Her lips flattened and her nails bit into her palms. What she wouldn’t give to crack a teapot over Sarah’s head right about now. With practiced effort, she pushed the urge to lash out from her mind. Revenge gave a buzz for sure, but getting the job done was a high that lasted longer.
After rolling her head from side to side, she shook out her arms to relieve the tension building within her muscles. Breaking the crockery wasn’t going to do a damn thing to fix this cluster fuck. To do that, she needed to get the bitch on the Dylan’s Department Store jet.
She straightened so the outbuilding once again hid her from view. A plan started to gel in her mind. “I’m gonna sneak up to the side of the house. You stay here and watch my back.”
“No fucking way.”
“Look. I’m faster than you are, and I make a smaller target.”
“And I can be a more effective backup when I’m right next to you than when I’m two-thirds of a football field away.” He pulled her close, his face only inches from hers. “You know you don’t always have to prove what a back-in-black total badass you are.”
She stumbled back, pulling out of his grasp. That hit too close to home for her to react any way but defensively. “Have you ever not been in total control?”
His face went dark. “Yeah, and it ended up with a kid dead.” He rubbed his palm against his close-cropped hair as if he could scrub away what must be an unpleasant memory. “I’m coming with you.”
Something about the way he made his declaration shivered its way up her spine. There were moments in the ring when she had to make a split-second decision based on nothing more than training and her gut feeling. This was one of those moments.
“Just don’t fuck this up.” Without waiting for his reply, she took off at a jog around the outbuilding.
Her tennis shoes thumped across the hard-packed dirt driveway. With her gaze flicking from the house to the pineapple field to the line of trees behind her destination, she listened for any sound. Only Devin’s surprisingly light steps behind her pierced the thunder of her heartbeat.
Avoiding the front window, she ran to the side of the house. Devin stopped next to her a second later. She held a finger to her lips then jerked her chin at the first of three windows. He pointed at himself. Nodding, she soft-pedaled it to the second window. Pressing her fingers lightly against the scarred wood, she stood on her tiptoes and peeked inside.
After blinking rapidly to adjust her eyes to the dimmer interior, she squinted and tried to decipher what she was seeing. Floral wallpaper in the kind of pastels that her sister, Alessandra, loved. A white porcelain claw-foot tub. Stacks of petal-pink towels.
She sank back on her heels, turned to Devin, and mouthed the word “bathroom.” He nodded, pointed up, and mouthed “kitchen.” In tandem, they approached the third window. A thunk sounded and a woman yelled in Spanish. Sarah Molina. The name ran through Ryder’s mind, calming the mad beating of her heart.
Adrenaline numbing any bit of healthy fear, she stood so she was eye level with the window. The yelling continued, but the only thing she could pick out in the interior’s soft glow was a cat sitting on the arm of a rose-colored couch. The cat lifted a paw, shifting in the process, and the woman’s yelling was replaced by a man singing. The corner of a black remote stuck out from under the cat’s fuzzy butt.
Ryder’s Call of Duty kick-ass mentality fizzled into a grin at the sight.
“Everyone hates missing their favorite shows,” Devin whispered.
She choked back a giggle as her pulse returned to normal. “You should have seen my Nonni when they moved Judge Judy’s time slot. Sicilians are serious about their curses.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
The crunch of many tires killed the light mood.
They scurried to the corner and peered around.
/> A series of four trucks pulled up in the dirt driveway, coming to rest next to the house’s front porch. Two men climbed out of each vehicle, circled around to unload stacks of boxes from the truck beds, and carried the cargo inside. A minute later, the cat meowed, and the sounds of men talking and laughing filtered out of the window.
Catching Devin’s gaze, she pointed up, then toward the trucks. He nodded and pivoted on his haunches so he would be ready if any of the men came around the corner.
She inhaled a deep breath through her nose and exhaled from her mouth before rising. Five men were in the living room. The oldest one, who must have been in his late fifties, lifted the flaps of one of the boxes and pulled out a teapot.
So much for the Sopranos of The Andol Republic.
Then he pulled off the kettle’s lid and reached inside. What he retrieved put rainbows on the walls. Focusing her attention on his hands, she tried to make out what he held. No luck—until he lifted the object for the rest of the crew to admire. A diamond choker dangled from his fingers.
Shit.
Ryder sank down below the sill. “We’ve gotta get to the cops,” she whispered.
“Drugs?”
She shook her head. “Stolen diamonds.”