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“How’d she get past the perimeter?”

Ryder shook his head. “Fuck, I don’t know. I do know that guy is on his phone half the time. So maybe she just strolled right past him.”

Heath’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue. Good. Be angry at the guard, not at her.

Heath was weighing it. Ryder could see the calculation behind his eyes, the same cost-benefit analysis he’d watched Heath run in their first conversation. Nuisance or threat. Stupidity or deception. Kill or don’t kill.

He needed to tip him over the edge. “Look, it’s a game we play when I get bored on assignments. We’ve done it before, and when I told her I’d be gone for a while, she thought it was like the other times. She didn’t understand that this time I was off-limits.”

“What’s your name?” Heath said to Cassandra.

She didn’t answer. Ryder looked down at her. Her eyes were on the floor, her body rigid against his, her breathing shallow and rapid.

Come on, Cass. Work with me here.

“She’s shy,” Ryder said. “Princess. Tell him your name.”

Nothing.

“Your girlfriend is being rude, Ryder.”

Shit.

“Her name is Cassandra,” Ryder said to Heath. Staying with the truth was better in this situation. “You’ve got a gun pointed at us and two guys behind you. You’re scaring the shit out of her.”

Heath studied her for another second then lowered his gun. He was buying at least some of this. Thank God.

One problem down, a couple hundred more to go.

But a lowered gun didn’t mean Heath believed him. It meant Heath had decided Cassandra wasn’t an immediate physical threat. Those were two very different things, and the look on Heath’s face said he knew the difference too.

“I need to search her.”

“I’ll do it.”

“No. I don’t trust you. I’ll do it.”

There was no way around this. Refusing would look like she was hiding something. The thumb drive and tools were in Ryder’s pocket, not hers. She’d come up clean. But he was about to watch a stranger put his hands on Cassandra and have to keep his face neutral about it.

“Cass.” He tilted her chin up so she was looking at him. Her eyes were wide and glassy. “This man needs to check you for weapons. Stand still and let him. It’ll be over quick. Just look at me, okay?”

She nodded. Barely.

Heath searched her. He started professional. Pockets, waistband, the boots that looked half a size too big and probably were.

Then his hands slowed down. He took his time along her hips, her ribs, let his fingers linger in places a weapons check didn’t require. Cassandra flinched. Ryder’s jaw locked.

Heath looked up at him while his hands were still on her. A grin that wasn’t a grin. A test. What are you going to do about it?

Ryder held his gaze and did nothing. His fists were clenched at his sides and his pulse was slamming in his throat and he did absolutely nothing, because reacting was what Heath wanted and not reacting was what kept Cassandra alive.

“She’s clean.”

“I told you. She’s my girlfriend from Dallas, Heath. She’s not a threat.”

“I’ll decide what’s a threat in this house.”

That was fair. That was Heath doing his job, and Ryder respected the line even as he hated what it meant. Heath wasn’t going to take his word for anything tonight. Every piece of the story would have to be proven, not told.