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My stomach bottomed out.
Ryker exhaled, dragging a hand through his hair. “I get it, Claire. You want to save him.” His voice dropped. “But you can’t. Not from this.”
I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. “That’s not your call to make.”
“It is when you’re standing in my house asking me to go against my own damn brother,” he shot back. “Marcus is doing what needs to be done.”
I shook my head. “No. He’s doing whatheneeds. Not what Diego needs. Not what I need.” I took a step forward, leveling my gaze with his. “You can pretend this is about justice all you want, but you and I both know the truth. This is about control. About Marcus holding onto something when everything else is slipping through his fingers.”
Ryker’s jaw clenched. His silence was confirmation enough.
I softened my voice, careful now. “And you’d do the same thing if it were Izzy.”
Something flickered in his dark eyes.
I pressed on. “If someone hurt her, if she lostsomeone the way I just lost Diego, you’d move heaven and earth to fix it. To take the weight off her shoulders. You’d burn the world down to make sure she never had to carry that pain alone.”
His nostrils flared, but he didn’t argue.
“You have your men watching over her even when she doesn’t ask for it,” I said, tilting my head. “Right now, she’s at the hotel, and I’m willing to bet you’ve got eyes on her. Just in case.”
Ryker’s lips pressed into a thin line.
I nodded. “Because you can’t stand the idea of something happening to her. You feel like you need to protect her, even when she tells you not to. Even when she says she’s fine.”
He let out a long breath. “Yeah.” His voice was lower now. “I do.”
“Then you get it,” I said. “That’s why I need to go to him.”
Ryker’s eyes narrowed. “You really think you showing up is gonna change anything?”
“I think it’s the only thing that can,” I shot back. “If I’m there, he won’t lose himself completely.”
Ryker rolled his shoulders, tension bleeding through. He wasn’t convinced, but he was close.
I moved in for the kill. “If it were Izzy in my place, would you let her go?”
His jaw ticked.
“If she begged you to take her to you—to stop you before you did something you couldn’t come back from—would you really just stand there?” I lowered my voice. “Or would you take her hand and let her try?”
His breath left him in a slow, controlled exhale. He wasn’t looking at me anymore—he was somewhere else,playing out the scenario, seeing Izzy in my place, feeling the way I felt right now.
I held my breath, waiting.
Ryker stayed quiet for a long moment, his gaze fixed on some unseen point, tension radiating off him like a storm rolling in. I could almost hear the war inside his head—his loyalty to Marcus, his own instincts, the undeniable truth in what I’d just said.
Then he exhaled slowly, shaking his head. “You’re making a mistake.”
I swallowed hard. “Maybe. But I have to try.”
He let out another rough breath, muttered a curse, and scrubbed a hand down his face.
I pushed on, voice softer now. “Ryker, he’s just a kid.”
Ryker’s gaze snapped back to mine, sharp and unreadable.
“He might know something. He might have seen something,” I said, forcing my voice to stay even, to stay logical. “But that doesn’t mean he deserves to be tortured over it.”