Chapter 26
Tina lifts her head from the couch cushion beside me. Her tail thumps, which means he's here. Her new favorite.
I sit up straighter, instantly filled with adrenaline and hope. Rio said Enzo and Ava are better than David. They’re smarter. They can hack.
For the past thirty minutes I’ve held on to a little ember of hope.
Rio appears in the doorway and my heart flutters. He’s so hot in a tux, a suit, but there’s something about the plain black tee and tats that gets me every time.
I have two mugs of coffee on the table in front of me, though they’re both probably lukewarm.
He stands there for a moment longer than necessary. I can’t even imagine how hard that talk must have been for him. Was Enzo mad? Did they fight?
"How'd it go?" I ask.
He crosses the room and drops onto the couch beside me, close enough that his thigh presses against mine. He reaches forward and picks up the coffee without comment, wrapping both hands around it.
"He's in," he says. "Both of them."
A wave of relief washes over me. We need them. David wasn’t enough. And now that Luther’s man saw me with Rio, it’s as if a fuse has been lit and it’s getting shorter and shorter by the second.
I exhale. "That's good."
"It's very good." He takes a sip, staring at the middle distance.
"Ava doesn't work the way David does. She doesn't wait for warrants or access requests or clean channels.
She finds what she needs, and she finds it fast." He pauses.
"If Isabel's location is traceable, Ava will find it.
And the two of them together will be able to explore financial records, which will give us an idea of the scope and intention of the operation. "
"We really can't go get Beatriz?" I shake my head. "I can't believe people are left in dangerous situations while cases are built."
“I’m afraid that’s how these things work. Even when Enzo and Ava find something, they’ll then have to reverse engineer it, make it look legal. We’ll have to get a warrant before the Feds can touch any of it.”
“But then the Feds will go in?”
“Unlikely. We’ll have to confirm there weren’t more women before them.
We have to be certain. Even then, Feds like to ensure they have a witness.
Sometimes, with trafficking, victims are so afraid they won’t admit anything has even happened to them when taken into custody.
Many return to their abusers. I’d like to think the advantage we have in this case is that Isabel and Beatriz will be more afraid of overstaying their visas than they will be of Marcus Cross. ”
"So if there are more women, it could take even longer?”
He offers a thin-lipped nod.
The thought is sickening. But maybe there are more. Maybe Beatriz and Isabel weren't the first. Dad has been running Diamond Dolls for years. Who knows what he's been telling the women there? Promising them. Maybe every single feature dancer to come through the place ended up being held.
God knows what’s even happening to them.
"How quickly do you think this can move?" I ask.
"Depends on how deep it all goes. Ava and Enzo will likely have a much fuller picture within a day or two. If it's small and with Enzo and Ava involved, we could move in a week. But without GhostEye, these federal raids have taken a year, sometimes more for big operations.”
"Jesus Christ, you're telling me women have been held for that long even though authorities know about them?"
A grim look shadows his chiseled features. "Sadly, yes. It was one of the areas we concentrated on a lot in the early days because this is the case."
It’s horrifying. But I get it. Saving people only to have them go back, or not be able to convict, isn’t the right outcome, but equally, I can’t process it.
He takes my hand. "This oepration will be faster, and a hell of a lot smaller. I hope."
Tina shuffles across the cushion between us and drops her chin on Rio's thigh with a sigh so dramatic it breaks the tension slightly.
He puts his coffee down back down on the table then scratches behind her ear. His hand moves slowly, absentmindedly, the way you touch something you've gotten used to having around.
I watch his hand on my dog and my heart swells. It was all hard enough to think about the women. Now I'm worried about Rio, too. My father's destruction has no limits and no favorites.
"How was Enzo?" I ask.
He's quiet for a moment. I’m not sure if he's thinking about how to phrase it or if he doesn't really know.
Finally, he answers, "Hurt."
He leans his head back against the couch, staring at the ceiling.
I’m sure Rio just wanted to protect his family but I can’t imagine being in Enzo’s shoes any more than Rio’s. I’m an only child. I wonder what it would have been like not to grow up alone.
Would Mom have left me alone? Beaten my sibling instead? Would we have run away together a long time ago or would they have become the successor?
Sibling dynamics are a mystery to me but I hope like hell that Enzo understands.
"Was Enzo hurt because Luther has info on you or because you didn't tell him? Or both?"
"Because I didn't tell him. He said we win together, we lose together." The words catch in his throat. "I'm lucky to have him."
I put my hand on his. "He's lucky to have you, too."
Rio isn't the self-effacing type, but if I didn't know better, his eyes tell me he doesn't agree. Guilt is in his furrowed brow.
I pull my feet up underneath me and turn slightly toward him, still holding his hand. It feels so right in mine.
"What happens when GhostEye takes down Iron Covenant?" I pause, trying to work through it. "Luther could still use what he knows about you, couldn't he? As a bargaining chip?"
At what point will I have to leave? Before they even close the case?
Luther must have heard from his henchman by now. He won’t wait long to try and drag me back. I probably shouldn’t even be here now but facing into uncertainty, mine and Rio’s– I don’t want to do it alone anymore.
Rio answers. "It depends on what I handed over through GhostEye.
Luther's dad and I had a don't ask, don't tell kind of system. He asked for a name or location and I didn't ask what for. I don’t know what Ray kept in that manila envelope. If he kept an audit trail of my favors, that could be the beginning of the end. GhostEye will lose a huge amount of credibility.”
I think back to the folder. There were definitely transactions and documents that meant nothing to me.
The photos I snapped were both something I didn’t understand and something I did.
If there was a folder on Rio, he was important.
I just didn’t know why. I wish I’d stolen it.
How would Luther have ever known it was me?
In hindsight, I was foolish, but it was as scary as stealing the locket.
"But is it really an advantage for him to tell the police about you?" I ask, hopefully.
He squeezes my hand but stares into space. He doesn’t know. There are too many question marks.
I sit with that for a moment. "Luther might not go down with Iron Covenant. They were supposed to align after the marriage so he might not be in on the trafficking. He probably isn’t.
If Luther isn't arrested, then it's not a problem.” But I don’t finished because I realize quickly that it’s still a problem.
Regardless of what happens with my dad, there's trouble brewing for Rio with Black Ridge.
We have to get rid of that evidence on Rio. If we did–maybe me leaving isn’t the only option.
He sighs roughly. "Trust me, Princess, I've been running through every scenario and Enzo will, too." His voice is level, but there's something underneath it — a kind of resignation that I hate is there. "But if there's a fall guy. That man has to be me."
"I don’t like you thinking about it as if it's inevitable," I say.
"I'm thinking about every possibility. That's one of them."
My cheeks flare with heat. "The one you've already accepted?"
"The one I'm prepared for," he corrects. "There's a difference."
Am I being na?ve? I think I’m pretty smart, but I’ve miscalculated more than one move in this. Rio is more than ten years my senior. He’s intelligent, successful and thoughtful. It scares me that he could be right to prepare for the worst.
But I won’t accept it. Na?ve or foolish. Hopeful or determined. Call it what you will.
"I can't think like that," I say finally. "I can't sit here and believe that you and Enzo and Ava pull all of this together, and it still costs you everything." I shake my head slightly. "I need to believe it works out. So I'm choosing to believe that."
“Optimism?” The cloud over him shifts slightly. "That's very unlike you."
"I know." I almost laugh. "Don't tell anyone."
I'm still holding his hand. Our knees touch and he smooths hair along my forehead and behind my ear.
"What was your plan before you came to me?” He asks. “Tell me about the future you wanted.”
It aches to think about that now, and having him ask as though that’s what I’m still heading for slices through my chest like a thousand paper cuts.
The money in my coat and the lake house in Wisconsin seem like a distant dream.
Almost like a child who wants to be a zookeeper, then realizes it’s just picking up shit and getting kicked.
Reality has shifted and Wisconsin has no appeal anymore.
It now seems lonely and isolated instead of safe and calm.
I've started to want something different.
A little like life here.
I don’t even want to talk about it. "I don't know."
He eyes me like I'm full of shit.
So I give in. "I thought I'd set up in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin. There are a lot of lakes there, and they seemed peaceful and relaxed. But–“ I run my finger down his thigh. "I don't know anymore."
He looks at me for a long moment, giving me space to talk.
I think about leaving it there and letting silence do the work. But something about the way he's still holding eye contact makes me braver than I usually am. He cares about me. It’s there.