Chapter Thirty: I Don’t Remember Me （Before You）

Ryder

I DON’T REMEMBER ME (BEFORE YOU)

Performed by Brothers Osborne

I’d driven home from the bar, thinking of all the ways to tell Gia how I felt about her when I still wasn’t even sure how to express them to myself. I didn’t know what or how we could make what was stirring between us stick, but Sadie was right. I needed to let Gia know I was interested in letting these feelings grow, interested in trying to explore them. If I didn’t, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.

When I’d seen the gigantic man dragging Gia through the kitchen, it had taken me two seconds too long to realize what was happening. My alarm system hadn’t alerted me to anyone outside my door. None of Maddox’s men had issued an alert. And yet, a man with a gun was coming down the hallway from the bedrooms, and another held Gia against his chest.

I’d already leaped from my truck as the sirens filled the air behind me. Backup was on the way, but the worst could happen in the minutes it took for them to get here. So I’d raced toward the door with my pulse pounding viciously, dimming the sounds around me.

What I was going to do when I got inside, when I faced a man who looked like he could body slam me with a pinky and another man with a gun, I hadn’t known, but I’d do anything I could to prevent them from taking Gia and Addy.

As I’d burst into the entryway, the giant wearing a ski mask and I had shared a steely glare. He’d looked behind me to where the sounds of the sirens were getting closer. Then, he’d tossed Gia at me as if she was nothing more than a toy. I’d barely had time to catch her before she would have hit the floor. The relief that had coursed through me at having her in my arms had been short and bittersweet as terror for Addy burned another hole in me.

It wasn’t until I’d come back up from the game room to see Addy and Gia wrapped together that I thought my heart actually started to beat again. And even then, it had been a pained stutter full of anger and frustration directed at the situation and at the cartel. Maybe it should have been directed at Gia and the task force for allowing the men to get this close, but it wasn’t.

The person who’d led the cartel to my door was Ravyn.

In my bedroom, as I held Gia in my arms and let her cry, I could almost feel the remorse beating through her. I knew because I’d come to know her pretty damn well through the intensity of the last few days. She’d blame herself for not seeing this coming. She’d feel like a failure for not defending us against a giant and a man with a gun.

Maybe we all held a bit of responsibility for allowing them to come at us so easily. As thrown as I’d been by Addy’s mere existence, by the life she’d been leading on the run, and by the feelings that were pummeling me for Gia, I hadn’t considered the cartel threat with enough seriousness. Even after they’d broken in and stolen Addy’s backpack, it had still felt as if I was watching it all happen from a distance—as if it wasn’t real.

And I’d almost lost them because of it.

There was enough regret to go around.

No more. We’d figure out a way to keep everyone safe, and we’d do it together.

A knock was followed by my brother’s fiancée striding into the room with an old-school doctor’s bag in her hand. McK’s gaze bounced back and forth between me and Gia, who was still tucked up against my chest.

“Go see Maddox while I check Gia out,” McK said. When I made no effort to move, Gia pushed against me, pulling away and wiping at her face.

“I’m okay,” she said, but her voice was still scratchy and hoarse, and when I looked at her neck, there was a distinct purple mark surging to the surface.

I reached out and ran gentle fingers along the discoloration. “You’re not okay.”

She pulled my hand into hers and squeezed. Her eyes were a soft amber at the moment, spiked with colors of the fields in the spring.

Another knock, and Maddox’s head poked around the door. “Ryder, can I see you?”

He and McK shared a look, and I was almost certain she’d told him to come in and get me. My eyes narrowed on the two of them, but they didn’t let on that this had been planned.

“Go,” Gia said. “I’m fine, but I’ll let McKenna check me out.”

“If nothing else, maybe you can get her to stop talking and rest her damn voice,” I said to McKenna as I rose from the bed. I took Gia’s phone from my pocket, hesitating, not wanting to leave it any more than I wanted to leave her.

I set the phone on the bedside table and then walked out without looking back, because if I did and saw the self-incrimination and sadness there that I’d felt in her tears, I’d run back to her.

As I shut my bedroom door behind me, Maddox’s face turned grim.

“Where’s Addy?” I asked.

“Mom and Dad showed up as soon as I told them what happened. They’ve got her in her room, packing a few things. Enrique caught one of the men.” He turned on his heel, and I followed him into my living room where broken glass allowed a bitter wind to rip through the space.

It wasn’t the giant, but another man also dressed all in black. A ski mask covered his face from which two dark eyes glared, and his jacket was unzipped, showing off a bullet-proof vest with two bullets lodged in it. He was zip-tied to one of my dining room chairs with his hands behind his back.

A pistol sat on the table next to a Glock that I was pretty sure was Gia’s. Both weapons were out of his reach, but easily within Enrique’s. The DEA agent’s face was dark with fury.

I had my own fury I directed not at the man tied up but at the man who was supposed to be here watching Gia’s back. I crossed the room, slammed a finger into his chest, and demanded, “Where the hell were you?”

Maddox was next to me in a second, hauling me back by my arm and forcing space between us.

“I was in Kentucky!” Enrique said. “I can’t fucking chase down leads on Vito from here. Gia knew where I was, and I was almost back when Rory called. I heard the APB on the two ATVs your brother issued and found this dickwad heading up over the fire road at the back of the property. Same escape route he used before. Fucking moron.”

I couldn’t help it. There was something about the agent that didn’t sit well with me. Nothing he could say or do would ever allow me to fully trust him.

Maddox pushed me again, shoving me farther away. Then, he turned to Enrique and said, “What has he told us?”

“Nothing, but I’ll have Rory run his face and prints.” The DEA agent glowered at me.

Maddox pulled the guy’s mask off, and the face that greeted me made my stomach fall.

The man met my stare with a raised chin.

“I know you,” I grunted out. The man didn’t say anything, but Maddox and Enrique both turned to me, eyes narrowed, waiting for me to expand. “He works at the Grand Laredo. He’s one of Jaime’s men.” I moved forward, leaning down into his face. “Is Jaime mixed up with the Lovatos, or is it just you?”

The man said nothing.

Maddox tugged me away from him as if he was afraid I’d do something stupid. Except, I wasn’t sure the idea of beating this man until he talked was stupid at all. I’d never been one to use my fists to solve problems. I’d played football, I’d broken up plenty of fights, and I’d defended my siblings, but I wasn’t someone with an innate need to pummel things to the ground to escape my demons. And yet, I was overwhelmed with the desire to beat the living shit out of the man sitting calmly in my dining room chair. I wanted to cause him more pain than he’d caused Gia and more fear than he’d caused my little girl.

I wanted answers. From him. From his goddamn boss.

I thought back to Gia’s question this morning about Jaime. I’d been quick to deny his involvement. I didn’t want to believe the person who’d taught me everything I needed to know about turning our ranch into a five-star resort could be behind any of this. And yet, here was more proof.

A memory tickled that twisted my insides another notch. After an Eastern Dude Ranchers’ Association meeting, just before Ravyn and I were due to get married, Jaime and I had met at the bar of the hotel for drinks. I’d spilled my happy guts, rambling on about babies and marriage, and he’d shaken his head in regret, saying a wife and kids would only slow me down. I’d had a drink too many, and I’d shoved my phone in his face, showing him a rare picture I’d captured of Ravyn and me, daring him to deny how perfect we were together and insisting he’d eventually understand when he found his one true love like I had. He’d taken the phone from me, expanded the screen, and watched it for a long time before returning it. A dark look had taken over his face as he’d said, “She’s beautiful. But I’ve learned beauty is only a shield for deception, my friend. Believe me when I tell you, she does not know how to be loyal.”

He”d gotten up and walked away before I could defend Ravyn.

Not once had he indicated he knew her.

Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe it was all just one coincidence after another.

But I knew with a sinking feeling that it wasn’t.

Jaime had been the reason she’d run. I’d been a fool, spouting love and happily ever afters, and led the demon right to her door.

“He knew her. Jaime knew Ravyn, didn’t he?” I demanded of the tied-up asshole. He said nothing, but his eyes flickered to the side and back. An acknowledgment. Rage raced through my veins. They’d taken everything from me once and tried to take it again today. No more. No more! “Who was she to him?”

“She’s his sister,” Gia’s hoarse voice had me twisting around to see her on the entryway steps with McKenna at her side. She had an icepack to her throat, and her phone in her hand.

“What?” It was Enrique who released the shocked question into the room.

Gia swayed as she stepped into the living room, and I took two steps toward her, but it was McK who put an arm around her.

“I’ll let Rory explain,” she said, sinking onto the couch and putting her phone on the coffee table.

A woman’s voice spoke to the room over the line. “I’ve been scouring the internet for Anna-Ravyn’s code. I told Gia this morning that I found a bunch of places she’d scrubbed clean, erasing someone from existence. It took me most of the day to unwind it, but I did. She was born Natalia Emily Laredo to Emiliano Rodrigo Lopez and Maria Rosalinda Laredo. She’s six years younger than her brother, Jaime Emiliano Lopez Laredo. She was sent away to boarding school at twelve, spent her life amongst the wealthiest children in the country, and then went to MIT, where she stunned her professors with her computer skills. Both parents are dead. Maria Rosalinda’s death was deemed a drug overdose, whispered to be a suicide. Emiliano Senior crashed in a Venezuelan jungle on a small plane, and the body was never found.”

“So, their father was involved in the cartel?” Enrique asked.

“I don’t think so. The plane crash happened as the Lovatos were just moving up in the underworld,” Rory said. “I think this has to do with Jaime’s time in California. He’s got an IQ off the charts and had a place at the University of Boulder in their engineering program, but instead, he was shuffled off to California to work in the fields alongside some cousins from Mexico.” She hesitated. “Why didn’t this flag us before?”

“It did,” Enrique grunted out. “My time in Lexington was to see if I could tie him to the gang of foot soldiers they had there. But Laredo has friends in high places who insist he’s nothing but a wealthy rancher.” The DEA agent looked at me as if I’d been the one to insist on it. I would have. I would have bet more than I could afford to lose on Jaime being a decent human. “Any time I even suggested getting closer, I was told to back off.”

Silence settled for a moment as the implication of what he was saying ran through all of us. Gia’s voice was tortured from more than a bruised windpipe as she said, “You think Leland is covering this up?”

“Someone kept us from following any leads that hinted in his direction. Weren’t you supposed to spend time at his ranch?” Enrique asked Gia.

She nodded. “Yes, but when we got the lead in D.C. with Rory’s dad, they pulled me back.”

“Who pulled you?” Enrique asked.

Gia swallowed, and I could see the doubts that were spinning through her about her boss. “Is the line secure on your end right now, Rory?”

“I’m at my desk.” There was shuffling on the other end. “Let me call you back.”

She was gone, and silence filled the air. Gia pocketed her phone, a grim look on her face.

The truth settled over me. Jaime was behind this, pulling strings with a suave, confident smile that had fooled everyone, just like he’d fooled me. I’d trusted him, and by doing so, I’d handed Ravyn over to the wolves she’d been trying to escape. My chest felt as if I’d had a knife shoved into it. “I showed him a picture of her a few weeks before the wedding.” I rubbed my hand over my face. “Fuck. She was hiding from him, and I led him straight to her.”

“You are not responsible for her,” Maddox bit out. “Damnit, Ryder, she lied and kept secrets. If she’d been honest with you, we could have protected her. But she wasn’t. So don’t take this on. There is nothing you could have done differently.”

The man in the chair snorted, a dark and unforgiving sound, and all our eyes swung toward him. “No one is safe from the wolf. No one. I’m as dead as all of you are now.”

“What does he want with my daughter?” I lunged at the man, but Enrique held me back, only to pick up one of the guns from the table, spin it around, and aim it at the man.

“Talk, and we might be convinced to try to save your sorry-ass life.”

The man darted his eyes around, struggled at the zip ties, and then dropped his head. “The key. She has the key to the code he’s trying to finish. The box that will allow him complete access to any system in the world.”

“She doesn’t have it. She has nothing,” I snarled just as Gia reached me, pulling at my arm and drawing me away from Jaime’s henchman. My eyes met hers. The Switch. The encryption on the Switch. There was definitely something there.

“Even if she doesn’t have the key, he believes she does. Worse, he believes she belongs to him by blood. He won’t let you have her,” the man said with a careless shrug. “He’d rather she die first.”

My heart couldn’t take it. My heart was going to implode.

As I stared at the man, a red dot appeared on his forehead—a strange little movement that seemed like I should recognize it. As my mind was trying to place it, Gia’s already destroyed voice screamed, “Sniper!”

She dragged me into her with a fierceness that caused us to lose balance and had us tumbling to the floor just as the man’s head kicked backward. A hole appeared, blood gushing out, and his eyes rolled back.

In an instant, Maddox had McKenna on the ground, buried under him as he shouted orders into his radio.

Enrique jumped through the broken glass, heading for the woods.

In the silence that followed, I realized I was lying on top of Gia, her thin body having cushioned my fall instead of the other way around. I slid off her, staying low to the ground and assessing her body for injuries that I might have caused.

“Go,” she said, shoving at me. “Stay low and get the hell out of this room.”

Gunfire echoed through the woods behind my house, and I moved. I stayed as low as I could, clamping Gia’s hand in a viselike grip and dragging her with me. She hauled me to stop at the table, reaching up and grabbing both weapons before allowing me to continue tugging her into the entryway. Maddox and McKenna had made it to the hallway and were crawling toward my office doors.

We followed. Once we made it into the room, even though we were on the opposite side of the house from where the sniper had taken aim, we still stayed low.

“I’m going to pull the Bronco as close to the front door as I can. Get Addy and our parents, and meet me there,” Maddox told me. He looked over at McKenna and kissed her hard on the mouth. “I love you.”

McKenna’s face was shell-shocked. Fear and worry scrolled over it. I’d brought this to us. I’d brought this to all of us by hiring Ravyn and then falling in love with her. Gia had been upset with herself for not protecting us, but I was the one who’d really led the devil to my family.

A devil I’d shaken hands with, drank with, and who’d helped me plan my future.

Fuck.

Maddox was gone before I could even think to apologize.

I turned to Gia, overcome with the same desire to kiss her and tell her that I loved her like my brother had just done with his fiancée. Goddamn awful time to figure out what I felt for her was love. Goddamn useless timing to figure anything out.

I stared at her for a moment, gaze dropping to her lips and then back to eyes that were flashing with as many emotions as surged through me. I let myself touch her briefly, a soft stroke of her cheek, before saying, “Get to the front door while I get Addy and my parents.”

She swallowed hard, and as I went to leave, she grabbed my hand. I looked back at her, and she didn’t say anything. She just gripped my hand tightly. I leaned in and kissed her forehead. “We’re all getting out of this. Then we can talk. Get McK to the front door.”

She shoved something cold into my hand, and I looked down to find one of the guns she’d grabbed from the table. It wasn’t hers. That one was black and smooth. This pistol had a black slide and a bronze-colored grip.

“Safety is off,” she said. Then, she turned to McKenna. “Stay low.” As I watched, she hovered over my brother’s fiancée while they both hunched down and headed toward the front door.

Walking out of the office meant facing the wall of windows in the direction the shooter had been. More gunfire burst through the quiet, but it sounded farther away this time. I had to hope Enrique had forced the man from his perch.

I ran hunched over, flinging myself into Addy’s room where Dad had both women huddled in the closet. “Was that gunfire?” he demanded.

I nodded. “Maddox is pulling the Bronco up to the door. We’re all going with him.”

My father eyed the gun in my hand. He shouldered the purple backpack I’d bought Addy, and my stomach flipped over. She’d been forced back into hiding and running, but I promised myself this would be the last time. She wouldn’t have to do this ever again. We would put an end to it even if I had to kill Jaime Laredo myself to make it happen.