Page 49 of Ryder
“Please, make yourself comfortable,” I muttered snarkily, and he grinned.
“I’m serious.”
“Yeah, of course I wondered. Why?”
He looked unimpressed. “Jeez, do you just permanently keep your head up your ass? I mean, it’s pretty fucking obvious to me.”
I tried sitting up to glare at him, but I was worried about flashing my junk again.
“So fucking enlighten me, then you can sod off.”
He was shaking his head as he got up again, making a huffy sound.
“I’d imagine that only a woman who’d had her power taken by a man, in some violent way, would even consider drugging a man for sex. Maybe someone did to her what she did to you.”Jesus.
He headed for the door. “Try to keep off the phone for the rest of the uh… morning… I’m fucking shattered.”
After he’d left the room, I wondered why the fuck that hadn’t occurred to me already. Maybe he was right, and maybe my head really had been firmly lodged up my ass this entire time.
I picked up the phone again.
Me:I’m sorry if I scared you.
I fell asleep waiting for a response, which I never found until the next morning, when I finally woke.
Unknown:This number has been disconnected, and your message could not be delivered.
I sat up, staring at the phone in horror, my heart thudding in my chest. No. NO. I couldn’t lose her again now. And that’s what had me thumping my fist against Ice’s door, dressed only in a pair of boxer shorts, at an hour he considered ungodly, especially after being awake with me at gone 3am.
“What the fuck do you want?” He snapped, poking his face through the few inches of door he’d allowed. His hair was sticking up, and he looked exhausted.
“She disconnected the phone. Jesus, Ice. I need to be able to reach her.”
He slammed the door in my face, and I stood there blinking for a minute, before I absorbed the fact that he wasn’t going to help me. I deserved that, but it still fucking left me with no idea what to do. I turned to leave, and as I did, the door opened again a crack.
“She’s playing you. That response you got is a text, not an automated message. Now fuck off, and don’t bother me again until after noon. At least.”
Oh.That game playing bitch.
It was only later that afternoon that I found out that Ice had tracked a camera feed from the alleyway, and had an idea of which building she was now staying in. The plan was for me to reach out to her, and keep her busy on the phone, while they moved to sneak up on her.
The idea of one of my brothers even touching her was almost unbearable. When had I become so protective of the person who’d assaulted me? I pretty much got in the faces of everyone going to retrieve her, issuing demands that they don’t hurt her, and that nobody fucking touches her, except what was necessary to take her captive.
Reacher dragged me away from the team, so they could leave.
“You’re getting attached to the bitch. Remember what she did to you, brother. What she’s done to countless other men. How she killed a guy. She’s not to be trusted, or protected. Or kept alive. Understood?”
I swallowed down the instant protests in my mind, and the almost debilitating urge to grab him by the throat and threaten his life, if anyone caused her harm. What the fuck was that? Instead, I retreated to my room, poured a tall glass of vodka, and sat on my bed with both phones in front of me.
My part was to keep her busy. It was time to test Ice’s theory, that she’d faked disconnecting her phone, and I’d deliberately left it until now to check.
I hit redial on the last call in my call log, praying that she’d pick up. It rang three times. Four. Dammit. She was gone for real.
“I’m going to destroy this phone,” she said hurriedly, the second she answered. “It was a mistake to make contact with you after that night.”
Shit. “Wait! Look, I can’t believe I feel like I need to apologise to the person who did what they did to me, but I didn’t want to scare you off. I don’t know why, but I can’t bear the idea of you being gone. I have no idea how you did this to me…”
Honesty was the best policy right now.
