Ryder
Three weeks later
“Can I look yet?”
I had my hands over Jolie’s eyes as I walked her up the sidewalk, nerves jangling in my stomach.
“Not yet. Just be patient.”
“You know that’s not my strongest virtue.”
I chuckled. “That’s true. Just a second.”
The second was for me. I’d done something either incredibly romantic or incredibly stupid. It was a toss-up at this point. I inhaled deeply and then blew it out on a long sigh.
“Okay. Here goes.”
I lifted my hands from her eyes as she took in the little three-bedroom cottage I’d found in the suburbs. It was in a small neighborhood, with a fenced backyard and excellent schools. The gray clapboard house was from the 1920s, with original hardwood floors and custom woodwork and moldings. It was beautiful, and it screamed Jolie when I’d seen it.
“What do you think?”
“Is it for sale?”
“Um, kind of.”
Jolie shot me a confused look followed by an eye-roll. I rushed on. “Do you want to see inside?”
“I guess?” I laughed at her puzzled expression and pulled her by the hand behind me. I used the key the realtor had given me and opened the door.
Jolie walked around the living room, taking in the mosaic fireplace and the built-in bookshelves. I followed behind her as we entered the fully restored and updated kitchen with its gleaming stainless-steel appliances.
She was quiet as she passed through to the master bedroom on the main floor, the only room that held any furniture—an antique teal iron bed with white, cottony blankets and pillows of every color and fabric. Jolie took in the bed, her hand testing out the fabrics as she moved on to the brand-new master bath that had just been added on to the back of the house. The large garden tub would be perfect for her long soaks, and the two-headed shower would be perfect for when I couldn’t stand to be away from her, even for the few minutes it took to shower.
So far, she hadn’t said a word, and worry began clawing its way up my throat. We moved on to the staircase and up the flight of stairs to the two bedrooms upstairs. They were small, boasting unique ceiling lines due to the dormer-style windows and attic space that shot out over the garage. Then, without saying a word, she turned and went back down the steps.
When we stood in the living room, she burst into tears.
“Oh, gosh, Jolie! What's wrong, solnyshko? Why are you crying?”
“Why would you show me this if it isn’t for sale?”
“Do you like it?”
“Like it? I love it, Ryder. It’s the perfect house. But whose is it? And why are we here?”
“It’s ours. I bought it before we got married. I had to give them time to finish the master bath since it was only a tiny little thing when I’d purchased it, but I paid extra to ensure it would be ready as soon as possible.”
“You bought us a house without telling me?”
I nodded, knowing this was a sticky situation I’d gotten myself into.
“You bought me a house. And didn’t say a word about it?”
I shrugged. “I wasn’t sure you’d like it. If you hated it, I would have just sold it and made a profit with the addition of the master bath.”
“Ryder, I don’t know what to say.”
“Tell me what you’re thinking. It’s okay. I can handle it.”
She burst into tears again and threw herself into my arms.
“That’s the most wonderful thing anyone has ever done for me.” She sobbed louder, shaking in my arms. I couldn’t help but laugh at her overzealous response. It was one hundred percent Jolie.
“So, you do like it?”
“I love it. The room upstairs will be a perfect nursery one day.”
The thought of a baby didn’t scare me at all anymore. We’d discussed having children while on our honeymoon in Puerto Rico. Lying on the beach holding hands, we’d talked about everything. We’d decided it was best to wait a couple of years since Jolie had just started working a job she truly loved, and I agreed, although I was far more ready for her to be round with my child than I’d admit to her.
And I’d made peace with my dad when they’d been at the wedding. He and his wife seemed happy. Dad had gone to counseling at her insistence and was coming to terms with his demons and the loss of my mother. Something he had never done after she died. Somehow, repairing our relationship had settled things in my mind. Well, that and Jolie’s warm sunlight that burst from her and flowed over me.
“I can’t believe you bought us a house.”
“It seemed the right thing to do. We can’t live at the gym for the rest of our lives. And we’re only a thirty-five-minute drive to work. If you want to live closer, I can look for something else, but I just thought that maybe—”
Jolie moved in close, her finger on my lips. “It’s perfect.”
Her kiss was urgent, hungry, possessive. I loved her like this. Forceful and controlling. Her fingers worked the buttons of my shirt, sliding it off and over my shoulders. She tossed it over my head, and I laughed.
“What are you doing?”
“Christening our new home. What does it look like?”
“I like that idea.”
Jolie wore a T-shirt dress, so it was easy to lift it over head, leaving her standing in her bra and panties. She was beautiful. Perfection wrapped up in a short, dynamic package.
I picked her up and carried her into the bedroom to the bed I’d picked out just for her. It had been at an antique shop in the little downtown area, and I’d had custom rails made so it would hold a queen-sized mattress. The blankets and pillows had all been Piper’s and Lydia’s doing, insisting she’d want the different colors and fabrics.
I’d let her appreciate them later. I swept them off the bed and laid Jolie in their place. She giggled, crawling up the bed as she divested herself of her underwear. And when she lay before me, all silky skin and hungry eyes, I knew she’d never looked more beautiful than she did at that moment. In our bed, in our new home. A home where we’d raise our children and welcome our grandchildren and grow old as we rocked on the front porch holding hands.
“Make love to me, husband.” Jolie lifted onto her elbows, surely wondering what I was doing and why I wasn’t ravishing her.
“Your wish is my command.”
Afterwards, I held Jolie as she slept quietly, curled up in my arms.
I was the luckiest man in the world.
And I knew, the darkness that had plagued most of my life had vanished. My personal, small sun had chased it away and filled my life with warmth and beauty.
***
Oscar
Five weeks after Dmitriev’s death
Their eyes haunted me.
It had been six weeks since I’d helped Ryder and Jolie rescue those women from that container, and still their eyes haunted my dreams at night. When I closed my lids, I saw their dirty faces and emaciated forms. I saw the devastation. The ruin.
Lives forever changed. Never to go back to their carefree existence. Lives that had been touched by evil.
The need to figure out what the Russians and Los Caballeros were planning to do with them was at times overwhelming. I couldn’t think about anything else. Levi had caught me several times during team meetings gazing off into space trying to put the pieces to the puzzle together.
Finally, he’d confronted me a week before.
“Dude, what the hell is wrong with you? You haven’t been the same since you returned from Jacksonville.”
I exhaled and planted my hands on my hips. It was time to come clean.
“I can’t get them off my mind. The women. I’ve been trying to figure it out. What did they want them for? Not to sell into slavery, which would be the obvious answer. So, what, then? And are there others? Could other women be suffering right now, while I’m too stupid to figure it out?”
“Hey, man, calm down.” I had gotten myself worked up, and I shook out my shaking hands.
“Sorry. It’s just driving me crazy. It’s like something is compelling me to figure it out. I feel like we’re working against a ticking time bomb. And then with Nikolai’s words about something terrible coming—I feel like it’s all connected somehow. I just can’t figure it out.”
Levi clapped me on the shoulder. “Let me do some digging. Ryder gets back from his honeymoon on Saturday, and we’ll have him start looking. We’ll figure it out, okay?”
I nodded as Levi strode off.
Ryder had returned a week ago, and he’d yet to find any connection to the women and whatever it was Dmitriev and The Vicar had planned.
I geared myself up for the fight that evening. Since Ryder was still recovering from a cracked rib, I was taking his place in the fights. I wasn’t a fighter like him or like Cade, but I could hold my own. Tonight’s event was widespread, and the place would be packed.
I was just getting ready to change into my shorts and hoodie when Ryder knocked on my dorm door.
“Yeah?”
“Got a minute?”
“Um, I guess. I go on to fight in a couple of hours, but what’s up?”
“Get your shorts on and then come over to the office. I have something I want to show you.”
I hurried to change and then rushed across the lobby to the offices. There was a humming sensation deep in my gut, the same one I got when I was working with explosives.
Something big was about to break. Something important was about to happen. I could feel it.
Ryder wasn’t in his office, so I checked the conference room. A message was pulled up on the screen, and Levi had a file in his hands.
“What’s going on?”
“We’ve got a break.”
“What kind of break?”
Ryder zoomed into the message. It was encrypted, a code that I wasn’t able to decipher. Below it, though, was a document with the meaning of the message spelled out in plain English.
“Missing persons. Ex-Soviet doctor. Biochemical weapon. Sorry, that’s all I can give you.”
It was signed S. Johnson.
“Ryder?”
“Johnson sent an encrypted email. It seems part of his mental breakdown was due to guilt. He scheduled it to send three weeks after his death.”
“But what does it all mean?”
“We’re not completely sure, but these arrived by courier just about an hour ago. Just minutes after the email was delivered.”
Levi held the folder out for me. I took it, thumbing through the pages. It was picture after picture of young people, guys and girls alike, from the ages of about fifteen to thirty. Each picture had a missing person’s report filed with it.
“There has to be like a hundred or more pictures here.”
“Exactly. All missing in the last year. Most without a large family presence. My guess was they hoped they wouldn’t be missed or at least wouldn’t be followed up on thoroughly.”
“And they were right. No one has found any of them?”
I’d called the DEA to see if there were missing persons reports filed on the women we’d recovered a few weeks ago. About half of them had been reported missing. The other half had been taken too recently to arouse suspicion.
“Geez. What are they doing with these people? So, it’s not just women? Men, too.”
“Yes—all sizes, shapes, skin colors. The only thing they have in common is that none of them are over thirty or under fifteen. I think Dmitriev must have initially taken those women to traffic and then made a deal with The Vicar to send them to him instead.”
What did it all mean?
I kept flipping the pages, my hands shaking with fury. How many of these faces were dead? How many were suffering unthinkable things?
“Ex-Soviet doctor. A biochemical weapon. Missing persons.”
Horror flooded my mind as I realized what it meant. Someone was kidnapping people and conducting experiments on them. To make a weapon.
“Holy—”
“Yeah, I know.” Ryder pushed his hand through his hair. “It’s messed-up, man. But we’ve got to find it before they have that weapon up and going.”
“And we think it’s connected to the Cabs?”
“It appears that way at first glance.”
I placed the folder down on the table and stood tall. “I want in on this.”
“I figured you would. We need to find those victims and that weapon before whoever is doing this uses it and hurts many more than just who’s in that file.”
Biochemical weapons. Human experiments. What world was I living in? I picked up the folder, a picture peeking out of the side. I pulled at it until I was staring down into round, hazel eyes. Her light-brown hair was draped over her shoulder as pouty lips stretched into a seductive smile.
Lips I knew.
Lips I’d kissed.
Lips that had promised to love and cherish me until death parted us.
Lips that had lied.
I dropped the folder, the pictures scattering everywhere, her picture lying on top, staring at me. Taunting me.
If she was in that file, that meant the crazy bastards had her. And that meant the stakes of the case had just gone up in a major way.
Fear snaked across my skin, my breathing accelerating until I thought I might hyperventilate. Through the fog, I heard Levi’s voice calling to me. Telling me to breathe. Telling me to take it easy.
But I couldn’t breathe. And life would never be easy.
Not until I found her.
The room came into focus as my mind clicked into gear, putting into focus what I’d need to do.
“Oscar?”
I faced Levi, seeing the concern marring his brow. Ryder stood nearby, his arms crossed over his chest, his face drawn.
“Oscar, who is that?”
I took one last look at the picture of the woman who danced in my dreams every night.
“My wife.”