Shit. “That was…”
“Insensitive as fuck? Yeah. It was. So was talking to Hope the way you did. She just escaped three years of Arrens controlling her whole goddamn life, and you think barking orders at her was the way to go?”
I stumble back until I hit the metal wall. He’s right. I treated Hope like she didn’t matter. Like what she wanted didn’t matter. “I have to talk to her.”
Ry catches my arm before I reach the door and steers me toward the corner of the building. “Nope. Not yet. We’re not done.”
“I fucked up. I can’t let her think I’d ever—”
“She doesn’t.” Rubbing his hand over his bald head, Ryker blows out a long, slow breath. “Hope’s pissed off, but she knows you’re protective as hell and twice as stubborn. You’ll apologize, grovel some, and she’ll forgive you. As long as you don’t let it happen again.”
For several seconds, I stare at him. “Don’t let it happen again? She wants to go back to that asshole!”
“She wants to protect you. And the rest of us.” He holds up his hand when I growl an oath. “Can you blame her?”
Until this moment, I thought Ryker McCabe was one of the smartest men I’d ever met. If I stood a chance, I’d beat some sense into him.
“Simon would lock her in a windowless room for days if she said one wrong word. Now that the feds are involved? He’ll kill her. And Bettina.”
“She knows that.” Ry holds my gaze, and while he’s standing right in front of me, a part of him isn’t here. He’s back in Hell. Or Russia when he almost lost Wren. Or on any number of missions all over the world with his team. “Hope’s been alone for a long time. She doesn’t understand what it’s like to have a family.”
This isn’t a conversation I expected to have with Ryker, but as I stare at him, I see the truth in his eyes. “You do.”
“Damn straight. And after we put an end to this pig fucker, you will too. You and Hope.” He checks his watch. “We’re leaving here in twenty minutes. If you want Cara to take Murphy, catch her before she leaves. I need to talk to Wren before we go.”
“You’re…going with us? What happened to ‘I haven’t been on a mission in six months’?”
“Dax and Ripper are both alive because you, West, and Inara found me when I broke out of Hell. So, yeah. I’m going with you. Got a problem with that?”
I’d hug him if either of us did that sort of thing. But we don’t, so I shake my head. “Murphy can go with Cara. Just…let me say goodbye to him first.” How the hell am I supposed to leave my best friend—my partner—behind? But this isn’t Afghanistan. And Murph’s been out of the field for more than three years. It’s too dangerous.
“You’re coming back,” Ry says as he strides toward the door. “We’re all coming back.”
19
Wyatt
An hour into the flight to Salt Lake City and Hope hasn’t said one word to me. She cried when she hugged Murphy. Then Cara and Wren. She’s still convinced she’s not coming back.
The private plane is nicer than any I’ve ever been on. A perk of the partnership Ryker and Dax formed last year.
Two rows of plush seats face each other with a large table in the middle, and West sketches the layout of Simon’s compound on his tablet.
“The walls won’t be a problem,” he says. “We’ve scaled higher. What about the house itself?”
Hope leans forward, her elbows on her knees. The exhaustion in her eyes is killing me. I want to wrap her in my arms and carry her so far from Salt Lake City, that asshole will never find her.
But I can’t. We have to stop him first.
“It’s impenetrable.” After a sigh, she runs her fingers through her dark hair. “Simon has this futuristic security system. It’s…biologic—no—bio…”
“Biometric?” West asks. “The access control? We can blast right through any locks.”
“No. I mean it scans anyone inside. Body weight, height, heart rate, respiration rate. He paid a fortune for it. Whenever anyone new showed up, Brix had to program them into the system.” Her voice cracks, and I hand her a bottle of water. Hope’s gaze collides with mine, and she mouths, “Thanks.”
It’s something.
“Then we’ll hack it. Rip, call Cam if you need her help.” West flips his tablet around so Hope can see the blueprints Wren found online. “We need to label each one of these rooms.”
