Chapter Two
Ronin strode up the steps and used his shoulder to push open the glass doors into the warehouse.
His boots echoed on the polished concrete floor. He passed the stairs that led up to Dec and Layne’s apartment above the office and headed toward the lounge area. The huge, open-plan space had large windows that offered a fantastic view of downtown Denver. The brick wall at the far end of the warehouse was covered in computer screens. Sleek desks in that same corner held high-end computers. That was Darcy’s domain.
There was a small kitchenette tucked into another corner, and a huge conference table dominated the middle of the space. Off to one side was his destination, where couches were grouped together by a pool table and an air hockey table.
Darcy looked up from her computer. One of her silky brows rose, and she tucked a strand of her chin-length dark hair behind her ear. “That’s not my latte, Coop.”
“Nope.” He stomped past the conference table, toward the battered couches. Darcy kept threatening to replace them, but Ronin guessed she hadn’t done it yet because she was worried they’d wreck the new ones.
Logan O’Connor’s big form was currently sprawled in an armchair. He raised his head, his shaggy hair falling over his face. “What have you got there, Coop?”
“A spy.” Ronin set the woman on her feet.
Hearing footsteps, Ronin glanced over and saw Declan approach. In well-worn jeans and a black T-shirt, he looked every inch the former SEAL he was.
The woman straightened, gripping the hem of her white shirt and tugging it down. She scanned the room, taking it all in. He could tell she was nervous by the tense way she held herself, but there was no fear on her face. She lifted her chin.
She was a pretty thing, in a unique kind of way. Her hair color was one of a kind. She had the copper strands pulled back in a ponytail, and her bangs were cut bluntly across her eyes. And those big, blue eyes…they could swallow a man whole.
Ronin had always liked unique. He was good at seeing beneath the obvious.
“I’m not a spy,” the woman said.
“Talk.” Ronin crossed his arms over his chest. “I want your name, and I want to know why you’ve been watching us.”
“This is the person you said has been watching us?” Dec said, curiosity on his face.
Darcy wandered closer, with the elegant Sydney by her side. Logan’s girlfriend ran the business side of THS. They both eyed the woman curiously.
His captive drew herself up. “My name is Peri Butler. I’ve been watching you to see if I could trust you.”
Ronin raised a brow. He’d been trained to read body language, and right now she was using stubborn confidence to hide desperation and fear. Unless she was a really, really good liar, she was telling the truth. “Strange way to go about it.”
Peri wrapped her arms around her middle. “I needed to make sure you didn’t work for Silk Road.”
From nearby, Logan made a choking sound. “Fucking hate Silk Road.”
Dec was watching her steadily. “Go on.”
“I know you’ve tangled with them, but I wasn’t sure if it was just a front. Silk Road is good at lies and subterfuge.”
“They are,” Ronin agreed. She looked his way, and this time, he saw sadness and worry in her blue eyes. “I can assure you, we’re on the opposite side to Silk Road. What’s your link to them?”
She hesitated.
That’s when Darcy strode over with a click of heels. She held out a hand to the woman. “If we can help you, we will.”
Peri looked back at Ronin. “Six weeks ago, I was approached to guide an expedition. My sister and I are both experienced guides. It looked legit, and they were offering a lot of money. A lot.” She shook her head. “But something was off. The guy who approached me, a good-looking Australian, gave me the heebie-jeebies.”
“Heebie-jeebies?” Ronin said slowly.
She waved a hand. “I know tough guys like you don’t use terms like that, but the guy was off.”
Ronin understood instincts and he knew when someone was off.
“He gave me a company name. Karakorum, Inc. The company had a website, and it looked professional, but I still didn’t like it.”
Darcy cleared her throat. “The southern route of the historical Silk Road ran through the Karakorum Mountains on the border of Pakistan and China. It was called the Karakorum route.”
Something flickered over Peri’s face. “Shit. I should have dug deeper. I turned the job down, but my sister, Amber…she was between jobs, bored, and looking for something to do. She’s an adventurer at heart. We were raised traveling all over the world.” Peri pressed her lips together. “My parents are free-spirits, and said the world was our school.” She dragged in a deep breath. “I own a climbing gym, Anti-Gravity, down near the University of Denver. I take guide jobs occasionally, but the gym’s busy right now.”
“Hey, I’ve heard good things about that gym,” Logan said. “Think Cal’s been there before.”
“Her story checks out.” Darcy looked up from her tablet. “Except it appears your legal name is Peridot Butler.”
Peri winced. “Yes, thanks to my mother, my sister and I ended up named after gems. But I don’t answer to Peridot. It’s Peri.”
“Your sister took the job?” Ronin said, pushing the conversation back on track.
“Yes.” Peri’s eyes closed. “She went, and I’ve lost contact with her.” Her eyes opened again, and Ronin couldn’t look away. “She was supposed to have been back a week ago. The website for the company’s gone, and all the phone numbers are disconnected. I did some digging, and found out that the website had originally been listed to a shell company that linked back to Silk Road.”
Ronin shared a look with Dec. This wasn’t sounding good. “Where was the expedition headed?”
Peri swallowed. “My sister and I are experienced polar guides. We specialize in ice expeditions, and glacier and crevasse travel.” She twisted her hands together. “The expedition went to Antarctica.”
***
Peri sat at the long conference table, staring at the polished wood surface. Someone set a hot mug of coffee down in front of her.
She looked up at Ronin. “Thanks.”
The rest of the THS team sat around the table, and as Peri sipped the coffee, she wondered if Amber was warm, and had food and drink. If she was still alive.
“I wouldn’t be very thankful, because Dec made the coffee today.” Darcy Ward sat in the chair beside Peri. “That’s why I sent Coop out to the coffee shop.”
A blonde woman in a fitted skirt and classy blouse sat on the other side of the table. Peri knew from her research that she was Sydney Granger, former CEO of Granger Industries. Both Sydney and Darcy were polished and elegant, and made Peri feel rumpled and disheveled.
“We’d like to help you,” Darcy said.
Sydney leaned forward. “THS helped me find my brother. Silk Road had kidnapped him in South America.”
Peri had read the articles about the fantastic adventure into the Peruvian cloud forests. Sydney’s brother had been rescued by THS, alive. Peri had so badly wanted to believe the story was true.
“I can pay your going rate,” Peri said. While her gym was still growing, she had a good nest egg. “Polar guiding pays very well.” And Peri wasn’t the kind of woman to spend a fortune on clothes and jewelry. No, she spent her money mainly on climbing gear, and on the house she’d recently purchased.
The big man with the shaggy hair, Logan O’Connor, came up behind Sydney, resting his hands on the woman’s slim shoulders. Peri had read that these two were a couple. At first glance, they looked like complete opposites, but even after knowing them for just a few minutes, she could see that they fit. Sydney was always smiling at Logan, and the man watched Sydney with a heated, possessive warmth in his eyes.
Peri had never had a man who’d looked at her that way. She’d dated a long string of adrenaline junkies who were always looking for a good time, and that was about it. She had a weakness for hard, muscled male bodies.
“So, the expedition left a month ago?” Ronin’s voice cut through her thoughts.
Peri cleared her throat. “Just over. It was a four-week trip to take ice samples and monitor the rising temperatures on the Antarctic ice sheet.”
“Silk Road are black market antiquities thieves,” Ronin said. “They’re not interested in ice samples or global warming.”
“I know that. That had to be their cover story. But I know there are no antiquities or ruins in Antarctica, so I’m at a loss to know what they were after.”
“Could they be after relics from early Antarctic explorers?” Sydney asked.
Dec drummed his fingers against the table. “A few years back, old huts used by the early explorers were uncovered. They were perfectly preserved. They were like time capsules, filled with lots of old items. Tinned food, bottles of whiskey, journals written by the explorers.”
“But nothing valuable enough for Silk Road to find it interesting,” Ronin said.
“Right,” Dec agreed. “Peri, do you have any information on where this expedition was headed exactly?”
Peri shook her head, pushing back the all-too-familiar despair. “I don’t know. Somewhere near the Ellsworth Mountains.” She blew out a breath. “I realized something was wrong a couple of days before they were due back.”
Ronin frowned. “Before?”
She nodded. “Amber left a strange voicemail on my phone.” Peri pulled her phone out of her pocket. She set it on the table and hit the speaker button. The message played.
“Find it, Peri. 1881, 17th, 12, 22, 112, 1971.”
“She must have gotten access to a satellite phone,” Dec mused.
“What do the numbers mean?” Ronin asked.
“I don’t know.” Peri lifted her shoulder, battling back the frustration chewing at her belly. “I’ve tried to decipher it, but it doesn’t mean anything to me.”
Darcy pulled out a sleek tablet and started tapping on the screen. “I’ll run some searches and see if anything pops. I’ll also start searching to see what might have sparked Silk Road’s interest in Antarctica.”
Sydney stood. “I’ll make a few calls and see if I can track supplies or flights for an expedition to the Ellsworth Mountains.”
Dec nodded. “I’ll make a few calls, too.”
“Thank you.” A moment later, Peri found herself sitting at the table with only Ronin for company. “Sorry for spying on you.”
“It’s fine. You weren’t that good at it.”
She snorted. “You didn’t catch me the first few times. And I got away from you twice. I almost got away from you this last time, too.”
“Almost doesn’t count.”
Peri gripped her hands together. “Amber is a great guide and good in the snow.”
“Then it sounds like she has all the skills she needs to survive this,” Ronin said.
“By the time we were twelve, we’d both visited Antarctica before. Not to mention, climbed the Himalayas, trekked through the Sahara, and dived with sharks in Australia.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“It was, but…sometimes you just want to stay in one place for a while. To not live out of the bag.”
“I wouldn’t really know.”
She looked into his lean face. “I just bought a house. And I’m going to get a dog.” Everything inside her went cold. “My sister is my family. I love our parents, but they’re currently living in an ashram in India. I don’t think they’ll ever stop traveling. But Amber wanted to be here in Denver with me, as well.”
A big hand covered hers. “We’ll find her.”
His skin was so warm, and his touch surprisingly comforting. She gripped his fingers. “You can’t promise that, but thank you.”
Suddenly, there was a muted ping from the computers nearby.
Darcy scooted her office chair over and tapped a screen. Her beautiful face froze. “Holy cow.” She was scanning whatever was on the screen. “Everyone needs to see this.” She leaped up and her fingers flew over a keyboard. An image filled one of the screens on the wall.
Peri’s chest tightened, filling with anticipation, worry, excitement. Was this good news or bad? She stood, and, keeping hold of Ronin’s hand, they moved closer to the screens.
Everyone gathered, studying the aerial image of an ice plain.
Peri frowned. She guessed it was somewhere in Antarctica. A few darker, rocky, mountain peaks poked through the ice.
“Antarctica. So?” Declan said.
Darcy tapped the screen and the image zoomed in. “This shot is from the western side of the continent. The ice is melting faster on that side, and it’s uncovering mountains that haven’t been free of ice and snow in years. There’s been some recent chatter on the internet…”
The image zoomed in again. Everyone gasped.
Peri blinked. Surely that wasn’t what she thought it was.
She looked up and saw Ronin’s jaw was tight. He didn’t have the most expressive face, but she got the sense that he was as equally shocked as she was.
“Is that a pyramid?” Ronin said.