Page 55 of Wicked Obsession

As he silently edged his way closer to the shooting, Ryder considered things. His hellcat hadn’t cried out when she’d been hit. That made it unlikely the bastards were aware of what had happened. Without that knowledge, Harp would assume that Ryder and Stony would stay close to Langley.

And if she’d remained uninjured, he would have been right.

If he were Harper, he’d work with the traitorto remove Ryder’s ally from the situation. Then, with no outside interference, one of the men would go high to get an angle to take out Ryder and Stony. The other would wait till it was clear, then go in the circle to grab Langley.

That meant he could generally predict where Harper and the traitor were without hearing another shot.

IfHarper was playing it as Ryder thought he would. That was a fucking big if.

Running through a few more scenarios, Ryder decided the original strategy was the most likely. Harper was a big proponent of keeping it simple, and every other plan would be much more complicated, time consuming, and have a greater chance of failure.

Scenario one was the best choice.

Ryder shifted his angle slightly. He wanted Harper. No matter which of his two friends had sold him out, Harp was the man in charge.

He slowed further as he grew close to where he expected to find the bastards.

Luck was on his side—he came up behind the man. An instant later, Ryder recognized Harper. “Drop your weapon,” he ordered.

Harper froze. He didn’t release the SCAR, but he did raise his hands—and the weapon—over his head before turning slowly to face Ryder. There was nothing except contempt on his face. “Thesmart move would have been to take me out while you had your chance, but you’re such a fucking boy scout.

Ryder ignored the bullshit. “I’m not telling you again. Drop your weapon.”

“And if I don’t, what are you going to do?”

“Shoot you.”

“You don’t have the balls to fire at me, Pienkowski.”

A menacing voice came from his ten o’clock. “Drop it.”

The first thing Ryder saw was the weapon aimed his direction. The second was the man holding it.

Griff.

He’d miscalculated the positions of the two men, and he was going to die because of it.

In the next instant, Griff fired. The bullets went past him.

Motion caught Ryder’s eye. Harper was bringing down his SCAR in a hurry. There wasn’t time to worry about Griff firing again.

Ryder squeezed off a few rounds, taking Harp down before he could get his weapon in position. He wanted to check on Harper, make sure he wasn’t faking it, but Griff was armed and standing there.

“Stay the fuck down,” Griff growled. “I don’t want to shoot you again.”

It finally penetrated that Griff was looking past him, that the shots earlier had gone off to his side. Ryder turned and things became clearer.

Mako was on the ground, bleeding. He’d always walked softer than anyone else on the team and Ryder hadn’t known he was back there. Griff hadn’t been trying to kill him—Griff had saved his life…and he’d had to shoot his best friend to do it. Fuck.

“I’m going to check on Harper,” he told his buddy. “You can handle Mako?”

“Yeah, I got this.”

Ryder nodded, and weapon ready, approached the older man.

Harper hadn’t put the plates in his vest, that was apparent from the blood covering his chest. He kicked the SCAR out of reach and then bent down to check for a pulse. There was nothing. Maybe he’d feel something later for the man he used to think of as his mentor, but right now there was only relief.

He dug through the man’s pockets, found the cell phone jammer, and turned it off. Ryder hoped that Stony was checking the phone, watching for a signal to call for a medivac.

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