Rafe exhaled slowly.“Understood.We’ll be heading back soon.”
He noted that Riley flinched at that, but didn’t draw attention to it, and ended the call and set the phone down.
Riley was watching him closely now.
“That sounded bad,” she said.
“Yes,” Rafe agreed.“It is.It means that this might be a case of the two headed snake.It’s not just Chimera we’re after, but another actor in play.”
He plated the food as best he could and carried the plates to the table.Dorian took one without comment and passed the other to Riley.
“Eat,” Dorian said.“You look like it’s been a while between meals.”
She startled, then huffed.“That obvious?”
“To us,” Rafe said.
They ate in companionable quiet for a few minutes.The food was simple.Filling.Real.
Afterward, they cleaned up together, Dorian drying, Riley insisting on helping despite his protests, and took their coffee into the living area.
Rafe sat across from her, posture open, careful not to crowd.
“We need to ask you something,” he said.
Her shoulders tensed immediately.
He wished he could take it back.
But this was the job.And more than that, it was how you protected someone properly.You had to have all the information.
“What happened,” he said gently, “during the forty-eight hours he had you, and what is his name?”
The color drained from her face.
Her hands shook.
Rafe swore under his breath and leaned forward.“We can stop.You don’t have to—”
“No,” she said quickly.Too quickly.“I know you need to know.And ...I need to tell you.Hell, tell someone.”
She took a breath.Then another.
“I’ll tell you,” she said.
Rafe nodded, every instinct in him coiling tight as he prepared to listen.
And as soon as he had this bastard’s name, to hunt.
****
Riley didn’t startwith the forty-eight hours.
She couldn’t.
Those memories were sharp glass and dark corners, and if she reached for them too fast, they would cut her open before she was ready.So, she began where the thread had first snagged—where everything had gone wrong long before blood and fear and locked doors.
“I have to start at the beginning,” she said quietly.“And that is a shift I had in a clinic.As a medic, you can pick up shifts at private clinics if you are after a bit of extra cash, and I was.I signed up to a clinic I hadn’t worked in before.I’d been contracted in for a short rotation—disaster relief after a severe weather event and was on the trauma stabilization team.”
