Page 34 of Reclaiming Chaos
Chapter 17
Carlee
The trip back to the safe-house was filled with twists and turns and took two hours. Every time Ridge would get the feeling that he’d lost his tail, Carlee had gotten the feeling they were being followed again. It wasn’t until they both agreed they’d lost whoever it might have been that they returned to the little subdivision with houses that looked exactly the same.
He pulled into the drive and hit the garage door opener. He’d parked the car and punched the button to lower the garage door before he killed the ignition. Carlee went to get out, and he stopped her with his hand on her arm.
“Give it a minute to fully close.”
She obliged and waited for him to reach for his door before she followed him out of the car and inside the house.
It smelled of bacon grease and maple syrup from their breakfast. He stopped at the kitchen and grabbed two beer bottles from the fridge. He handed her one as he passed by to the French doors that led to a tiny kidney-shaped pool in the backyard. He took a seat on one of the lawn chairs and popped the top, taking a swig.
Carlee wasn’t a day drinker if she didn’t count lazy afternoon weekends in her apartment with a bottle of wine and a good book. Beer would have been her last choice of beverage. It was painfully obvious that Ridge wasn’t gifted like his siblings, or he would have offered her wine instead.
“You okay?” she asked.
He didn’t look okay. He looked far from it. She couldn’t blame him if the situation were reversed; she would have burned everything down to the ground. Jail didn’t scare her, but the thought of Russell using someone else to get the same information scared her to the bones. He would never stop, now that he was drunk on the power he had at his fingertips.
“Yeah. I’m fine,” he lied.
“He doesn’t know about you and me yet; otherwise, he would have used that to keep me in line instead of sending a hitman.”
Ridge swung his legs around to sit on the chair, facing her. “There is no you and I and if we don’t put a stop to all this, we won’t even get a chance.”
“Right.” Heat filled her cheeks as she stared at the chlorinated water. “There isn’t yet, but there will be.”
“I wish this was a simple fix. That we could just give Russell the book back and it would all go away. There’s too much at stake to even think about a relationship that may never live to see the light of day. This was supposed to be just a damn job and you were supposed to be just another criminal.” He sighed. “I’ve lost people, my family is in the crosshairs and I have no clue how to fix all of this. Nothing is as it seems.”
He rose from his seat and headed back inside. His words were a harsh reminder of their predicament. She was talking as though she and Ridge had a relationship that only she’d been privy to see.
She was a thorn in his side. A reminder of the attack on his team members. She was a job for him to perform, nothing more.
With a deep sigh, she walked back into the kitchen, putting the beer back in the fridge and grabbing a bottle of water. A muscle in Ridge’s jaw ticked as he gazed out the kitchen window.
She slipped her book out from underneath her shirt and placed it on the counter next to his hand. “Mission accomplished. You’ve got the book, and you can take me to jail, but not until I destroy Russell. That’s the only way you and your family stay off his radar.”
She didn’t wait for his reply. She went to the bedroom and poked through the bag of clothes that Gwen had brought her to change into since she had none of her things. A quick trip to the train station and she could get her clothes and the other go-bag she’d packed. A quick trip after taking Russell down and she’d be gone for good.
Carlee picked up the packet that Gwen had left her. A passport and an ID sat on top of a bundle of cash. It was her face but with a name that wasn’t her own, at least not yet.
She dropped the IDs on the package and groaned. This wasn’t how she was going to tell him. Hell, she wasn’t going to tell him at all.
“I have to check in at the office,” Ridge said as he stepped into the room. His gaze landed on the IDs, and he picked one up. “Bennett, huh?”
“I guess Gwen has a sense of humor,” I said, folding my arms over my chest.
“I guess she does,” Ridge said, dropping the license onto the package. “So, you know things. You see things, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then, how does this play out? You must have an idea.”
“If I tell you that, then there’s a possibility it will change, and neither of us can afford for that to happen.” Her heart clenched tight at the thought of how all of this needed to play out. People were going to be hurt, hearts would be broken, but there was no other way.
There was a look in his eyes as if he understood this outcome would affect the rest of his life. It would. It would affect them both.
There was no way to prepare him for the outcome, no way to warn him that one of them would die.
