Crash & Burn

  Zane shoved him out of the room and slammed the door behind them. The last thing Ty saw was Nick turning his head away as Ty railed.

  Nick woke slowly, like he was dragging his consciousness behind him through the shifting sands of a desert. He’d lost a lot more blood than he’d imagined he would on the trek to Ty’s row house. He almost hadn’t made it there.

  A cold dread settled into his chest when he realized he was lying awake with his eyes still closed. He forced them open, shocked by how bright everything was. Weak moonlight streamed through the curtains. His limbs were heavy, almost numb. He didn’t even try to move them. He did roll his head to the side, though, to check the door.

  A man was hunched over the side of the bed, sitting in a chair with his head pillowed on his arms on the mattress. Nick squeezed one eye closed to try to focus on him.

  “Ozone,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  Owen jerked up, blinking away the sleep and focusing on Nick, hand on the gun at his belt. “Hey,” he said, relaxing and sounding a little surprised to be awake. Owen had always woken like that, though, moving before his brain registered awareness. “You feel okay? You lost a lot of blood, man.”

  Nick nodded. “I’ve had worse.”

  “Yeah,” Owen whispered, almost as if he hadn’t intended to say it. “Ty says you murdered Richard Burns.”

  Nick blinked at the ceiling for a few seconds before nodding curtly. “Murdered” was a strong word, coming from Ty.

  Nick lifted his hand to wipe it across his face, but the motion came to an abrupt halt with a clang and a jerk. He stared at the handcuff around his wrist for a long time.

  “I tried to talk to him down,” Owen said, voice pitched low. He leaned closer and took Nick’s hand, checking that the cuff wasn’t too tight. His fingers were like ice against Nick’s palm. He met Nick’s eyes and held on to his hand, squeezing. “He’s not listening to anyone, though, not even Garrett.”

  “Ty did this?” Nick gasped with another jerk at the handcuff.

  Owen nodded sorrowfully. “He hasn’t called it in yet. But he’s going to. Soon. As soon as he decides whose jurisdiction it falls under.”

  Something fluttered in Nick’s chest and then settled, heavy like an anchor, dragging at his heart. He’d known Ty would react badly, of course he had. But he’d expected more than a few minutes to plead his case before Ty shut him down. He sure as hell hadn’t expected to be handcuffed to the fucking bed. Now he didn’t feel so bad for bleeding all over their fancy memory foam mattress.

  “How long was I out?” Nick asked after a few moments of trying to regain his composure. His words still came out shaky.

  “Good part of the night.”

  “Is Doc here?”

  “Not yet, but he’s on his way. His flight was delayed.”

  “He can’t see this, Johns. He can’t.”

  “You want me to keep Doc out of here when he knows you’re hurt?” Owen smiled ruefully. “I’m your brother, dude, and I love you. But I’m not suicidal.”

  Nick snorted, wincing as something in his side pulled. He craned his head, trying to get a look at the wound. “Did someone stitch me up?”

  Owen pressed his lips together and frowned. “Digger.”

  “What?”

  Owen raised a hand to fend off Nick’s panic. “You were bleeding a lot, man. We had to close it up.”

  “And you let Digger do it? Oh my God, what did he use? It’s not fishing line again, is it?”

  “I don’t know, it was in his go bag. And it was . . . green.”

  “Oh Jesus, it’s probably alligator sinew or something, Johns! Get it out!”

  Owen was very nearly laughing as he shook his head.

  Nick was about to demand again for him to remove the stitching when the door shoved open and banged against the wall. Owen jumped at the intrusion.

  “I told you to come get me when he woke up,” Ty snarled.

  Owen stood and turned to face him, squaring his shoulders. Nick could only see a part of his face, but he saw Owen’s jaw jump. “Good thing I don’t take orders from you anymore. He’s not a fucking prisoner.”

  “Get out.”

  Owen hesitated, glancing over his shoulder at Nick. Nick nodded, and Owen waited a few more seconds, probably just to be ornery, before he brushed past Ty and out of the room.

  Ty stood glowering in the doorway, his broad shoulders tensed, his head lowered. He took one step and kicked the door closed.

  “Six,” Nick whispered.

  “Don’t. Don’t fucking call me that, not right now.”

  Nick gave that a few seconds to sink in, to burn its way through him. Then he set it aside and pulled at the handcuffs to force Ty to hear the noise they made. Ty should know exactly what memories that sound dredged up. “What should I call you, then?”

  Ty’s nostrils flared and he kicked the chair out of the way to pace beside the bed. “You fucking hypocrite,” he said through gritted teeth. “You remember what you said to me about following orders? Do you remember?”

  “I know.”

  “You broke my fucking heart!” Ty grabbed up a picture frame from the bedside table, whirling and chucking it across the room. Nick jerked at the handcuffs, trying to pull himself toward the headboard so he’d be a smaller target. Ty was just pacing, though, his hands bunched into fists.

  “I know I did,” Nick admitted, tears choking the words. “I had to tell you something I knew would hurt. I had to make sure you couldn’t look me in the eye.”

  Ty whirled on him. Nick swallowed hard and pressed on before the look in Ty’s eyes could wither his resolve. “I couldn’t let you, you’d have seen right through me. You’d have known I killed him, and I needed more evidence for you before I told you.”

  Ty’s hazel eyes had gone flat, like Nick’s words had snuffed out something inside him, like Nick was a stranger who didn’t deserve to see that light. Nick knew he deserved it. He’d known this was going to come down on his head the moment the NIA had tagged him for the hit. He’d known as soon as he’d taken his chance in Scotland, amid so much death. He’d known, even as he’d said the words, that Ty might never forgive him. But it had been a choice between killing an evil man or losing his best friend, and he’d chosen hope. Hope that his best friend could one day forgive him.

  “Do you have more evidence for me?” Ty asked.

  “No. It’s not a two-man job, and all I’ve had was Liam.”

  Ty bared his teeth at the mention of the name.

  “But I know how to get it.”

  Ty snorted angrily. “You’re telling me you killed a man, a man I trusted, a man I loved, on the word of some NIA suit who pulled you off a military mission? Did it never occur to you to get the proof before you snapped his fucking neck?”

  Nick fought down his anger. He knew how to handle Ty, and brute force wasn’t ever successful. “I had all the proof I needed.”

  Ty eyed Nick up and down, and Nick could see his gears turning: he could tell Ty was trying to come to terms with so much betrayal, and quite obviously failing. Nick knew how he felt.

  He pulled at the handcuffs again. “Are these really necessary? I came to you, Ty.”

  Ty’s jaw jumped and he turned hard eyes on Nick. “That was your first mistake, I guess.”

  Zane stood on the front stoop of the row house, absently wiping the blood off the door, his phone hot in his hand because he’d been on it for so long.

  He’d spent a full hour trying to talk Ty into not handcuffing Nick to their bed, but Ty had been beyond logic. Zane had rarely seen him like that, and he’d decided to let it go and live to fight another day. When Ty calmed he’d begin to see reason, what little there was of it right now. If the NIA had ordered the hit Nick had performed, who exactly did Ty plan on calling to report it to? He was just wounded and lashing out any way he could. Zane didn’t blame him.

  Owen and Digger had shown up not long after he’d called them, and Zane had forced himself to st
ay out of the fight that had ensued. It was fascinating, watching the way Sidewinder roiled with the controversy. Owen and Digger both seemed to be trying not to take sides and keep things calm, something Zane hadn’t expected out of either man, and the argument twisted and turned like the very namesake of their team.

  Ty was a force to be reckoned with, though, fueled by betrayal and pain and righteous anger. Neither man could make any headway with him, and so Nick had remained upstairs, unconscious and handcuffed to the brand-new bed Ty had bought Zane as a wedding present.

  Ty’d been sitting on the back stoop, smoking a Cuban cigar and staring at stars ever since. Digger had informed Zane that peroxide would get blood out of everything, but hadn’t felt the need to help Zane do it. Owen hadn’t left Nick’s side. And as soon as Zane had been certain Owen and Digger would keep the peace for a little while, he’d stepped outside and gotten on the phone.

  The core of the problem here, and the only new information they’d been given, was Nick’s claim about Richard Burns. At first Zane had reacted just like Ty, with utter disbelief and derision. But the more he thought about it, about the work Burns’d had him doing in Miami, about the secretive nature of the transmissions Zane had sent to him, about the way Burns had put Ty on him to watch him after he’d distanced himself from that case, the more suspicious Zane got.

  He wasn’t sure what to do about it, though, or who to go to for information. Who could he trust with that? He couldn’t even put one of his own agents on it because he still had no idea who the fucking mole was in the Baltimore office.

  As he’d pondered the problem, he’d fielded about ten calls from Kelly, who was flying in from Colorado to celebrate Ty and Zane’s marriage with the others. Kelly had been diverted to DC and delayed, though, and as soon as he’d landed, he’d checked his messages and then called Zane in an absolute panic over Nick’s condition. He’d immediately rented a car and was driving in instead of waiting for his connecting flight.

  He’d called every ten minutes since, and so Zane was standing on the stoop with his overheated phone to his ear, speaking to Kelly even as he watched the headlights of the man’s rental speed up the narrow street to their front door.

  The wheels screeched on the damp road, and the engine had barely shut off before Kelly hopped out and jogged toward the house.

  “What the hell?” Kelly shouted, even though Zane had filled him in at least ten times on the phone.

  Zane turned his phone off and slid it into his back pocket. He put a hand out. “He’s okay.”

  “What happened, what’d he say? Where the hell has he been? How long was he missing? Where is he?”

  Zane couldn’t help but smile. Kelly wasn’t going to believe any of the answers Zane had already given him until he saw with his own two eyes, and Zane had made sure to keep the most interesting parts to himself so Kelly didn’t go into a fit of rage and wreck the car on the way there. “We didn’t really get a lot out of him, other than that he’d been with Liam Bell and something about Richard Burns and the cartel.”

  “Liam Bell? Why the fuck didn’t you say that to start with?” Kelly shouted as he barged past Zane and into the house. Zane almost felt sorry for whomever he encountered first. “Where is he?”

  Digger stood from the couch where he’d been drowsing, and pointed up the stairs, where Owen sat leaning against the banister and Ty was making his way down, probably coming to investigate the ruckus.

  “Hold on, Doc,” Ty said, blocking the way to the stairs and putting a hand on each of Kelly’s shoulders.

  “Zane said he was wounded, is he okay?”

  “He’s okay. Digger stitched it up and it’s doing fine. No damage inside.”

  “I’m sorry, when did you get your medical degree?” Kelly demanded. “Why the fuck didn’t you call an ambulance?”

  “Doc—”

  Kelly smacked Ty’s hands away and shoved at him. “Dumbass. Move!”

  Ty planted his feet. “Couple things you need to know first, okay? Calm down.”

  Zane glanced at the other two men, and Owen met his eyes from where he was sitting on the stairs and shook his head, looking grim.

  “Listen,” Ty said to Kelly, voice growing more heated as he spoke. “We don’t know exactly what Nick was up to, or why. Okay? But one thing we know for sure is that he killed Richard Burns in Scotland.”

  “He what?” Kelly blurted.

  “He confessed to it.”

  “No, he’s got to be hallucinating from loss of blood or something.”

  “He’s not, Doc,” Owen said softly. “He’s lucid. He killed him.”

  “I was with him almost the entire time in Scotland, no way he had the chance.”

  “We all know how Nick can operate, Doc,” Digger offered.

  Kelly paled. “Fuck that. Let me see him.”

  Ty made a “wait” motion, gritting his teeth. “Just be prepared, okay? He’s handcuffed to the bed so he can’t escape.”

  The room went silent, and even Zane found himself holding his breath as he waited for Kelly to react to that.

  It wasn’t an outburst when it came, but Kelly’s dangerous murmur was almost more worrying. “You handcuffed him?”

  “Doc, don’t,” Ty huffed. He sidestepped to prevent Kelly from getting past him.

  Kelly wound up on the same level as Ty, and even though he was inches shorter, Ty backed away from him when he spoke. “You handcuffed him to the bed?”

  “He admitted to murder.”

  Kelly gave that a derisive laugh, putting a hand on Ty’s chest. “I hope whoever cuffed him has clean hands.”

  “What?” Ty asked.

  “You got blood on your hands, Six? ’Cause I sure as hell do. Hard to cuff someone for doing wrong when your fucking palms are that slippery.”

  “Watch it,” Ty growled.

  “Fuck you!” Kelly shouted. He shoved Ty out of the way. “You think you’re the only one who screams in his sleep? The only one who begs not to be tied down? Fuck you, Grady! You fucking fuck, get out of the way!”

  Ty stumbled to the side, looking stricken as Kelly stormed past him and up the steps. Then Ty propelled himself after him. Zane had to force himself to move to make sure more blood wouldn’t get spilled.

  He was at the top of the stairs when Kelly shoved the bedroom door open, Ty right on his heels. They both skidded to a halt, though, and Zane hustled to see what the hell was going on.

  The bed was empty. The bloody sheets were rumpled, and the pillows were askew. The handcuffs had been tossed into the middle of the sheets, gleaming accusingly in the low light.

  “Fuck,” Ty whispered.

  Kelly stared at the scene for a few seconds, appearing calm as he took it all in. Zane slid past them both, since they seemed to be rooted to the spot, and moved carefully into the room.

  “O’Flaherty?” he called, fighting the very real urge to reach for his gun. He’d seen what Nick could do when he felt threatened, when his reality began to slip. He didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that.

  Once he cleared the room he began to relax, but only slightly. Nick was gone. Gone and angry and feeling abandoned, betrayed, and cornered. He was not the kind of enemy they needed right now.

  Zane looked all around the room again, noting the only thing Nick had left behind: a handwritten message on a piece of paper pinned to the wall beside the bed with a knife. Zane tried to pull the knife out, but it had been stuck with too much force. He gave up on it and yanked the paper instead, tearing it.

  “What’s it say?” Ty asked, his voice barely strong enough for Zane to hear.

  Zane shook his head and glanced at his husband. He didn’t want to read the note out loud, not when Ty looked like a puppy who’d just been kicked by his master, not when Zane could see that sickening realization sinking into Ty’s eyes. The realization that his best friend had just escaped a trap he himself had put him in.

  “Zane, what’s it say?” Ty asked again.

>   “It just says . . . it just says twenty-three days, nine hours, and fifty-one minutes.”

  Ty took an involuntary step back, his hand going to his mouth as he lowered his head.

  Kelly nodded, staring off toward the window. “With friends like you, who the fuck needs Liam Bell?” he said to Ty before leaving them alone with the note and the knife Ty had given Nick for his thirtieth birthday.

  Nick was weaker than he would have liked while being on the run from his friends, but he didn’t seem to have much choice in the matter. If Owen hadn’t slipped him a key, he’d still be stuck in that fucking bed. Ty knew where Nick hid all his keys. Asshole.

  It had begun to snow, and it was going to make getting to safety harder. Also, covering his trail would be impossible unless it got heavier. He’d stolen a sweatshirt from the bedroom closet, and he was pretty sure it was Zane’s because it was actually too big. He hunched into it, still not warm enough to be out in this cold after losing so much blood.

  He couldn’t quite identify the feeling in his chest and stomach. Was it loss? Heartbreak? Anger? Guilt? Yeah, he remembered this feeling from Catholic school, and it was a hefty dose of guilt and anger. He trudged past the dark alley near Ty’s row house, just barely smelling the smoke in time to realize that he was no longer alone.

  Liam stepped away from the brick wall, flicking his cigarette. Nick stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, his hand on his newly stitched wound.

  “Where’s your knife?” Liam asked as his eyes traveled up and down Nick.

  “Left it behind to make a point.”

  Liam nodded. “Did it?”

  Nick just lowered his head. He’d been so sure Ty would help him.

  Liam took a step toward him and slid his arm under Nick’s, letting Nick lean on him. Nick wrapped his arm over Liam’s shoulder and gripped the material of his coat, relieved when Liam took the weight. They began a slow shuffle toward the harbor, neither saying a word for nearly a block.

  “So?” Liam finally asked.

  “You were right. Ty’s no good to us.”

  “Story of my life, love.” Liam snorted, his breath puffing out in a crystallized cloud.