Page 4 of Hide Little Traitor

“What have I told you about stepping between men when they’re fighting?” Crew pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration.

She rolls her eyes but doesn’t bother responding. Why do I get the feeling this is an argument they have a lot?

“Do you think this could have been Damon?”

I shake my head. “No. He risked everything to let us escape. There’s no way he did that just to take her again a few hours later.”

“You don’t think he would do anything to get back in your father’s good books if he were found out?”

“Even if that were the case, he couldn’t have caught up to us so quickly, and he has no way of knowing where I brought her.”

She nods slowly before turning her attention to Ryker. “Is there anyone else you can think of that may have taken her?”

His amber eyes widen for a second before he curses, tugging his phone from his pocket and dialing a number he knows by heart.

Who the fuck is he calling?

The phone rings twice, the sound filling the otherwise quiet waiting room before abruptly cutting off.

“That fucking asshole,” he mutters to himself, calling the same number again only for the same thing to happen.

“Something you want to share with the class, Love?” Bishop asks, wrapping an arm around Camilla.

She and the bodyguard share another look before Ryker sighs, rubbing a frustrated hand down his face.

“There is someone else it could be,” he confirms.

“Who?” Crew asks.

“Kingston Beaumont,” Ryker replies, and my entire world tilts on its axis. Chloe swore black and blue that she didn’t know anything about him, that she hadn’t seen him in years, but if that were true, why would he be the one to take her?

There’s no way she could have called him. There was no time. But that doesn’t mean they haven’t been in contact.

I lean back against the wall to stop my knees from giving way beneath me. Every time I think I know the truth, the rug is pulled out from under me again.

Ryker curses again, feeding a frustrated hand through his messy blonde hair. “Chloe was telling the truth when she said she hasn’t seen or heard from him since not long after she escaped the compound the first time, but he’s seen her. He’s kept her safe from a distance over the years, and when Camilla was worried for Chloe’s safety during the transition of power, King sent me to guard her.”

Everyone in the room stares at him with more questions than he’s given answers, and I’m no exception.

Because what the fuck does he mean that Kingston has been keeping Chloe safe from a distance all these years and she never knew?

“After Dad died, I found Chloe’s employment file in his desk rather than filed away with all the others, and there were some details about how she came to work for us. Not much. Just that she was running from another Mafia family and that if there were ever any concerns for her safety, there was a number to call. I called it, Ryker came, and I never thought anything of it,” Camilla supplies.

I’m so fucking confused my head is spinning, but that could have something to do with how little I’ve eaten in the last couple of days and my adrenaline levels dropping.

“You work for the asshole who killed my mother?” I grind out.

He nods slowly. “I do. Well, I did. I don’t think I do after falling for Chloe.”

“You don’t think?” Crew asks, mismatched eyes flicking from me to him and then down at Camilla.

“He was my first call after Damon took off with Chloe, and when he realized I felt more for her than a bodyguard should, he hung up on me, blocked my number, and left me stranded on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. So yeah, I’m pretty sure that was him firing me.”

Dropping my head back against the wall, I drag in rough breaths as my head swims.

I sacrificed everything to save her only for her to be stolen right from under my nose by the man I’ve spent my entire adult life hunting, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

CHAPTER THREE