Alejandro:But just so you know, if there’s a chance at a future with you ... I’ll wait on that chance forever.
Chapter Forty-One
Alejandro
“You doing okay?” Ryder joined me in the bathroom as I redressed my wound, clearly taking my closed bedroom door as an invitation to come in. “I should have asked you that already. The call with Beth couldn’t have been easy.”
“None of this has been easy, man.” I washed my hands and put my shirt back on. “But I’ll be fine.” I didn’t feel like getting into the thick of anything right now. That text-talk with Audrey had also done a number on me. I was still trying to wrap my head around how I’d be calling her Mrs. Rodriguez, calling her my wife when I’d never planned to call anyone that ever again.
Now, there I was, terrified about the days after when I’d have to stop.
Stop calling her my wife.
Stop calling her mine.
Stop wanting the woman I was quickly (crazy or not) learning I wasn’t so sure I’d be able to live without.
“You do realize the wordfineis just as bad when a dude says it as a woman, right?” He’d given me a few seconds to spin out in my head before calling me on my shit.
“At least let me out of the bathroom before you Freud me.” I gestured for him to make room to leave. “Hate when you try to hijack my job like that.”
He smirked but followed my orders and went into the bedroom.
“Just tell me you have new information.” I sat on the bed, resting my forearms on my legs, doing a bang-up job on selling the idea offine.
“The flash drive was in the bear. Heavily encrypted. Gwen’s working on it. So, yeah, Beth told the truth. Well, that she performed surgery on a stuffed animal and stitched it back.” He observed me like I was both his patient and his friend, not a Tier One operator.
Didn’t feel like I was myself right now, so I didn’t blame him.
“Chandler wants us on a flight to New Zealand as of yesterday. If there’s even a remote chance Hobbs told Mitch about Bravo and Echo—”
“I know. I’m on board with the plan.” I sat up taller, eyes on my best friend, trying to figure out how I’d wound up falling for his sister, a sister he’d only just found out about. Not on my 2027 bingo card, that was for damn sure.
“Good, because Natasha also confirmed the two co-owners of Helix are in Queenstown, not even twenty minutes away from where the auction is being held on Friday. Highly doubt that’s a coincidence.”
“So, Mitch is drawing us all there so we can kill each other, and he can walk away with the cash and Audrey.” I got my ass back up to standing at that news. “He wants us focused on Helix. Look one way while the real magic happens somewhere else. Oldest trick in the playbook.”
“And he’s had a year to plan this out, and we’re running on borrowed time.”
“How the hell does he think he’s going to get Audrey away from us?” I grunted, the idea of that happening un-fucking-acceptable.
“I don’t know what to think about anything anymore to be honest. The fact your psychotic ex is the one helping us now?” he hissed, pushing off the dresser. “None of this makes sense.”
Yeah, same messed-up page. Still a dangerous one, too.
At the sound of Reed’s voice gaining ground, clearly on the phone with someone as he walked and talked, that reminded me ... “Hollis,” I said under my breath.
“Who Reed is talking to now, actually. And we didn’t tell you about her because I didn’t want you to have to lie as well.”
I lifted my chin toward the door. “What’s her story?”
“A thing of make believe,” he said with a smirk.
“And that means?”
He removed his phone from his pocket, then swiped it open before tossing it to me. “Have a look for yourself. You’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.”
I swiped through the screenshots of intel he had on Audrey’s best friend, shaking my head in disbelief. “This is real?”
