5. Ryder

5

"You expect me to believe that? Nobody could be that stupid."

"I was, I swear! She said she loved me."

Ronald Hill, Luna Maara's former accountant, squirmed in his seat, and Ryder couldn't blame him. The smell of urine was strong in the small motel room. Sitting in soaked-through slacks couldn't be comfortable, especially when Ana Petrova—also known as Lilith, the she-demon—was staring with a mixture of annoyance and incredulity. Yes, she was wearing a scarf that covered the bottom half of her face, as was Ryder, but her eyes conveyed exactly what she was thinking.

Ron Hill might have been a reasonable accountant, but he wasn't much of a fugitive. Over the past two months, Hallie had given up most of her spare time to help Ryder track the motherfucker from Las Vegas to New York, to New Jersey, to London, to Zurich, to Vienna, and finally to Tbilisi.

Agatha had hacked Hill's email and found that he'd gone to meet his girlfriend. They'd all assumed that the pictures of the beautiful blonde were clickbait, photos stolen by a scammer and used to con unsuspecting marks into parting with their cash. But no, Hill swore that Irina Vardanashvili was a real person, although it wasn't yet clear whether that was her real name. She'd met him at Tbilisi International, and from there, they'd headed to the Wyndham Grand hotel and spent three weeks having rabid sex and spending Luna's money on spa treatments, designer clothing, and expensive meals. At the beginning of week four, Irina had blindfolded Hill, handcuffed him to the king-sized bed, and promised him a night he'd never forget.

She hadn't lied.

While he was incapacitated, she'd logged on to his laptop, stolen Luna's money—again—and vanished into the depths of the city. A maid had called the cops at seven o'clock the next morning, but Hill couldn't exactly report the crime, so he'd been trying to find Irina himself. In a city he didn't know. In a country whose language he barely spoke. At least, that was his story, and given that Ana was asking the questions, Ryder was inclined to believe the jackass.

Now they had to decide on their next course of action. The plan had been to locate Hill, gently persuade him to return Luna's money, and then relocate him to a police station in Vegas. Luna had reported the theft, but seeing as Hill had fled overseas, the detective in charge had just hemmed and hawed and said there wasn't much he could do.

Hence Ryder taking matters into his own hands.

Kind of.

Emmy had lent him Ana, her half-sister, with a directive to "Get this done, get your head out of your arse, and get back in the game."

To say she'd been pissed at him in San Gallicano was an understatement. The dressing-down she'd given him behind closed doors had made his XO at SEAL Team Five look like Betty White. But Emmy hadn't yelled. No, her voice turned deadly quiet, which had actually been worse.

"You broke rule number one, Metcalfe," she'd said, in full ice-queen mode. "You got involved with a principal."

"I didn't sleep with her."

"You didn't have to. The way she looks at you, lines were crossed, and she ended up in serious danger." Emmy held up a hand. "Yes, I know Knox was fucking around with a woman too, and believe me, I'll be kicking his arse if he got distracted. But she wasn't the principal. She wasn't an attention-seeking pop star whose mother-slash-manager has turned complaining into an art form."

"Luna's not the person you think she is."

"Oh, really? Have you forgotten why you ended up at the turtle sanctuary in the first place?"

Emmy made a fair point, but she also didn't know the real Luna Maara. Ryder knew he'd fucked up, though. Luna's near-death experience was only a small part of what had gone wrong that day.

"Do you want my resignation?"

Emmy's hesitation was long enough to make him squirm, but finally, she sighed. "No. But next time you decide to catch feelings for a drama queen, do it in your own time. Got it?"

"Got it."

Ryder was still on thin ice with the boss, but she'd been good to Luna. Spent time talking with her after Ryder messed up, found her a good lawyer, and helped her to get settled in Vegas. Plus Emmy had grudgingly okayed the trip to Georgia, so he had to be grateful for that. But now Hill had thrown a wrench into the works. They had the suspect, but they didn't have the money. The scammer had been scammed by a true con artist.

Ana stepped back and beckoned Ryder into the filthy bathroom. If this motel had one star, it had been stolen.

"The man is a fool," she said.

"I realise that."

"Good. So now you have a decision to make—what's more important to you? Do you want this mudak in prison, or do you want to go after the money?"

"Can't we do both?"

Ana shook her head. "If we're going to find Irina, we need his cooperation. And we'll only get that by promising his freedom. Otherwise, he has no reason to help."

"So we find the money, and then we drop him off in Vegas."

"Nice idea, but it won't work. A snatch and grab is one thing, but if we spend time with him here in Georgia, he'll wind up knowing things about us that I don't want coming out in court." A shrug, and she lowered her voice. "How about I just shoot him when we're done?"

Ryder would be okay with that, but Luna wouldn't. And he'd promised that he'd never tell her another lie.

Which meant he really did have a decision to make—money or justice? Either way, Hill would be out of Luna's life, so which option would give her the better outcome? The satisfaction of knowing that Hill was bending over in the showers, getting fucked in the ass? Or having the money she'd spent her whole life earning? Right now, Irina had the cash, and Amethyst Puckett was squatting in the home her daughter had bought. Luna had been left with next to nothing.

The decision sucked, but it wasn't a hard one to make.

"We find the money. And don't shoot him," Ryder added. "Will Emmy be okay with this?"

Ryder was well aware that he'd been trying her patience lately. His performance in San Gallicano had been less than stellar, Knox's too. They'd almost lost a client—twice—and then Ryder had committed the ultimate professional sin. Only the fact that Emmy was a closet romantic as well as a bitch had saved them.

Ana shrugged.

"I can take unpaid leave."

"Emmy doesn't care about money, only justice."

And her team. She cared about her team. Give and take, she'd once told him. Give and take. She couldn't take a hundred and ten percent when it mattered if she didn't give at other times, and with some of the jobs she agreed to take on, she needed that hundred and ten percent.

"Thank you for being here. For helping me."

Another shrug. "We're doing this for Luna as well." Then, more quietly, "Emmy knows what it's like to have a difficult mother."

That was the first mention Ryder had ever heard of Emmy's mom. He knew from the Blackwood grapevine that she and Ana shared the same father, but her mother was a mystery.

"I always assumed her mother was dead."

"She might as well be." Ana's expression hardened again. "Let's get this done. We should introduce ourselves at the office here because we might need extra manpower."

When they laid out the terms to Hill, he readily agreed to help. Ryder didn't trust him an inch, but he doubted Hill would try to run, not after they'd found him so easily the first time, and especially not after Ana threatened to gut him if she had to hunt him down again. The man was a morally bankrupt opportunist, not a hardened criminal. He'd help them to find Irina and the money, and in return, he wouldn't have to spend the rest of his life in a six-by-eight-foot box with a roommate named Piranha.

What a fuckin' weasel. Ryder's heart ached for Luna, for the life she'd been pushed into. Everyone around her took advantage of her talent, from her mom and her cousin to the staff she employed. But equally, she didn't like being alone. He hoped Kory was supporting her. The guy was an asshole, but he was a rich asshole, and probably the "friend" who demanded the least from her.

Three hours later, they'd broken the news about Irina to Emmy; briefed Khatia, an investigator from the office in Tbilisi who would be assisting them; and relocated to an apartment on the outskirts of the city that Blackwood used as a safe house from time to time. Their team in Georgia was small, only forty people, but they were well-trained and also well-placed to operate in Russia when necessary.

The apartment was sparsely furnished but clean, and Khatia had sent an intern to pick up groceries. Ana handcuffed Hill to a chair while she made coffee in a cafetière, and Khatia settled in at the kitchen table with her laptop and a bowl of cashew nuts. The first step was an in-depth interview with Hill to find out everything he knew about Irina. Ryder knew from working with Hallie that the smallest clue could lead to a big break, and all they were certain of at the moment was that Irina was a beautiful liar who preyed on weak-minded men. Plus she was smart, ruthless, and an excellent actress. In her emails, she'd claimed to work as a freelance interior designer in Tbilisi, with family back in South Ossetia who relied on her for financial support. Hill had been sending her money out of his own pocket even before he emptied Luna's bank accounts. Irina had begged for more to fund her grandma's cancer treatment, he claimed. The weeks spent living in luxury on Luna's dime had merely been an added bonus.

"Milk?" Ana asked Khatia.

"Just black."

"I take milk," Hill said, and Ana scowled at him.

"You'll have what you're given and like it."

Ryder wanted to punch his fucking teeth out.

To stop himself from doing exactly that, he stepped into the hallway and checked his personal phone. He didn't use it much because life revolved around work these days, but he'd given the number to Luna. Work comms weren't private, and his friendship with Luna had moved beyond that.

He saw the missed call.

Dialled his voicemail, heart thudding against his ribcage.

"I…I don't know where to start. Some guy sent me linguine. And earrings. The earrings came first, but they went to the theatre, not my apartment, which was kind of creepy but not really because lots of weirdos send me gifts, but now there's pasta and he knows where I live. And I don't know who he is, but he seems to think he's a dead Roman guy and I'm Cleopatra, so I'm pretty sure he's a psycho. And…and I don't know what to do. That's crazy, right? I mean the Mark Antony guy, not me not knowing what to do, because I never know what to do. Should I eat the pasta? I'm so, so hungry, and I think maybe the microwave broke because there's smoke, but not, like, loads of smoke. The fire alarm didn't go off or anything. Anyhow, I…I don't even know why I'm calling you. Forget I said all that, okay?"

The line went dead.

What the actual fuck?

He tried to call Luna, but there was no answer.

Shit. He must have cursed out loud because Ana poked her head through the doorway.

"Problem?"

"I don't know."

"Elaborate."

Ryder replayed the recording, on speaker this time, and it sounded even worse the second time around. Luna was rambling, but she was also scared.

"What does that mean?" Ana asked. "A dead Roman guy sent her linguine?"

"Maybe she's drunk?" Khatia suggested.

She didn't sound drunk; she sounded terrified.

"Luna doesn't drink much," Hill put in.

"Nobody asked you," Ana and Khatia said in perfect unison, and Khatia kicked the leg of the chair he was sitting on for good measure.

Ana took a sip of her coffee, then swore because it was too hot. "You tried calling her back?"

"There's no answer."

"So call the Vegas office. Get them to send someone to her apartment."

"It's five thirty over there."

"Are you worried or not?"

Yes, he was. The Vegas team confirmed they'd send an agent to do a welfare check right away, but Ryder couldn't settle. He leaned on the counter as Khatia started questioning Hill, ignoring the way Ana glared when he tapped his foot.

After half an hour of back and forth, Hill turned to him. "Luna's a survivor. You shouldn't worry about her."

The gall of the man. "The way you didn't when you stole her money?"

"It was Amethyst who liked to spend the money, not Luna."

"And that makes it okay? Because one person took advantage of Luna, it was fine for you to do it too?"

"She was due to get another seven-figure sum from her record label in May. It wasn't as if I planned to leave her bankrupt. Amethyst would only have wasted everything on clothes and shoes, and Irina's grandma was going to die if she didn't get experimental immunotherapy."

"Did you ever even meet her grandma?"

Hill looked at the table. "Irina said she had to stay in isolation due to the risk of infection."

Khatia's response was scathing. "If her grandma is still alive, she's probably living in a beach house in Batumi."

Finally, Ryder's phone lit up, and he answered before it had a chance to ring.

"Is she okay?"

"This is Lance from the executive protection team. She's fine. Just tired, is all."

"What about the message she left me?"

"She seemed embarrassed when I mentioned it. Said someone sent her takeout, and she overreacted."

"Someone sent her takeout?" The pasta she'd mentioned in her message? "Who?"

"She didn't elaborate on that."

"Didn't you ask?"

"Uh, no? The office said I needed to do a welfare check, nothing more, and Ms. Maara wasn't real talkative."

Ryder gave a heavy sigh. He couldn't ask a colleague to get involved in his issues with Luna; it wasn't their place to do so.

"Thanks for your help, buddy."

"No problem."

"She's okay?" Ana asked when he hung up.

"Physically, yeah."

"But you're still worried about her?"

He nodded. "She's had a hard time these past few months."

"Then go to her. The plane is still at the airport."

"What about Irina?"

Khatia rolled her eyes. "You don't speak Georgian, you don't speak Russian; you'll just get in the way."

Ryder sucked in a breath and voiced the bigger issue. "And what about the boss?"

"You're not the boss?" Hill asked Ana.

Khatia kicked his leg this time. "Shut up, brrochi."

"Here, I'm the boss. And don't worry about the blonde one. She's a sucker for a happy ending."

"Are you?"

At work, Ana was unapproachable, untouchable, and for the most part, unlikeable. But Ryder suspected that was an image she cultivated rather than her natural personality. He'd met her boyfriend a time or two, and he seemed remarkably normal. They even had a kid. Although if rumours were to be believed, the kid was anything but a typical five-year-old.

"If you ever suggest that again, I'll remove your tongue with a rusty carving knife." Ana pointed to the door. "But I do have money on the two of you hooking up. Get the hell out of here." Then she turned to Hill and smiled. He shrank back into his seat. "We have everything under control."