“Can we get back to the briefing?” Ryker asks. “Or are we having a party?”
West clears his throat. “Raelynn, grab some coffee and take a seat. We’re gonna be here a while.”
While Ripper stares intently at his laptop screen, West and Ryker debate the team’s next move.
"If Arrens has a second in command—beyond that big dumbfuck I disposed of yesterday—he’ll already be looking for Wyatt and Hope. That drone was broadcasting the whole damn time. Until it died,” West says. “He’s seen them together. The operator assured him Wyatt wouldn’t live to see another sunrise, and Hope would regret the day she was born.”
Despite not wanting to keep anything from Hope, I’m glad she’s still with Wren and Cara. I’ll be able to be gentle when I fill her in.
Gentle? You don’t do gentle, remember?
Ripper rubs the back of his neck with a heavy breath. It’s a gesture I’ve seen Ryker do more than once. The two of them share so many of the same mannerisms, through Ripper’s are subdued, like he’s desperate to blend in and just doesn’t know how. “The guy who came after you was Brix Deeds. He has a brother. Rex. Bigger, meaner, and arrested three times for sexual assault in his early twenties. But he was never tried. All charges dismissed.” Rip taps a few keys on his laptop and swears under his breath. “Because all of the victims disappeared. Probably his brother’s doing. Looks like both of them were already working for Arrens at the time.”
Fuck me.
West pours another cup of coffee. The man drinks it like water. “Safe to say he’ll send Rex wherever he thinks Wyatt and Hope got off to. Since he knows Hope was heading over the pass, I don’t see a scenario where they don’t come to Seattle. And soon. Unless Arrens has another day he thinks he can get to her.”
My anxiety spikes, turning my hands clammy, and a tight knot forms in my chest. I need to see Hope. To know she’s okay. It doesn’t matter that she’s in a secured building with cameras, alarms, and the most overprotective bunch of men I’ve ever met. She’s not with me. Murphy presses himself to my calves, and I reach down and scratch behind his ears. He knows. He always knows when I need him.
Ripper’s dog, Charlie, sits next to the computer genius with his head on the man’s thigh, and if I'm honest with myself, being in this room with these guys? It's the most “normal” I've felt in three years. Outside of the time I've spent with Hope.
If we stayed...
The idea that I could be a part of something again? It's really fucking tempting. But how the hell can I live here? In a city. With all the traffic and noises and people?
Along with grocery stores, restaurants, movie channels.
And Hope.
The din of conversation dies down, and from the look on Ripper's face, they're waiting for me to answer a question I didn't hear. “Sorry. What?”
“You okay?” West asks. “You're in another world.”
“Yeah.” Shaking off thoughts of what could be, I refocus on the men around me. “You’re gonna have to repeat the question.”
“Wasn’t a question,” Ryker says. “Arrens will probably send a team to Seattle. But that can’t be his end game. This is a big goddamn city. What the hell does he expect to do? Go door to door for the next year?”
“He’ll have a backup plan.” West nods at Ripper. “Tell Wyatt what he missed while he was daydreaming.”
Rip’s hand goes to the back of his neck once more, and Charlie settles closer to him. “Hope fell off the grid three years ago. But digital footprints live forever.” One corner of his mouth twitches. “Unless we get to them.”
“What digital footprints?” I ask.
“Hope’s emails. Phone logs. Financial records. It’s a safe bet Arrens has all of this information. He’s probably had it the whole damn time. But in case he doesn’t, we’re going to make it go away.”
“I don’t understand.” Ripper won’t meet my gaze, and unlike the rest of Ryker’s team, I can’t read him.
“Hope Raines has to disappear,” Ryker says from across the room. “Until we can take out Arrens’ whole crew—at least him and the top level generals—she can’t contact anyone she knows. Can’t even think about it.”
“The whole crew? How many people are we talking here?” I ask.
Ryker nods at the tablet in front of me. Shit. Simon’s entire organization is laid out on the screen. Thirty-two names. Eight directly under Simon—seven now that Brix is dead—and the rest…
“Simon has people everywhere.”
I push the tablet away. “This isn’t all of them. What about the cops? FBI agents? The assholes who run his brothels?”
“If we take out the top levels,” West says, “the grunts will likely scatter to the winds without more than a gentle suggestion they’d live longer that way.”
