Chapter 19
SLOANE
What the actual fuck. Why hadn’t anyone ever told me I had a tell? In my line of work, I’d trained myself to give nothing away. Yet after a few days with this man, he’d found the crack and slid a knife right into it. That wasn’t the worst of it.
A shift was happening in Ryker, toward me, and I couldn’t name it yet. I’d built a career on reading chaos, on predicting the unpredictable, but he didn’t follow patterns long enough to catch. The second I thought I knew his next move, he’d changed it.
I stayed on unsteady ground, never sure from one breath to the next whether he’d kill me or let me live. I was leaning toward the latter. He’d untied me. We were almost working together.
Almost didn’t mean safe, though.
I had no idea what he’d do with this next piece of information, so I braced myself and got ready for the ride. “I ran a background check after the texts started.”
His expression didn’t change, but his fingers curled slightly.
“I didn’t have your full information,” I continued. “Not at first. But I had enough. Enough to pull public records and dig into old local reports.”
“And?”
“And I found a missing person entry.” My mouth went dry around the words. “It wasn’t recent. It was when you were younger.”
Ryker turned perfectly still as if waiting to attack his prey. The hum of the bunker became deafening as his eyes locked on mine. “What did you read?”
He never would have asked me that if he knew what was waiting for him on the other side.
“It said.” Memories of Nate being reported missing slammed into my chest, knocking me off balance. There was never an easy way to tell someone that their loved one had disappeared. It didn’t matter. I was living in survival mode. I would deal with my fucked-up emotions later.
“You were reported missing.” I took a breath. “Not for a few hours or one night … it was long enough that someone filed paperwork. There was a trail.”
His nostrils flared once. “Tell me the date.” For a beat, his expression carried a distant look, as if he was present but not with me.
I hesitated since I didn’t want to feed him something I couldn’t take back. If I didn’t, he’d rip it out of me anyway. “Summer. You were a kid. The report was vague, and I think someone cleaned it up, but it existed.”
Ryker’s jaw flexed. Hard. “Who else knows you found it?”
“No one. I kept it off my official notes. I didn’t want it leaking and interfering with my investigation into Nate. I can’t prove anything, but something in my gut told me it was important even after all this time.”
His gaze dropped to my mouth like he was searching for lies.
I forced myself to keep going. “I didn’t bring it up because I wasn’t sure it was connected at first. But the rabbit keeps circling you.
Nate keeps circling you. And now this—” I glanced at the laptop.
TOO LATE still burned on the screen. “Now we’re not dealing with coincidence.
I think it’s related. The same kind of disappearance, tattoo, and the people behind it all.
You and Nate are connected. At first, I thought …
I thought maybe you were responsible for Nate’s disappearance, but I don’t anymore. ”
Ryker stared at the floor. Then he stood so abruptly the chair scraped and nearly toppled over.
My entire body went rigid on instinct, the ankle chain biting as I shifted.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure about anything at the time, only the rabbit connection.
Now that you’ve done some digging, and we’ve been sent a message, my opinion has changed.
I don’t think you had anything to do with his disappearance.
I think you’re still connected, though.”
He walked away from the table and stopped near the hall with one hand braced on the concrete wall as if it had suddenly threatened to collapse.
His shoulders rose and fell once before he turned back to me.
His expression changed. Fear? No, it was more like recognition.
Like a memory had reached up from the dark and wrapped its fingers around his throat.
“You don’t get to say that in here,” he said.
“Say what?” My pulse hammered. “What do you mean—”
He crossed the room in three strides and stopped in front of me, close enough that his heat bled into my space. He glanced at my ankle cuff. “That I’m connected to your brother’s disappearance,” he growled. “You’re coming with me.”
My stomach dropped. “Where?”
He leaned in, his tone low and lethal. “To the only people who can verify if you’re telling the truth, and who might know what happened to me if I ‘went missing.’”
My heart kicked. “Your parents?”
He didn’t even blink.
I swallowed hard. “You’re taking me with you?”
“Yes. You need my help to find Nate. Maybe I need you too,” he mumbled as if it pained him to admit it.
The words hit like a punch because they were true.
I tried to keep my expression blank. “Why would you need me?” It was a stupid question since I already knew why. The tattoo. Who beat him. Where he was the days he was missing. I wanted him to say it. To own it.
Ryker’s attention landed on the laptop again.
“Someone out there told us we’re behind.
Besides, if I walk into that house alone, I won’t know what’s real and what’s been fed to me.
” His voice tightened a fraction. “And because you’re the one person who will tell me the truth even if it gets you killed. Ironically, it’s kept you alive.”
My throat tightened painfully. That wasn’t kindness. That was a kind of trust that felt like a shackle.
He crouched in front of me and reached for the ankle cuff. My pulse spiked as the key clicked, then the chain slackened.
Ryker stood and adjusted the hoodie I’d been wearing, tugging it down lower on my waist as if he didn’t want me to be cold any longer.
His hands worked quickly, but his fingers lingered for a second too long at my waist. I stilled.
I wanted him to touch me like it meant something, and I wasn’t sure what to do with that.
He stepped back, his gaze hard. “You’re going to do exactly what I say.”
I lifted my chin. “I’m not your dog.”
His mouth twitched again with dangerous amusement. “No. You’re a fucking liability.”
My pulse stuttered at the reminder.
He turned and started packing—laptop closed, burner phone, keys, a small black bag I hadn’t seen before.
I watched him move with the kind of purpose that meant the decision was made.
Someone out there was watching us both, and now Ryker was dragging me deeper into his life instead of letting me run from it.
I should have been terrified. I was. Beneath it …
beneath the fear and anger, and the cold chain mark on my ankle was an uglier feeling. Not safety or comfort.
A ruthless relief. It wasn’t trust, though.
Relief was surrendering the wheel for one second because my arms were tired.
And the worst part? My body thanked him for it.
Since Nate vanished, I hadn’t been chasing the rabbit alone.
Eli and Jade had helped where they could, but Ryker was different, invested.
Connected in a way no one else was. And since the day he took me, he’d stopped treating me like a loose end.
His words said one thing. His body said another.
Somewhere inside me, a tender place cracked, and I hated it for existing.
I’d seen Ryker when he thought no one was watching.
The moments when the monster went quiet, and the man underneath clenched his teeth and kept going anyway.
And now that he was looking at me like I wasn’t disposable, my body wanted more.
I wanted him closer. Wanted his touch to land on me and stay there.
Ryker slung the bag over his shoulder and looked at me once more, eyes flat and burning.
“Get up,” he ordered.
I rose, legs stiff, and met his gaze head-on.
“If you kill me after this,” I told him, “you’re a coward.”
Ryker’s stare didn’t flicker as he held the bunker door open.
I walked toward it because I was choosing the only path that might lead to Nate.
Whoever we’d touched out there had touched us back. It was time to find out who, but an eerie feeling twisted inside my chest. I wasn’t sure we would live long enough to get the answer. I hoped like hell I was wrong.