He hasn’t broken, and I know he won’t. That was never the goal.
“Are you sure?”
Liev’s voice comes from behind me, low and close enough that I feel his presence like it’s a part of me.
His hands brace on either side of me against the table, not trapping me, but surrounding me in a way that feels steady and supportive.
I don’t turn, letting my gaze linger on the screen for one more second before I answer.
“I am.”
The certainty settles between us, and I feel it more than I question it.
I shift then, turning into him so my back brushes his chest, tilting my head just enough to meet his eyes.
His attention drops to me immediately, focused and searching in that quiet way he has when he isn’t trying to control the outcome.
“Did you mean it?” I ask softly, my voice lower now. “What you said yesterday.”
Neither of us has slept in over twenty-four hours, and it looks and smells like it. Oil, sweat, dirt. Liev’s careful handling of the two fingers on his right hand, which got checked out by a paramedic when we came in, as we expected. They’re now wrapped professionally at least.
“About what?”
I roll my eyes. How like a man, even a Bratva leader, to ignore a very obvious question. “When you said you loved me.”
A brief pause passes between us, but there’s no hesitation in the answer that follows. “Yes.”
I study his face, searching for something else beneath it, some condition or expectation that might complicate it. There isn’t one, and that absence feels more freeing than anything I’ve ever experienced before.
“I didn’t plan for that,” he adds, his tone quieter now as he wraps his good hand around my waist and pulls me against him. “But it doesn’t change anything.”
I let out a slow breath, my hand coming up to rest lightly against his chest, feeling the steady rhythm beneath my palm. “I didn’t plan for it either,” I admit, the truth easier to face now that it’s been spoken aloud.
The corner of his mouth shifts faintly, not quite a smile but close enough. “Yet here we are.”
I huff a quiet breath at that, and then I lean in, pressing a kiss to his lips.
When I pull back, the reality of everything waiting for us settles in again. We have a lot of work to do to provide evidence and statements. We also have the task of negotiating with Ross and honoring our contracts with Alfredo, who let my father’s capture happen on his turf.
“We can’t keep him,” I say, my voice steady as I turn slightly back toward the screen. On it, my father still waits, unaware of what’s coming for him.
“I know,” Liev replies, his tone unchanged.
I reach for the folder in my bag, the files I’ve already organized, the evidence laid out in a way that leaves no room for interpretation. “He won’t stop,” I continue, glancing back at Liev. “Even like this, he’ll find a way to reach out, to rebuild, to turn something in his favor.”
“You’re ready to give him up? You’re sure, Ryder? There’s no going back after this.”
I nod, the lump in my throat not letting me speak. All I keep thinking of is my mother and how she’ll truly be alone now in that house. He won’t come back, not for decades.
“I still don’t understand how you managed this,” Liev murmurs, stepping away, his eyes scanning the small room. We were told there’s no camera or audio, but it’s obvious that neither of us trusts that promise.
I shrug. “My father operated his business on corruption. It was going to come back to bite him, eventually.”
Over the next few minutes, as we wait for an agent to come in and take our initial statements and evidence, I tell Liev about Emma Pierce. She started out as a low-level agent years ago, watching my father’s clubs and eventually falling into his usual trap.
Bribes. Corruption. Getting herself too far in to get out.
“I saw her the night you came looking for me,” I explain. “At that club. When I realized we had to do something about him, all I could think was about her and how he wronged her. He pulled her into a hole she’ll never get out of.”
“You can trust her?” Liev asks gruffly.
“I think so. She and I never interacted much. I thought she was soft. Honestly, I was surprised to see her still there. I thought she would’ve got caught, or gotten herself killed before this.”
I think back to a couple of years ago, before I went off to college. Seeing Emma’s pretty, angry face, watching her get slapped by one of the bartenders. All the things she must’ve gone through—staying quiet, playing both sides. Being scared.
“If we give her this, it saves all of us. She won’t say anything against us because it gets her out of her own mess. We need her and she needs us. She’s our in.”
Liev studies the information in silence, his attention narrowing as he takes in the scope of what I’ve gathered.
Financial records, communications, connections that span years—everything my father built, laid out in a way that can’t be ignored.
The fact that most of it ties back to illegal drugs, cut with dangerous substances that cause too many fatalities, will push everything in our favor.
“If I hand him over with all of this,” I continue, “it’s airtight. No deals. No leverage. No way back.”
“He’ll be in for life,” Liev says quietly, brow knit.
Not dead, but gone in a way that matters more.
Liev looks at me for a long moment, weighing the decision, the implications, the shift it creates not just for us but for everything around us. Eventually, he nods.
“Then we do it your way.”
I glance back at the screen one last time, at the man who raised me and would have destroyed me without hesitation. The weight of that truth doesn’t twist anymore, doesn’t pull me in two directions the way it once did.
I made my choice the night I agreed to become Liev Demsky’s bride.