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“Sit. Down,” I snapped. Turning to Ezra, I reached for his hand and took comfort in the way his enveloped mine. I was flushed, rage still boiling in my veins, but I wouldn’t take it out on him. I led him to the couch, we sat, and I asked in a calmer voice, “Can you answer a few questions to clear things up for me?”
Ryder, his shoulders tense and back rigid, worked his jaw. His nose flared with each inhale. Tristan eyed him warily, apparently waiting for him to make a move before he did.
Flynn was pale, his eyes wide as they bounced between us. He whispered, “Ry, please.”
Ryder exhaled heavily and flicked his gaze to me, glaring. Fury flamed in his eyes as he looked at me, then Tristan. He snarled.
Flynn begged him again, and Ry turned to him, inclining his head in deference. I got the message loud and clear—he was only here because of Flynn.
“I do have a few things I’d like to clear up, Ry. I know you don’t trust me anymore, but I’d appreciate it if you listened. I don’t expect your forgiveness,” Ezra murmured, reaching for Tristan, who’d sat down next to him. Ezra held his hand in an iron grip, Tristan’s knuckles turning white as he squeezed.
“Go ahead, Ez,” Tristan encouraged, resting his free hand on Ezra’s knee.
“I don’t even know where to start.” He let go of us and scrubbed his hands over his face. He groaned. There were dark circles under his eyes, his shoulders hunched like he was carrying the weight of the world.
“What happened between Flynn’s phone call and you picking us up at the airport?” I asked.
He relayed the details, telling us how he’d received a phone call from the Reserve Bank’s librarian only a short while after his initial call to her. His boss had gotten involved and set the wolves on us, declaring that it was an open-and-shut case. Ezra had done his best to plant the seeds of doubt, questioning everything, but she’d insisted.
“I was so fucking scared, Zali,” he whispered, reaching for me.
I interlaced our fingers and held his trembling hand tight.
“I thought that the three of you would end up in jail. I didn’t know what to do. When I saw you, I wanted to tell you to run, to hide out on some tropical island where they couldn’t get you, but they would have shot you. They could have killed you.” He tore his wrecked gaze from mine and looked at Flynn, then Ryder. “I couldn’t risk it.”
He closed his eyes and hung his head low. “I shouldn’t have kissed you, but I couldn’t stop myself. I thought you were dead. But I betrayed your trust. I used you like everyone else did, getting your help when I needed it. I kissed you without your consent. I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “I really fucked up.”
“How did you betray my trust?” I asked, the pit in my gut growing. “I need you to spell it out.”
“I didn’t warn you they were going to arrest you—that I was going to,” he corrected. His brows were furrowed, and his lips turned down in a frown. “It’s my job to protect you, and I failed.”
“Did you go to your boss with the information you had on us? With the question Flynn asked you?”
“No.” He shook his head, his mouth agape and horror in his eyes. “I’d never do that. It was the librarian. I spoke with her after Flynn asked me what I had access to. She had a go at me for asking for raw data. She told me I should know it was protected by privacy laws. I covered, telling her we were investigating the security of government data and how it was stored. It seemed to placate her—she referred me to the head of their IT department. I wasn’t going to call him but got his details as a cover.”
He ran his hands through his hair, tugging on the ends in frustration, shaking his head as he did.
“Ninety minutes later she called and reported the break-in and how the security guard unloaded a clip on you. I stuttered out something, I don’t even know what now.” He choked out a sob. “I thought he’d killed you. I just needed her off the phone. I needed to hear your voices. I tried to call. Over and over again. But none of you answered—”
“We were in the air,” Flynn explained, putting the timeline together. Ezra nodded, sniffing and blinking fast to clear the glassiness in his eyes. “I saw a bunch of missed calls from you.”
“Me too,” Ry admitted quietly.
“The inspector practically broke down my office door while I was leaving another message for you,” he explained to Ry. “The head librarian called her. Puglisi didn’t cover for me on the investigation angle.”
“How did they figure out it was us?” I asked, unsure if I wanted to know the answer.
“The inspector snatched my phone out of my hands and checked my call register.” He shook his head, and his shoulders fell. He slumped in the seat, resting his head in his hands. “It was my fault. She saw that I’d called you. She knew exactly who she was looking for. They found the yacht within minutes—apparently, it’s Insta-worthy.” He lifted his face and rubbed his hands on his jeans, sighing heavily.
“While they had someone come out here to check whether you were onboard, they looked at Brisbane and Gold Coast airports—they figured you would have flown to Sydney if you were the ones to break in. They scanned the car park entry records, looking for one of your vehicles, and found the Range Rover entering at the private hangars. A return flight had already been scheduled, so they ordered virtually everyone in the building to get over there to wait for you to arrive.”
“Then you kissed me.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. Swallowed. Gave me a small smile, but the tension around his eyes remained.
“You were all taken into the interview rooms for questioning, and the techs were trying to break into your laptop. I was with them when Tris called me. I told him what I could. He organized the lawyer and came down. You know the rest.”
“You took a big risk, telling me,” Tristan stated, reaching for Ezra’s nape and squeezing it.
