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But Ian and Sofia were a different case, and Sofia was a different woman to Rhianne. He couldn’t help remembering when he, Charlie, and Ian had rescued Sofia from a drugs processing plant. Sofia had kept her head even when she’d been held prisoner and threatened with execution. Not that comparisons were ever exact, or even a good thing, but…
“Rhianne…went crazy and unpredictable during the mission.” In a few brief sentences, Eric described what had happened when she saw the trafficked girls, including her sister.
“Man—” Ian started.
“Yeah, I know. It was a goddamn hard sight for me to deal with, so for someone not used to seeing the shittiest side of humanity, it would have hit even harder. But her reaction wasn’t a good sign, right? For a future together? I mean, we live with danger and crises and all hell breaking loose on the daily. We need people who can keep it together. We’d talked over the plan. She knew what had to happen. All she had to do was trust me—and she couldn’t do that.”
“But it’s hersister. I get where Rhianne is coming from with her family. People do crazy things for the people they love,” Ian said. “It doesn’t mean she doesn’t trust you. It just means that she lost her head a little, in the heat of the moment. Family does that to you.”
Eric shrugged, taking a sip of his soup. “Wouldn’t know. Don’t have one.”
“Kid, you got me confused with some old, retired guy growing roses in a cottage garden?”
Ian’s impersonation of Charlie wasn’t as good as Eric’s, but it was close enough that Eric blinked up at him.
“Because that ain’t me, meaning I don’t need any of the horseshit you’re trying to shovel on me.” Ian pointed a finger at him. “Cruz, you could have had a long career with the SEALs, but when Charlie and then I didn’t re-up, you came with us out of loyalty to us. You know what that means?” He jabbed the finger into Eric’s chest. “It means you got a family in us. And you’d do anything for us, right? Right?” he repeated when Eric sat silent.
Eric didn’t have to think hard to know what Ian said was true. “Right,” he admitted, a little confused.
“So why is that so hard to understand when it comes to Rhianne and her sister?” Ian demanded. “You’re behaving like the way she’s acting is about you, but it’s not. It’s about her.”
Maybe so. Maybe he’d been wrong to think that there was never any trust between them at all—that Rhianne was like the other women who couldn’t accept or trust him for who he was.
But none of that changed the fact that she’d said it was over. Whether she trusted him or not before the auction began, she sure as hell didn’t trust him now. Whatever they had was over.
Leaving Eric feeling hollowed-out and empty.
18
Charlie and Ian had taken two adjoining motel rooms, Rhianne discovered, when Charlie unlocked the connecting door to the far room. It had been set up as their command post, its small table bearing maps and charts, stacks of photos, and sheaves of paper. She swallowed down the anger that came with realizing how long it implied the other two Bronte Security Services personnel had been here as secret backup, ready to swoop in when they were called for. Eric had had this ace in his pocket all along, and he hadn’t bothered to let her know. The idea of that stung, even though she couldn’t take the time to care about that now. Not when she had to get down to work.
“The bathroom’s there. You probably want a shower, right?” Charlie asked.
“No…” Rhianne pointed at the voice recorder on the table. “You want my account of what happened, right? If I’m going to give you my report, then we should get things on record while the details are fresh.” As if she’d ever forget a single minute of the hell she’d just lived through, or the horrors of the weekend. “Make sure we get everything.”
“After,” he insisted, overriding her protests that she had no other clothes other than the bloodstained, ripped dress she had on by pointing at the pile of clean clothes left on the bathroom counter. There was even a pair of sneakers in more or less her size.
Despite how good it felt to wash off the filth of the compound, Rhianne hurried through the shower as much as she could. She kept her eyes open, even when the hot water stung, because she thought that when she closed them, she’d see the look on Robyn’s face when she’d recognized her big sister…who’d abandoned her to her fate. What she hadn’t been able to see clearly, her memory supplied the rest, from when she’d left home for basic training, with her baby sister confused and distressed at her leaving. It felt like history repeating itself. Only this was a million times worse.
But when she had to close her eyes, against the sting of the soap she rubbed impatiently through her hair to wash it, it was Eric’s face that invaded her mind’s eye.
The way he’d looked at her in the mirror when the stylist was fussing with her hair and makeup, and the heat in his eyes when Rhianne had turned to him, finally ready. He’d all but devoured her, from the silly coils of braids around her head to the strappy sandals on her feet.
But that wasn’t the expression on his face that was foremost in her memory. No, that would be how he’d looked just now, when she’d spat at him that there was nothing between them. He had looked gaunt. Drawn. Older. And…less, somehow, as if he’d been hollowed out. She couldn’t properly describe it.
But she did know how it had made her feel—like she’d rammed a stake into him…and herself at the same time.
Rhianne shivered, wondering if she’d ever be warm again.
“Here.” Charlie pushed a plastic cup along the table toward her when she rejoined him. “Hot tea.”
“Thanks.” The drink was still warm enough for steam to escape when she flipped off the lid, and Rhianne spared a second to blow on it before taking a grateful swallow.
“And while you’re drinking that, I’ll see to your arm.” Charlie’s tone let her know this was an order, so she didn’t bother trying to protest, even though the wound was minor and had long since stopped bleeding.
“Thanks,” she said, as he finished cleaning the injury and smoothing on a bandage. She put the cup down on the table and stood straight. “I’m ready for the debriefing now.”
“Of course. Please…” Charlie invited her to sit.
