The words landed quietly. Cassandra’s composure cracked for a different reason now. Her chin dipped, and when she looked back up, her eyes were bright behind her glasses. “Yeah well, I would. For you.”
“Wait.” Ryder leaned forward. “You two have never actually met?”
Cassandra glanced at him. The defensiveness was still there, but the emotional beat with Fallon had loosened something. “No. We haven’t.”
“We met in an online support group,” Fallon said. “For people with chronic conditions. Both of us dealing with bodies that fight us on everything.” She glanced at the screen. “Cassandra has her own health issues. Different from mine, but we understood each other.”
“Online friendships are still friendships,” Cassandra said. She was looking at Fallon now, not Ryder. “I don’t need to be in the room with her to know I’d do anything for her.”
The room was quiet. Isaac sat with the weight of that. “How’d you go from chronic illness to taking down assholes who prey on vulnerable people?”
Cassandra shrugged one should. “Girls gotta have hobbies.”
A smile pulled on Fallon’s face as she watched her friend. It was obvious to Isaac just how much these two cared about and relied on each other. The fact they’d never met face to face was hard to believe.
Two women who’d never touched, never shared a room, never had a conversation that wasn’t filtered through a phone or a laptop. And they’d built something that had taken down twelve people who deserved it.
Ryder was quiet, too. Isaac glanced at him and found his friend sitting very still, his usual restless energy gone. He was also staring at Cassandra.
“I’m okay, Cass,” Fallon said. “I trust Isaac, and he trusts Ryder. That’s enough for me. So you don’t have to leave the place you feel safe.”
Cassandra straightened in her chair and pulled the professional composure back around herself. “What does he know about how we work?” A nod toward Ryder.
“Just what Isaac told him,” Fallon said.
Ryder shifted forward, looking at Fallon. “One thing I don’t understand. Isaac said that after you finish a job, after you’ve already gotten away clean, you go back. You show up at a public event where the target is present and plant something on them. A calling card.”
“We changed that after the second target,” she said. “It was Cass’s idea.”
“It’s not a calling card,” Cassandra said. “It’s a signature.”
“Whatever it is. The job’s done. You’re clean. And you go back into the room with the person you’ve robbed.” Ryder shook his head. “From a tactical standpoint, that’s the single riskiest thing you could possibly do. Why?”
Cassandra’s chin lifted. This was territory she cared about, and it showed. “Because taking their money isn’t enough. They need to know it wasn’t random. Every signature is specific to their crime. A hospital band for a man who stole from cancer families. A pension statement for someone who gutted retirement funds. When the info about what they did goes public, they know it wasn’t random.”
“So it’s psychological.”
“It’s justice. The legal system gave them a pass. We don’t.”
Ryder said nothing.
Isaac looked at him. Ryder’s mouth was slightly open, the next question visibly stalled somewhere between his brain and his tongue. He closed his mouth. Opened it again. Closed it.
Isaac had never seen that before. Ryder always had something to say.Always. And Cassandra, who by everything Fallon had told him about her was quiet and shy, had just shut him down without trying, without even looking at him, just by being passionate at what she believed in.
“That’s...” Ryder started. Stopped. “Yeah. That takes guts.”
Cassandra blinked. She’d been mid-conviction, still running hot, and Ryder’s tone pulled her back. She looked at him onthe screen for a beat longer than necessary, her brow creasing slightly.
“It’s necessary,” she said. Quieter now.
“Maybe. But it’s sure as shit brave.”
Cassandra looked away from the camera. When she looked back, a faint flush had crept along her jaw.
Ryder didn’t push. He leaned back and was quiet, and Isaac found himself watching two people who had no idea what was happening to them. Ryder, who talked nonstop, was choosing his words. Cassandra, who hid from strangers, kept looking at one.
Isaac glanced at Fallon. She was staring at the phone with her lips parted and something unguarded moving across her face. Surprise. Whatever was happening between Ryder and Cassandra on that screen, Fallon hadn’t expected it.
