Playing Dirty (Risky Business, #2)(89)

“Can you tell me what happened?” I asked. “How did you and Parker get caught? How’d you escape?”

“What do you remember?” he asked.

I shrugged. “It’s hazy and confused. Some of it feels like a dream, or a nightmare. I remember him hurting you, hurting Parker, then they had me pinned down in that hallway and were going to …” I cleared the sudden lump from my throat.

“Leading Viktor to us was the plan,” he said. “We didn’t realize until too late that he’d set a trap.”

“What kind of trap?”

“You,” he said simply. Reaching in his pocket, he took out a cell phone and pressed a few buttons. I heard my voice, tinny through the speaker.

“It’s too late. I don’t know what to do. It-it hurts … so much.”

I felt the blood leave my face. Those were words I’d said to Megan on the phone yesterday morning.

“Viktor said he had you,” Ryker continued, pocketing the phone. “And that was his proof. We had no choice but to go in.”

“Oh God … it’s my fault—”

“No, Sage, don’t think that way. It wasn’t your fault. Plans turn to shit all the time. Malone—my partner—had been paid off by Viktor. I still can’t believe it. He’s the one who tipped him off and got him access to tap your line. Which also explains why he’d do something as colossally stupid as sending you to Leo’s bar in search of me. He was hoping that would blow my cover.”

“But then how did you escape?” I asked. “Viktor had you tied up …”

“Parker damn near broke his arm,” he said. “I know he dislocated his shoulder getting free. He went after Viktor and they fought, but it was a pretty short fight.”

I remembered the iron shaft sticking out of Viktor’s chest, and swallowed.

“By that time, Branna had arrived with the cavalry. He and I came after you.”

“Branna?”

“I told you she’s loyal only to herself, she doesn’t actually work for Leo. She knew Leo had found out so she went to the cops. Turns out, she was working with someone else, some politician on the Senate Homeland Security Committee. So the feds have been investigating Leo, too, through her.”

“So she’s on your side?” I asked.

“Yeah. I guess so. For now.”

We stood in silence for a minute as I processed all this.

“Want a ride home?” he asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

We walked outside and I didn’t object when he put his arm around my shoulders. Leaning into him seemed to be a good idea.

He helped me into his truck and a half hour later, we pulled up into my apartment building.

“Parker said your place should be fixed up,” he said.

The name was like an acknowledgment of the thick tension between us. The engine was idling, but I made no move to get out of the truck and Ryker didn’t turn it off. We just sat there.

“So you slept with him,” he said at last.

I nodded. “Yeah,” I managed to say. “I thought you and I were done. That you were with Branna and had almost killed me.”

“A rebound thing then?” he asked, a note of cautious hope in his voice. “Trying to get back at me?”

Had it been? Maybe. It was possible. So much had happened and my emotions had been left reeling. It was hard to say what I felt, and impossible to know what I wanted.

“I quit my job,” I said, glancing over at him. His aviators masked his eyes, but I saw his body relax slightly. “I … I won’t be seeing Parker anymore.”

“You said his name, you know.” He rested an arm across the top of the steering wheel. “When Viktor told you to choose, you said Parker.”

I didn’t reply, just stared out the windshield the same as he did.

“Did you mean it?” he asked. “Were you choosing him? Or were you screaming for help?”

And there it was. My out. If I chose to take it.

“I think,” I began, choosing my words with care, “that I would understand if you want to call it quits between us.”

“Is that what you want?” he turned to look at me. “Because I sure as hell don’t.”

He reached for me and dragged me onto his lap. “I’m not giving up,” he said. “I gave up once before and I shouldn’t have. This time it’s going to be different.”

He kissed me, his fingers sliding into my hair and his tongue tangling with mine. Sweet relief and an echo of heartbreak expanded inside my chest. I couldn’t make sense of my jumbled feelings, so I shut off my brain and kissed him back.

I didn’t know how long we kissed—time didn’t have much meaning—but when we finally came up for air, it felt as though something had shifted between us.

“I have to go to the station,” he said, pressing his lips to my cheek, then next to my eye. “But I’ll be back, okay?”

I nodded. “Okay.”

I watched him drive out of the lot before going inside and up to my apartment. As Parker had promised, the place was once again pristine. I guessed those CIA guys knew how to do that sort of thing. It was amazing. I was just glad I hadn’t had to pay for it.

The first thing I did was take a shower, then dug out fresh gauze from my medicine cabinet for my hand. I needed to get that prescription filled, but was too tired to mess with it.