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“He could have turned it off, hecouldhave felt compromised.”
He could be dead.
“Dad!” Ben bounded over to my side, grinning, hugging me, and I lost myself in the hug for a moment. “We blew things up! Ryder is so cool!”
“Good,” I answered without thinking.
Ben went pale. “What’s wrong? Dad?”
“Everything is okay—” I began.
Kayden interrupted me. “It’s Ethan,” he said direct to Ben, and I wanted to shut him up, because it wasn’t his job to tell my son things that I wanted to filter.
“What about him?”
“He’s missing, but we’re looking for him right now.”
“Oh,” Ben appeared to relax a little as if that wasn’t the worst news. “You’ll find him, or he’ll find himself,” he said with great confidence. “Easy.”
I wished I had Ben’s faith, But from the look in Nik’s eyes, and the answering worry in Kayden’s, I imagined it was anythingbuteasy.
Later that evening, sitting in front of the monitors, I watched Kayden and Nik heading out to do whatever secret agent-type guys did, then stared at the blank screen thathadonce shown Ethan’s tracking, and I found myself repeating over and over.
Please be safe, Ethan. Please come home.
I love you.
ChapterTwenty-Nine
Josh
“Hey,”someone said as they sat next to me. I didn’t want company when all I could think was that Ethan had vanished. It had been six days now since Ethan had gone dark, and with Ben and the other kids asleep and with midnight closing in, I wanted to be left alone in the kitchen with my hot chocolate to think my dark thoughts.
“Hey.” I glanced to my left, not surprised to see Ryder sitting down next to me. He’d taken to following me around, not so much as I’d want to know what the fuck he was doing, but enough to make me familiar with him. Like how right now he was bristling with news.
Sudden hope flared in my chest. “What?” I asked. “Is it Ethan? Is he okay?”
“His tracker re-engaged, and Sanctuary managed to get a fix on him when he and a small convoy left a place outside of the city.” He sounded so damn pleased, but that news lacked detail.
“What city?”
He blinked at me as if I should know that. “He’s back in Charleston.”
“Then we get him out. Sanctuary could get him out?”
Ryder was quiet, and I wanted to shake him hard and force him to answer, but I could see from his expression that he was thinking deep about what he was saying next.
“He has to make his own way out if he wants to keep his cover intact,” he offered after the longest pause.
“No. Why? Why does he need to retain that cover, if it’s done, we got the kids out, surely he’s… ” Ryder watched me, his expression inscrutable. Shit. “This will never be over, will it?” I asked Ryder.
He closed his eyes for a moment, then sighed. “For Ethan, his part is coming to an end. But this is the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “This is much worse than any of us can imagine, and what Ethan is doing is just the start of things, getting inside, gaining intel, creating opportunities for other agents to dig deeper, he’s our point on everything that’s happening right now.”
“What if I don’t want him to be?” I asked a little desperate—selfish, needy, and scared for the life of the person I loved. What about our future, what about building a future with him and Ben? What aboutus?
I winced when Ryder stared at me, because this would be the moment that one of Ethan’s best friends told me that there was no future, no hope for me and Ethan. Only he surprised me.
“He’ll come home,” Ryder murmured. “He’ll find his way back to you. I know him. He wouldn’t leave you. So, you have to trust him and the process.” He turned in his chair to look right at me. “I know it’s hard, but can you do that?”
