Chapter 45
FORTY-FIVE
Ryan stirred, his cheek pressed against the back of her shoulder. Her skin was warm and smelled so good it made his mouth water. Her hair tickled his nose but he didn’t move.
Her breathing was slow and even. And for once, his was too.
The ceiling fan above them kept up its sluggish rhythm. Outside, no birds yet. Just the hushed quiet of desert pre-dawn.
Ryan closed his eyes again, letting it wash over him.
Last night hadn’t been planned. And it sure as hell hadn’t been smart.
But it had been real. Not just the sex—the heat of her on top of him, the soft murmur of her voice against his neck—but the moment after, when she didn’t move away.
When she stayed curled against him, her fingers pressing against his skin like she was checking he hadn’t vanished.
His arm was draped over her waist now, his hand resting on the bare slope of her stomach. Her skin was soft there, still warm. He could feel the rise and fall of her breath. Slow. Safe.
He didn’t feel safe often. But now—
A thought tugged. He frowned faintly.
Something felt wrong.
He shifted, carefully lifting his head. His eyes adjusted to the dark. He sat up slowly, trying not to jostle Lucía.
Ryan stood, bare feet hitting the cool floor. He yanked the door open and stepped into the hallway, bare-chested.
The front room was empty. Couch still sagging, the throw blanket folded too neatly.
“Noah?” he called, low and sharp.
Silence.
His heart thudded once, hard. He moved through the kitchen fast—eyes darting, mind already clocking anomalies. The fridge door hung slightly ajar. A half-drunk water bottle sweated on the table. He turned toward the back bedroom.
Empty. No duffel. No boots. No Gates.
His voice came rough: “Jesus Christ.”
Lucía’s voice floated in from the bedroom. “What’s wrong?”
She appeared in the hallway, barefoot, shirt unbuttoned, hair still tangled from sleep.
“They’re gone,” Ryan said. “Noah. Gates.”
“Gone?” She blinked, like trying to clear a fog from her mind. “Why wouldn’t he wake us?”
Ryan didn’t respond, just strode past her and yanked open the front door.
Outside, the pre-dawn haze clung to the scrubland. Ryan crossed the dirt lot in long strides, his bare feet kicking up dry dust. The SUV was still there—Gates’s.
He yanked open the driver’s side door. Keys still in the ignition. A half-empty bottle of water in the cupholder. The map they’d used to plan the compound breach lay folded on the passenger seat, edges curled from handling.
Lucía caught up to him, breath uneven. She took one look and frowned. “Wait. He left the vehicle?”
“Looks like it.”
She moved around to the passenger side and opened the door slowly, as if something might leap out. Her brow furrowed. “He couldn’t have gone on foot.”
“No.” Ryan stepped back, thinking. Faint tire tracks trailed toward the road. “He had help.” He crouched near the tire grooves, fingers tracing the shallow tread. “They didn’t rush. Didn’t peel out. No signs of struggle.”
Lucía stood still, arms wrapped around herself. “Then it wasn’t a kidnapping.”
“No,” Ryan muttered. “This was a decision.”
He rose, jaw flexed, rage flickering behind his eyes. “Three of us went into that compound,” he said, voice low and cutting. “We got the kid out. We got him safe. And Gates just…decides to disappear without a word? Doesn’t ask. Doesn’t explain. Just takes him?”
Lucía crossed her arms. “He was never going to let you keep him. You know that, right?” Her voice turned gentle. “He’s not your son. He has a grandmother. A legal guardian. A home—”
His voice dropped again, low and sharp. “You think I don’t know that? I was ready for that,” he said. “What I wasn’t ready for was this. A nighttime extraction like we’re the problem.”
Lucía swallowed hard. “Maybe he thought he was protecting the kid.”
Ryan laughed bitterly. “From what? From us?”
“No. From Javier. From whatever’s still coming.”
Ryan shook his head, the fury cooling into something else. Disgust. Betrayal. “He just…left.”
Lucía looked away, toward the horizon, her voice quiet. “Maybe he thought we’d try to stop him.”
Ryan didn’t answer. He just stood in the doorway. The wind picked up, stirring the dust in ghostly little spirals. In the distance, the faint glint of daylight began to creep over the horizon—bright, merciless, and indifferent.
He yanked open drawers. Pulled aside throw pillows. Kicked open a cabinet door. Not looking for anything in particular, just something. Something to break.
Lucía stood near the front door, still silent, watching him unravel in real time.
He opened the last cabinet near the kitchen.
And froze.
There it was. The burner phone. The one he’d left behind in the Sierra Norte cabin. He’d left it on the table, as a final fuck you to the men who’d been using it to order him around. He knew he’d left it.
But it sat there now on a folded dish towel like it had been waiting for him. Screen dim but blinking.
He picked it up. One message. Timestamp: two hours ago. From: Unknown
He opened it.
If you ever want to see the boy again, bring the woman. Hotel Punta Roja. Room 6. Noon today.
His breath left him in a slow, bitter drag.
Lucía stepped closer. “What is it?”
Ryan held the phone out wordlessly.
She read the message once.
Then again.
She stared at the message, her fingers brushing the screen like maybe it would change if she touched it again. “This doesn’t make sense. That phone was gone. We left it in that cabin in the mountains.”
“Exactly.” He looked at her. “Which means it didn’t find its way here on its own.”
Lucía’s expression tightened. “Gates. Shit. He was playing us this whole time?”
He shook his head. He had no idea anymore. Nothing made sense. He set the phone down carefully, like it might detonate. Then leaned back against the counter, arms folded tight.
Lucía frowned. “But why help us at the compound?”
Ryan’s jaw clenched. “Maybe that was part of his play.”
“You think he’s been stringing us along just to get the last fragment?”
“I think…” He exhaled sharply. “I think we’ve been dancing to someone else’s rhythm since the start. Every lead we chased, every clue that looked like a breakthrough—it all led here.”
“To this,” she murmured. “A trade.”
Ryan nodded. “That’s why he left the car. The keys in the ignition.”
They were both silent for a long moment. Then Ryan said, “He knew you wouldn’t hand it over. Not willingly. So he took the boy to force your hand. Or force mine.”
He looked at her, the weight of what he was saying settling over them both. Force him to extract the last fragment from her to save Noah. Force him to make a choice between the two of them.
“I won’t do it,” he said, voice low. “We won’t do it.”
Lucía swallowed and looked down at her hands. “We thought we were ahead of them. Turns out we’ve been behind the whole time.”
She moved to the window, peeled back the curtain, stared at the line of dull horizon. Silence stretched between them again.
Finally, Ryan spoke, voice hoarse. “I don’t give a shit who’s holding the leash. If they’ve got Noah, I’m going.”
“You’re not going alone.”
Ryan didn’t respond. Just looked at her, something softening in his expression.
She stepped closer. “We go together. We get Noah back. And we end this together.”
He didn’t speak. Just reached for the burner phone and turned it off, the screen blinking out. Then he slid it into his pocket and said, quietly, “Then we’ve got until noon to figure out how not to die in the process.”