Page 41 of Shadow Strike
The laughter faded.Ryder leaned forward, elbows on the table.“I want you to know what you’re protecting.Regan isn’t just running a bar and minding her own business.She’s investigating us.The whole organization.The same way she went after my father.”
CB kept his face neutral, but his mind was racing.How had Ryder found out?Had someone seen Regan’s research?Intercepted her communications?
Nah.He’d bet money that one of her sources ran right to Ryder and informed him.
“She’s a journalist,” CB said.“She investigates things.That’s what she does.Your threats are only making her dig in her heels.”
“Don’t play stupid.This isn’t some general interest piece.She wants to destroy everything the Briggs family built.She’s already taken down my father.Now she’s coming for the rest of us.”Ryder’s eyes hardened.“And you’re helping her do it.”
“You’re hurting people, Ryder.That’s not Regan’s fault.”
“I’m protecting people.At least the ones smart enough to pay for it.That’s how business works.”
“Extortion isn’t business.Neither is sending Denny to beat up a woman and make threats.”
A muscle in Ryder’s jaw flexed.“She brought that on herself,” he said.“I gave her a chance to gain our protection.She didn’t take it.”
“So you escalated to violence and intimidation.And when she still refuses to be manipulated, what’s next?You going to kill her?”
Ryder was quiet for a long moment.The lantern hissed softly on the mantel.“I’m trying to protect this family,” he said finally.“Something you never understood how to do.”
“I understood plenty.That’s why I left.”
Ryder stood abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor.“You walked away and left me to hold the family business together.Do you have any idea what that was like?Taking over when Wade had his stroke, dealing with the fallout from Ray’s arrest, keeping the whole thing from falling apart while you were off playing soldier?”
CB met his gaze.“I left because I didn’t want to be what you became.”
“And what are you now?”Ryder stepped closer, his voice low and sharp.“A hired hand.Protecting the woman who burned your uncle.Taking money to stand against your own blood.”
“I’m someone who chose right over comfort.”
Ryder stopped.For a moment, something almost like pain crossed his face.Then it was gone, replaced by the cold mask CB had come to expect.“You always did think you were better than the rest of us.”
CB heard what he really meant.Better than me.The cousin who’d grown up in CB’s shadow, always second in line, always watching while Wade groomed CB for a future he’d never wanted.
“Not better,” CB said quietly.“I wanted something different.That’s all.”
Ryder stared at him.The silence stretched between them, filled with decades of history neither of them could undo.
Then Ryder smiled.Cold and certain, like a man holding a winning hand.“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said.“You’re going to find a way to stop Regan from publishing that story.Then, you’re going to walk away from her.You’re going to forget you ever heard her name.And if you don’t—” He paused, letting the moment hang.“If you don’t, I’m going to make sure your father takes the fall for everything.”
CB went still.“What are you talking about?”
“The illegal operations.The money laundering.The deals that went bad.”Ryder spread his hands.“All of it traces back to Wade.His name is on the paperwork.His signature on the accounts.Witnesses who’ll testify they were following his orders.Everything I’ve built over the past few years—if it goes south, your father is the one holding the bag.”
CB’s stomach plummeted.
This had been Ryder’s plan all along, from the moment Wade had his stroke, maybe even before.He’d positioned himself as the caring replacement while using Wade as the figurehead, the legacy, the respected founder to cover his own illegal activities.He’d been building a paper trail.Insurance.If Regan’s investigation brought down the Outlaws, Ryder would walk away, and Wade would die in prison.
“You used him.”CB’s voice came out rough.“Your own uncle.You’ve set him up.”
“I protected myself.That’s what survivors do.”Ryder shrugged.“Wade was never going to lead again.Might as well make him useful.”
CB remembered his father in that hospital bed.The right side of his body paralyzed, his speech reduced to fragments, his sharp mind trapped behind eyes that couldn’t convey what he was thinking.He’d come back from it enough to live on his own again with help.And all that time, he’d been a pawn for Ryder’s plan.
Wade Briggs had been a hard man, a complicated man, a man CB had spent years trying to escape.But he was still his father.And he didn’t deserve to be Ryder’s sacrificial lamb.
“He can’t even defend himself,” CB said.
