I step further into the room. “Want to test that theory?”
“Let him go,” Hartley speaks up behind me. “But this isn’t over.”
They unlock Zane’s wrists, and he steps straight to me, sliding his arm around my shoulders. “This is fucking over,” I grit out. “The next person who steps foot onourproperty will be the last move they make. Do your job and stay the fuck out of my way.”
I go to step around to leave, and Hartley grabs my arm to stop me.Wrong move, asshole.Before I can react, all six of my guys are standing to their full heights, stepping up behind him, more than ready to throw down. Police station or not.
“Back. The. Fuck. Off.” Zane growls, knocking Hartley’s hand away and pulling me toward the exit.
“You one of them now, Zane?” Hartley calls out when we’re almost out the door. “Seven years down the fucking drain.”
Zane turns around slowly. “The only thing I missed out on in those seven years was her. She left you the evidence you need. I suggest you take this seriously.”
As we step outside, a handful of the guys Zane used to work with stand around Ryder’s Explorer. Paying them no mind, we all slide in with Zane, Holden, and me in the very back, with me between them. Gage turns around from his spot in the middle to look at us. “You good, bro?”
“Yeah,” Zane answers, sliding his hand into mine. “They’re grasping at straws.”
“Can you find out what they have?” I ask Holden.
He nods. “As easy as breathing.”
“I don’t understand,” Leo comments, turning around. “How the hell has he convinced an entire police department that he’s dead, and why?”
“Holden will find out,” Ryder answers. “He wants them to think he’s dead, so no matter what the fuck happens, Les and Zane will be blaming a dead man.”
Zane squeezes my hand in his. “Then we make sure this asshole is a dead man.”
We sit in silence for the rest of the ride, then meet in the living room to figure out what to do. Zane pulls me down on the loveseat between him and Ryder, Dex in his usual chair, and Gage and Leo on the couch. Holden disappears to his office to hack into the police servers to see what they have on Zane. No way in hell am I letting Zane go down for something he didn’t do.
“We need to draw him out,” Dex says quietly.
“How do you suppose we do that?” Ryder asks, turning to him. “The only way we do that is…” he trails off when he realizes what Dex means. “No way in fucking hell are we using her to draw him out!”
I grab his hand with my free one; Zane still has a death grip on the other. “I told you I wasn’t hiding anymore, Ryder. This is the only way we end this.”
“We still have Viktor out there too. It isn’t safe,” Ryder argues.
“I have an idea, but Ryder, you’ll have to trust me. I won’t put myself in that situation again,” I promise, telling the truth. That taught me a lot about the risks I was taking with my safety; I won’t do it again. It doesn’t mean that I’m spineless, though.
He takes a deep breath. “What’s your idea?”
“Ghost and Squid’s crews aren’t enough pressure on Viktor. It needs to be us. As a team.” I thought about this yesterday, but things escalated before I could mention it to them. My body pressed between them flashes through my mind; I subtly squeezemy thighs together at the ache it causes. Watching and hearing everything going on was easily the hottest thing I’ve seen. The guys let go of everything just to be there with me.
“What does that mean, Pretty girl?” Gage asks, sitting up on the couch.
“We go old school,” I grin. “We start busting his shit up.”
“If that doesn’t work?” Dex asks with a raised brow.
“We start burning shit down. There is no fucking way he’s not still pissed about us tearing his house apart and taking Nina. If I can get Viktor to slip, I can find out where Jay is from him,” I say, and I can feel the excitement roll through me. I missed this part where we got to wreak absolute havoc to get what we want. “I’ll get ahold of Alexey, Dmitri, and Micah. See if they want to help.”
The mention of Micah sends a pang of hurt through my heart. He’s avoided the house since we brought Zane here, and we’ve barely spoken. I get messages from him checking on me, but that’s it.
“Mateo will be back tomorrow,” Leo adds with a smile. “He’ll be in.”
“What about Evander?” I ask. Evander left two weeks after I went missing, and I don’t blame him. The night he talked to me at Nina’s, he looked sad and so fucking tired.
Leo shakes his head. “Mateo said probably not. He doesn’t think he’s ready.”
