Page 128 of Blue Moon

RYDER

Now Ryder knew how a bear caught in a trap felt. Angry, helpless, and stuck in the wrong place. The jet flew steadily toward Vegas, and all he could do was watch as the drama unfolded thousands of miles away. At least they were over land now. Elene was sleeping peacefully thanks to the Benadryl Emmy had mixed into her decaf.

On-screen, the Luna-sized blonde they called Echo was sipping coffee from a mug bigger than her head. The team had moved to the Cathouse while the cops fucked around at the Nile Palace. Reporters were frantically interviewing anyone who would talk, Amethyst was in the lobby losing her shit on live TV, and Danny Wells had crawled out from under his rock to take pictures of her. Those pictures were everywhere—gossip blogs, social media, news shows after a juicy story.

The decision had been made to run a parallel operation. Neither Pale’s team nor Blackwood had confidence in the local cops, and nobody wanted to jeopardise Luna’s safety—or Kobie Jiminez’s—by performing for the media circus. Romeo Serafini had been dispatched to do what he did best, namely act like an asshole, in order to keep the press out of the team’s hair. The view shifted as Pale walked to a seat. Emmy had insisted he wire himself for sound and vision, and he’d chuckled and told her it was easier to agree than to argue.

Dan, Knox, Slater, and Caro had arrived in Vegas, and they’d taken on the vehicle angle. Well, not Caro. She’d been sidelined, a fact she was distinctly unhappy about. But she was an accountant, not an operator. Ryder would apologise to her later.

Although there was no footage of the area by the dumpsters, a camera in the hotel’s parking lot had filmed seven silver SUVs in the vicinity during the period when Luna had disappeared. Echo had worked her tech magic and discovered that none of them were registered to Anton Hebert. It was possible he was using an alias, and if they didn’t find him at his apartment, the vehicle would be key.

An hour ago, they’d all watched as Pale and Tulsa opened Anton Hebert’s locker and shared in the disappointment when it didn’t contain a smoking gun or a manifesto. But Tulsa did find a necklace in a velvet box hidden at the back, orange and turquoise beads on a gold chain. A discussion followed. Had Hebert’s reassignment foiled his gift-giving plans? Or had someone planted the jewellery to throw suspicion onto the wrong man? Occam’s razor suggested the first option was more likely.

But ultimately, it was Hebert who’d received the biggest gift of all—the perfect opportunity to snatch Luna.

Ryder blew out a breath and tried to calm his ragged nerves. Tried to convince himself that this was just a bump in the road and he’d get his girl back. The grief that had pummelled him after Neve’s death pushed against the flimsy wall that held it back, threatening to break through and overwhelm him once again.

“Why do you call him Pale and they call him Priest?” he asked Emmy, anything to distract himself from the matter at hand.

“Different eras. When I first met him, he was in his ‘four horsemen of the apocalypse’ phase. Black, White, Red, and Pale.”

“Black was Black, right?”

“Right.”

“And was Nate a horseman too?” It was common knowledge that Nate and Black had been tight before they started Blackwood. Swim buddies in the SEALs before they got poached for some hush-hush role that nobody much talked about.

“He was Red.”

“So, who was White? You?”

“Before my time. White died in combat, but his legacy lives on.”

“Really? Where?”

Emmy tapped the screen. Her finger landed on one of Pale’s Choir girls, a stunning woman with braided hair and skin the colour of a Lincoln penny. She wore tight blue jeans and a leather jacket, and her ass looked good as she leaned across the table to pour a glass of water from the jug in the centre.

“There. The baby of the team.”

“She’s his daughter?”

“They call her Dice because she’s unpredictable, just like her daddy.”

Another camera feed appeared, then another. Two views of the same apartment building, one from the front and one from the rear. Nothing much seemed to be happening.

Emmy clicked her microphone onto “live.” “Is that Hebert’s place?”

Pale answered. “Sixth floor. Tulsa, Spider, and Storm are there. We’re working out which unit is his.”

Ryder counted the windows. Only one sixth-floor apartment had a light on, and a slight flicker in another suggested someone was watching TV. Was Luna in there? Kobie? He had to believe they were still alive, but fear made his heart stutter. There was anger too. Anger that Mark Antony had snatched Luna from her life and put her through hell. He pushed the feeling away before he rammed a fist through the fuselage.

“How long will it take us to get there from the airport?” he asked.

Emmy snorted softly. “Oh, you’re not going.”

“The hell I’m not.”

“I’ll hogtie you and leave you on the plane if necessary.”

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