Page 28 of Callous Shot

13

DAN

“I heard you clashed with Bellingham the other night.”

I looked over at Ryker, slanted back in his seat with one hand casually wrapped around the steering wheel of the hired SUV and the other resting on his thigh. His gaze was fixed on the road, but his mouth was curved into a smirk.

I sighed, glancing at the back seat, where Jay and Nova were too wrapped up in each other to pay any attention to us. “Yeah… It was forever ago, so I don’t know why you’re bringing it up now. Where were you and Jay, anyway? You were there for Nova’s fight, but then you both disappeared.”

His fingers flexed on the wheel as he scanned our surroundings, his free hand flicking the indicator to take us off the main road. “We decided to go back to your house to go through Jay’s family’s accounts. We got caught up in all the other shit, and I forgot about it until now.”

“You forgot about it…when we’ve had multiple hockey practices, shared countless lectures, and, oh, let’s not forget our little break-in.”

This Operation Foxglove shit had taken over my life, I swear. We weren’t certain if Jay’s family clinic were having issues because of Operation Foxglove or because of some other reason, but either way, that was where our investigations had begun. Jay had discovered a number of discrepancies in the clinic accounts that he’d managed to trace back to the accountant who dealt with them. Long story short, we’d broken into the offices belonging to the accountancy firm, and if we were correct in our assumptions, Jay’s family’s accountant was meeting someone…or someones today.

So now we were heading for their riverside rendezvous point which, based on my research and the current state of the weather, was going to be a muddy, depressing location, with rusting ships purposely wrecked on the riverbank in an effort to stop it eroding. Dangerous, too, at least right now, with the tidal river so high and fast-flowing after several days of heavy rain. But it was remote and quiet, and the perfect place for a shady deal to go down.

“I wanted to forget about it,” Ryker admitted in a low voice, his gaze sliding to the rear-view mirror before returning to the road as he carefully navigated the twists and turns. The pitted tarmac was flanked by tangled hedges and trees, and the SUV took up far too much space on the country lane for my liking.

My fists flexed involuntarily as branches scraped against my window.

I thought I’d managed to keep my concerns to myself, but apparently, Ryker noticed. He eased up on the accelerator, exhaling as he navigated us through a tiny village, quiet despite the time of day. His voice dropped even lower. “I wish Nova had a choice. I wish I could do something about her arranged marriage to Volkov. That’s why I wanted to forget. I feel fucking helpless.”

“Yeah. Me too.” I was in complete agreement with him. And as for the whole “forgetting about it” thing—if I could forget about my fight with Lincoln Bellingham and the subsequent shit that I definitely wasn’t going to ever think about again, that would be brilliant. I’d managed to avoid looking at anything Lincoln-related on my phone since that night, and I’d ducked out of any conversations where he might come up, but my head wasn’t so good at forgetting.

Please.

I shuddered as the word echoed through my mind. I couldn’t believe I’d actually said it to Lincoln bellend Bellingham, of all people. And I couldn’t believe what had come after. It had to have been a hallucination. There was no fucking way we’d⁠—

Grimacing, I scrubbed my hand over my mouth, trying to rub away the phantom touch of his lips.

“Arson?”

Banging my skull against the headrest, I huffed out a breath. “Let’s just get there and get some answers.”

Ryker jerked his head in assent. He didn’t bother digging deeper, and that was one of the things I liked best about him. Not that I ever had shit to hide from him…except for this one tiny thing that was taking up ninety percent of my brain…but he knew me well enough to know when I didn’t want to talk.

The SUV came to a stop, and I exhaled slowly, forcing myself into a semblance of calm. We needed to stay focused for this mission. I couldn’t afford any distractions, and that meant I needed to shut everything else down.

“Are you sure she’ll be safe?” Jay’s voice came from the back seat.

Ryker glanced around us. “As sure as I can be. There are no guarantees, but⁠—”

“But I’ll be fine. You’ve given me the phone, the car will be locked, and no one knows we’re here.” Nova shot her brother a pointed look before sweeping her gaze over Jay and me. “I’ll be the one worrying about you. Please be safe, all of you.”

“We will. Let’s go. Nova, if you see anyone arrive, text us on the burner.” Ryker picked up his Purge-style mask and gloves and, with Nova’s nod of assent, pulled them on.

I guessed that was my cue.

Hooded and masked, the three of us left Nova on lookout duty and headed down the towpath to the meeting point, sticking to the grass verges to avoid our footprints showing on the muddy path. It was cold, damp, and drizzling, which was my least favourite combination of weather. But I ignored it, focusing on the hulls of the wrecked ships as they came into view, pulled up on the riverbank and all overgrown with grass.

I poked the closest vessel with my toe, bits of rust flaking off and drifting down to the mud. “This is creepy in a fun way. It looks like they’re growing out of the ground. Look, King. There’s a sign that tells you⁠—”

“No time for sightseeing.” Ryker’s hand slashed down, instantly cutting me off. “I came down here yesterday to check out the place in the daylight so I could find us the best places to hide. There’s a boat farther up that’s more intact, and it’s on a solid part of the bank. It’s farther from the path, but it’ll provide some coverage.”

Shit. Why did my brain want to focus on the unimportant things when we were here for a serious reason?

I cleared my throat. “We should triangulate. I think I can climb down here, close to the water, get below the sight line of the riverbank. Jay can hide in the hedge.”