Nobody disagrees.
“Fuck.” Ryker curses. “I want to argue. A part of me needs to. Just as a pressure release valve because standing here with Brandt’s name in this investigation feels like standing on cracked ice on a pond you don’t know the depth of.”
There it is. He’s a pressure-cooker inside right now. I reach for him and tug until he drops into the chair next to me.
When I put my hand on his thigh, he drops his gaze. His whole expression shifting as he lays his palm over top mine.
It feels so right, I can’t imagine life without this anchor.
Colt projects a map on the wall. “We’ve got a lot to cover. Where do you want to start, Ryker?”
He seems to find his footing fast. “Ranger. I need everything on Brandt. Financial ties, business associations, anyone he’s connected to that overlaps with what we’ve already discovered.”
“On it.”
“Jake,” he calls, “Cross-reference the shell companies from the auction site.”
“Copy.”
“And I want it clear to everyone in this room.” Ryker’s expression grows even more determined. “If it comes back clean, it comes back clean and we move forward assuming Trevor played us. If it comes back dirty, we chase it to the ground.Whatever that looks like. Thane, you’re up. Take us through everything. From the beginning.”
“This means you can’t kill Trevor,” Axle says.
Ryker looks at the ceiling then stares at Axle. “I know. Make it happen. Transfer him to the feds. Now.”
The meeting ends twenty minutes later. My head is full of words I’ve never heard before.
Two hours later, Trevor’s being handed off.
Ryker passes by the living room, stopping to check on me. “You got what you need?”
“All good. You focus on work. I’m just writing a list of people my father regularly associates with.”
That’s the last time I see him for hours. And he doesn’t come to bed. The house turns into a hive of men packing equipment, low tense conversations and the constant ringing of phones.
I’m curled in the bed with the light still on when Ryker quietly enters the bedroom.
“Hey,” I say, sleepy, a yawn cutting off what I was going to say.
He comes to the side of the bed, lowering down, the mattress dipping under his weight. June immediately hops down and heads to the area rug, just like he asked her to do last time.
His eyes are still tired, but some of the stress seems to have eased from his posture.
“We’re rolling out in a few hours.” His hand moves to my hip, gripping it through the blankets. “All of us are heading to Utah, to the Agile Headquarters. You included.”
“Oh.” I shift, sitting up. “I am?”
“My house is there,” he says, gauging my reaction.
When I don’t respond he seeks out my hand and curls it in his. “I’m not good at pretty words, so I’m just going to say this—I want you to move in with me.”
The way my eyebrows shoot up would probably be comical if he didn’t just ask me to move into his home with him.
“I know this is fast,” he offers.
I sit up more, my heart beginning to flutter.
He kisses my knuckles and I suddenly find the voice he knocked out of me. “It is, but everything with us seems to be fast. I’m not sure what I’d think if it wasn’t that way.”
