Page 51 of Forbidden Pawn

Matteo’s grin widens as he meets my gaze, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction.

“What I’m saying is, if you’re looking for the people who lead Peter Collins into ruin,” he leans in, his voice dropping to a whisper. “You’re looking at us.”

The words hit me like a punch to the gut. The room seems to spin, the pieces of my shattered assumptions scattering around me.

This can’t be true. How could I have been so wrong all this time?

But there’s a big part of me that wants this to be true. I don’t want Ryker to be the one who deserves my wrath. If the Cortesi are responsible for what happened to our family, they should bethe ones to pay for it—I just have to find a way to make that happen.

Chapter 39

Ryker

“Alright, stick to the plan this time!” I snap to the Reids, my voice hard as steel.

The three of them nod, their faces tense, before heading off to their cars. Carter has joined us for this mission, as have many others. Between both of our teams, we’ve gathered enough firepower to start a war, each man heavily armed and alert. The Cortesi may pride themselves on not being murderers, but it would come close to a miracle if no lives are lost tonight—I just hope to God that neither June nor anyone of my men will be among them. If anything happens to June, I’m going to single-handedly burn that whole place down, that’s for sure.

I get into my truck, pulling the seatbelt across my chest. As I click it into place, something glints in the corner of my eye. A small, silver chain dangles from a loose seam in my jacket pocket. Frowning, I pull it free, and my heart skips when I realize what I’m holding. It’s June’s bracelet—the one she wore on her wrist every day, a reminder of her mother. It must have been ripped off during the attack, and dangling from my jacket ever since, with no one noticing.

For a second, the world goes quiet. My chest tightens as I run my fingers over the delicate pendant attached to the chain. Curiosity gets the better of me and I fold it open, expecting to find a picture of her mother. Instead, I’m met with the face of a middle-aged man with green eyes and salt-and-pepper hair—and a little girl on his lap, happily smiling into the camera. June. I recognize her instantly, that smile, with a hint of mischief, as if she was about to crack a cheeky joke. I see that same familiarityin the smile of the man whose lap she’s sitting on, her beloved father.

I stare at his image, my mind spinning. She came to my house because she thought I killed him. She entered my life with the sole intention of destroying me. The weight of it hits me hard. She must have hated me more than anyone in the world, which means she really was making a fool of me, seducing me just for me to get careless. And it worked. I let her into my bed, forgetting to lock my office, as if I was inviting her in to snoop around—which is exactly what she did the first chance she had.

But was it really all a lie? Is she that good of an actress? My aching heart refuses to believe that.

The pain in my chest deepens when I realize that she’s gone through hell trying to right what she believes is a wrong, and now she’s in the hands of dangerous men—and it’s all because of me. I clench the pendant tight in my hand, a fresh wave of worry for her flooding me.

I can’t let it end like this. I need to save her—and tell her the truth. She needs to know that I had nothing to do with her father’s demise. But first, I need to get her out.

I slip June’s bracelet back into my pocket. She’ll get this back, I tell myself, starting the engine and taking off with a renewed purpose. As we drive, I go through the details of the plan we came up with. We’ve pinpointed her location—a secluded warehouse outside the city, which also serves as one of the Cortesi headquarters. I’m surprised they would bring her there of all places, instead of a secretive safe house, which would have been harder to find.

“Maybe they want to be found,” Jack had assumed, causing us to upgrade our weaponry and manpower.

A few investigative calls confirmed something else, too. The mole—the reason the Cortesi always seemed one step ahead of us—was one of my own men. It had been right under my nose.One of the newer guys, someone I trusted, because Dominic vouched for him, only to reveal his true nature by conveniently missing every call tonight. Thinking back, he excused himself more times than I could count during that last meeting at my place, claiming he needed the bathroom. I didn’t even suspect it then, but his absence now speaks volumes. June wasn’t the mole feeding sensitive information to the outside world, but he was. And he will pay for it once we’re done here.

Luckily, the Reids aren’t short on contacts either. Tyler’s got an inside man with the Cortesi, and his intel confirmed June’s location. We’re not wasting a second longer. We’ve divided into two squads. The first group will create a diversion, setting off controlled explosions to pull the guards away from the warehouse while I lead the main assault. I need to be the one to get June out of there, and I need to be as close as possible to her as soon as possible.

We arrive under cover of night and turn our lights off before we cut our engines, when there’s still some distance between us and the warehouse. The cars would reveal our arrival and warn the Cortesi of what’s coming. On foot, we’re just shadows moving through the dark as we step out of the cars and slip into formation. No one says a word as we move through the woods as quietly as possible, every footstep calculated, every breath controlled. My heart hammers, but my focus sharpens as the warehouse comes into sight.

The building looms ahead in the shadows, an isolated, sprawling structure with steel walls and tall, grimy windows, half-shattered and covered in dust. Overgrown weeds snake up around the foundation, a wire fence lining the perimeter, dotted with cameras that we’ve managed to avoid so far. The air is thick with silence, save for the occasional crunch of gravel beneath our boots.

I scan the area, counting at least five guards posted along the perimeter, armed but only semi-alert. Their movements are almost casual as their weary faces scan the perimeter. It almost seems like they’re not expecting us to be here already, even though they must know that we’d come for them.

I motion to my men, signaling to move forward. In pairs, we approach the guards, our steps light and our focus sharp, fueled by adrenaline.

It’s time to finish this.

Chapter 40

June

The wobbly chair pokes into my back as I sit there, wrists bound behind my back, forced to watch one of the Cortesi men pacing the room. He’s the only one left, after everyone else has been called out to guard the premise around this building. I can tell that his nerves are on edge, as he’s glancing at the closed blinds every few seconds. Something is going on outside, but I can’t tell what. I can hear muffled voices and hurried steps as the men take their place, and just as my guard walks over to the window to peek through the closed blinds, another sound rips through the air—and I almost fall out of my chair.

A gunshot that rings a little too close for comfort. My pulse spikes before a thought races through my mind. Is Ryker coming for me?

I don't know what terrifies me more—the possibility that he’s here, or that he’s not.

Another gunshot sounds outside, and my guard jerks away from the window. He pries at the blinds, eyes darting back and forth, his face tense.

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