Rhys nodded. He didn’t like it, but she was the priority. He’d be by her side in another capacity. “Yeah.”
“So it’s like that?”
He kept nodding. “It’s like that.”
Wes reached over and slapped Rhys on the back. “Now for the important questions—”
“I don’t have details. Not even a plan. Just… I just know that’s how it’s going to be.”
“All right.”
“Everything in me wants to burn this city down. I want to knock heads and force answers.” He drank in a long breath but couldn’t seem to make it deep enough. “You’re clear-headed right now, and I’m ready to kill. I need you to stay close.”
Wes chuckled. “What I wouldn’t give to have been a fly on the wall when you told Viv.”
“You might still have a chance.”
His buddy raised his eyebrows.
Rhys rubbed the back of his neck. “Haven’t told her yet.”
Wes whistled. “Yeah, I’m going to watch when you do. She’s going to eat you alive.”
“Probably.”
“You remember the shit she gave Callum? I don’t even know how he still has a job—and wait a minute.” Wes narrowed his gaze as though contemplating an angle Rhys had missed. “Peyton Lowry owns your soul or something. How are you going to change that?”
“By marrying his daughter.”
Wes’s jaw dropped. His head twitched to the side, then he choked. “Guess that’s one way to do it.” He glanced into the interrogation room then turned back to Rhys. “Does she know your grand plan?”
“Haven’t run it by her yet.”
“With a woman like that, it seems like you should.”
It would happen. That woman was his. More than that, he was hers. She owned him, body, mind, and soul. Hell, he hadn’t realized he had one of those until right now.
“I’d tell Vivian sooner rather than later,” Wes suggested.
“That you’re taking over?”
“Probably better to run the marriage thing by Jules before Viv, so yeah, dumb shit. The change to the security plan.”
In the interrogation room, the large television screen turned off, and the investigator perched on the table, talking to Jules. Rhys wanted to turn on the speaker and listen. Then again, he just had one of those life-altering realizations and wanted to sit with that.
His phone buzzed. Wes glanced at the screen as Rhys did and cackled at Vivian’s name.
“Nosy bastard,” Rhys muttered.
“Answer it.” Wes crossed his arms. “I’m the fly on the wall, remember?”
Rhys lifted his middle finger but answered with decidedly less attitude. “What’s going on?”
“Did Wes fill you in?” Vivian asked.
“Yeah. Thanks for bumping it to the feds. What’ve they learned?”
“The same VPN was used for the car rental that’s connected to the Anonymous app. Their backend servers log technical metadata—IP addresses, timestamps, device fingerprints.”
