Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
Ryder stared at the message again.
“Your son?” Why didn’t you tell me? As if it was his business. As if that mattered at this moment, when a child’s life was on the line. Who were these people?
She didn’t answer except to blink at the words on the screen like she was trying to force them to fade away. Her quivering lips parted, but no sound came out. She swayed.
He gripped her arms, held her in place, tried to infuse his strength into her. “We’ll get him back, Sarah. Don’t worry. We’ll get him back.” He willed himself to believe that, even though no manner of willing his father to survive had made it so.
He lifted her chin so she would look him in the eyes, but the fight was draining from her. Sarah was imploding, like she had too many bombs going off inside of her. Seeing her crumbling before him nearly did him in. This wasn’t the strong soul he’d come to know.
No one ever knew what the catalyst would be to break them.
Her eyes—those brilliant brown eyes with flecks of gold that had held so much fire—were wide and unfocused. Her head lolled slightly as if she might actually physically crumple to the ground and fold in on herself.
He got that. Oh, he got it.
Ryder wouldn’t let that happen. “Sarah!” He tightened his hold just enough to send a jolt through her. “Snap out of it. You want to see him again? Then hold it together. You’re trained for this.”
His words sounded almost cruel, but they came from the same place where Sarah’s pain lived. And he knew all too well the pain of losing someone and blaming yourself. He’d isolated himself ever since he failed to save his father on this very mountain—in the very place they headed now.
Her voice was weak as her lips trembled. “He’s just a baby,” she whispered. “I should have known. I should have stayed away from this, but I couldn’t. They killed Aaron.”
Heart pounding, Ryder leaned closer. He tried to be tender and understanding, pushing back the rush of fury at the callousness of their pursuers. “Honestly, when you mentioned Tessa and Jeremy, I thought he was your brother’s son. You never said otherwise.” Why had he made that assumption?
His gut clenched. “Where is his father?”
Maybe he could come into play here and save Sarah’s son, but she’d never once mentioned the man.
Her gaze drifted to the summit, to the mountain rising stark and cold against the brightening sky.
“My husband’s dead,” she whispered. “He died before Jeremy was born. Before I even knew I was pregnant. He was brutally murdered.” Her trembling fingers brushed at her nose.
“It’s why I left. That, and to protect Jeremy. ”
Ryder eased down onto the rock beside her and gently pulled her to him. She didn’t resist—just sagged against him like a dam breaking, her weight sinking into his side. They sat like that, wrapped in shared stillness, offering comfort, drawing from it.
He didn’t speak. He wouldn’t push her. Not yet.
Some things had to be spoken aloud, aired out, before the wound underneath could even think about healing. Grief had its own shape, its own breath, and right now, she just needed space.
She leaned harder into him, and when her next words came, they tumbled out in broken sobs.
“Four years ago, I secretly married a man I worked with. The roles we played in our job, we couldn’t go public. Then we were kidnapped and ended up in Alaska where he was tortured for intel. I survived. He didn’t.” She sobbed against his shoulder.
The words hit him so hard his ribs ached.
Of course . . . of course she had secrets.
Ryder did too. But this changed everything.
Ryder tried to comfort her, but the news came as a shock to him, though why, he had no idea.
He didn’t really know Sarah or anything about her past and certainly hadn’t guessed she was protecting her own child.
That information helped him to understand why she felt she had to find the truth and expose the bad actors.
She was a mother, a widow, and a survivor.
And now she’d been dealt another cruel blow.
And with this new information, Ryder was even more driven to end this, and he tightened his arms around her. This wasn’t about finding the truth anymore. It was about keeping her son safe. That’s why she’d been willing to risk everything.
Sarah eased away from him, swiping at her cheeks. “I’m sorry. That was . . . unprofessional.”
As if . . . He gave her what he hoped was a compassionate smile to let her know it was going to be okay.
And now that he thought about it, he hadn’t actually thought of her as his client in at least a day.
No, Sarah Ellison was much more. “We’re not professionals right now, Sarah.
We’re just two people caught in the middle and trying to stay alive. ”
She gave him a tear-filled laugh.
“Okay,” he said. “Technically I’m here as your guide.
But I think we can both agree that this has grown beyond the original wilderness navigation.
Our grandfathers tie us together.” Ryder felt much more than that too—for Sarah.
She’d gotten under his skin so fast, it made his head spin, and he couldn’t afford to be distracted right now. But here he was.
Here they both were.
Nodding, she stood. When she wavered, he caught her back and steadied her.
“I’m good,” she said. “Let’s finish this. Let’s find the crash site, figure out our next move. If that payload is even still intact, then what?”
And if it’s not?
“We’ll figure it out.”
Ryder used the satellite communicator to text another urgent message to Holt, letting him know the true stakes—Sarah’s son, Jeremy, had been abducted, ransomed for the vials.
God, please let him get the message. He and his brother thought alike at the strangest times.
Sometimes the most important moments. He hoped this was one of those and Holt would get back to him.
He started forward, welcoming the late-morning sky over the mountains. Unfortunately, the wind cut down from the rim, slicing into him through his coat, and of course, his shoulder fired up again. He smiled as if that alone would push back the pain and the utter dread of what they faced.
He prayed for just enough snow to slow their pursuers, but not enough to bury Ryder and Sarah alive.
They needed to make headway and find the crash site first. They would be hunted down even trying to make it back to Mercy Ridge and would have nothing to show for their lives, and their certain deaths.
They were doing this.
Still, the harsh truth rattled him, weighing him down.
Once they found the site, he wasn’t sure what to do next and needed to hear from Holt.
If his brother didn’t get the message or location ping in time, he and Sarah wouldn’t be extracted and would have to find their own way off the mountain and stay ahead of the men chasing them.
Could he find a way to destroy the rest of the vials?
Would Sarah allow him to—given her son was being ransomed for them?
He needed to know more about this Alpha-X.
They had no hazmat suits—if even one of the vials broke open, they were dead.
So he made sure to wrap the vial his grandfather had hidden in the deepest layers inside his pack.
The vial had remained intact and lasted this long, after all.
And right now, as he trudged up the mountain on the break of the coldest morning in recent memory, he felt like a walking dead man. God willing, he would see this through and finish it, and maybe . . . just maybe . . . he would win. They would win.
He was doing this for the town of Mercy Ridge that sat at the base of this mountain, which all these decades had been sitting on deadly secrets.
He would finish this for Sarah—strong, beautiful Sarah, and her son—and he would do this for the world.
These jerks could never get their hands on this deadly toxic payload.
He didn’t know how this would end, but God willing, he would finish this.