Ball & Chain

“Ball and chain,” he said, smacking Kelly’s arm.



“You can’t call me that unless we’re married.”



Nick smirked and stepped closer to the wall, running his hand over an angel with a chain through its wing. “Ball and chain,” he repeated. “Like in our room.”



Kelly came closer and took the gun from the small of Nick’s back, stepping away and raising it, at the ready. Nick gave him a nod, then pulled the wing of the angel and flattened himself against the wall as something inside the stone clicked. It grated across the floor, making both Nick and Kelly cringe from the sound. Kelly kept the gun up, though, aimed at the darkness revealed inside the wall.



When it became obvious that it was empty, Kelly lowered the gun and they shared a glance. “Great,” Kelly huffed. “Our killers know the place.”



Chapter 9



Ty let his head hang, rubbing at his eyes. He looked up at a heavy sigh from Zane.



“More dead ends?”



“There’s just too much chaff, here,” Zane said in frustration. “Without something to go on—a number, a keyword—there’s no way to find anything.”



He gave up on the folders and instead pulled up Milton’s email. They were scanning through it when something heavy clanked behind them. Ty whirled, reaching for a gun that wasn’t there. Zane stood as well, but neither of them was armed. They tensed, preparing for whatever came out of the wall.



The leather-covered panel beside the fireplace swung open, and Kelly stepped out, gun in hand, sweeping the room before he pointed it at Ty and Zane. He straightened quickly, lowering the gun.



“Hi,” he said.



Nick stepped out behind him a moment later, brushing cobwebs off his shoulders.



“What the hell?” Ty shouted. He looked around, searching for something, anything, to throw at them. “You scared the shit out of us, what if we’d been carrying? We could have shot you!”



“Yeah, but you didn’t,” Kelly said.



“How did you two end up in the walls again?” Zane asked, sounding like a weary mother scolding her children.



“Doc realized we should have seen the killer when we went down to the kitchen. So we started looking for places he could have been hidden.”



Kelly grinned widely. “We found another entrance instead.”



“How?” Ty demanded.



“The carvings of angels with a ball and chain,” Nick said. He glanced over the fireplace beside him, then pointed to one of the carvings. “They’re the way in.”



“I’ve seen about half a dozen of those in the house.” Zane sounded scandalized. “I even saw one on the exterior, at the corner wall near the patio.”



“Escape route,” Nick guessed.



“Wait, wait,” Ty finally said. “So you two found these passages by accident. How do our killers know they’re there?”



Nick shrugged and scratched idly at his forearm. “Family? Staff?”



“I wonder if they’d be in any public plans of the place,” Zane added. “A little research could have exposed them.”



“That’s unlikely,” Nick said. “These were basically a maze of panic rooms. They were built to protect the family from war, invasion, revolt. They would have been secret.”



“We’re going to have to sit the family down and see who knows about them,” Kelly surmised. He checked the gun and then stuffed it back into Nick’s jeans.



“What about the phone?” Ty asked.



“It kind of . . . blew up,” Kelly answered.



“But we did get photos of some things before it went. From what we can tell, he used texts to set up a meeting last night. He either had a signal booster or he was the one blocking everyone else’s signal. He was selling something to someone on the island.”



“That’s why he was all packed up,” Ty said. Kelly nodded. “He was getting his money and getting out. So how’d he end up dead instead?”



“Deal gone bad,” Nick said with another careless shrug. “Change of heart. Who knows?”



“No indication of what he was selling?” Zane asked.



“We were hoping you could tell us.”



Zane nodded. “Let me get back to this, then.”



Nick and Kelly came closer as Zane sat once more, and they all watched the screen as Zane pulled up the list of emails again. Ty scanned the subjects and the occasional first line of each. They all seemed to be rather innocuous work-related missives, except for the few that looked like online shopping receipts.



Finally, Ty patted Zane’s shoulder and pointed at one of the emails. “See what that one says.”



“A shipping confirmation from Brookstone?”



Ty rolled his eyes. “Just . . . humor me.”



Zane shrugged and pulled up the email. But as they looked at the shipping confirmation, they realized it wasn’t actually confirming the purchase or shipping of any goods. It was merely a time, date, and address from which the package had supposedly been shipped.



“It’s a fake,” Kelly said in surprise.



“I’ve seen this,” Nick told them. He tapped the screen. “I’ve seen this with call-girl rings from Vice. You place an order, and they send you a receipt that looks like you were shopping online. Then to set up time and place, they use a shipping confirmation. It hides the paper trail, allows people to pay in different ways, and keeps your records looking clean if anyone gets into them.”



“So, what, he was ordering call girls?” Kelly asked.



Ty frowned harder, reading over the email again. “That’s Deacon’s address in Philly,” he realized. His breath left him in a rush. The date was for two days from now. “He ordered a hit on my brother.”



“You don’t know that, Ty.” Zane’s voice was even, but Ty could hear the anger in it.



Kelly touched Ty’s arm, and when Ty met his eyes, Kelly was frowning hard. “No one has any interest in killing your brother. Amelia’s the one who’s valuable, right? This probably wasn’t a hit.”



“A kidnapping?” Zane asked.



Ty gritted his teeth. His entire body began to shake, and he had to take a deep breath to keep himself calm. “I’ll kill him.”



“He’s already dead, Ty,” Nick reminded him.



Ty stalked back and forth, fuming as he thought about the innocent little girl upstairs being stolen from her bed, taken by strangers, all so someone somewhere could make a buck.



“I’ll kill him again, then!” Ty shouted.



“Yeah, someone already did that too,” Kelly pointed out. “You want to go step on his intestines? They’re still in a bag on the freezer floor.”



“Dude,” Nick muttered.



Kelly shrugged, unapologetic.



Nick stepped in front of Ty, blocking his path. “You want some real answers, Ty?”



Ty gritted his teeth, balling his hands into fists.



Nick raised both eyebrows. “Then how about you go talk to Richard Burns and ask him some hard questions for once?”



“Sure, Irish, why not just point a loaded gun at the man,” Kelly said wryly. He stepped up behind Ty and put both hands on his shoulders, turning him until he could force him to sit. “Let’s get a little more information before we go off storming the castle, okay?”



“I second that,” Zane said.



Ty was shaking his head, still fuming even as Kelly put pressure on both shoulders to keep him sitting. “Dick never would have let it get that far if he knew. He wouldn’t put Deuce or Amelia at risk for anything.”



“Really?” Nick asked.



Ty glared at him, but he wasn’t so far out of control that he didn’t realize he was looking for a target, any target, to vent his anger on. Nick had always recognized when Ty needed someone to aim at, and he usually found Ty a suitable target, even if it was himself. But this time Nick didn’t. His jaw was tight and his green eyes were hard, and Ty didn’t understand why.



“What is wrong with you?” Ty asked him, standing to square his shoulders against Nick’s. “You’ve been questioning me at every turn ever since we got deployed. You want to talk to me about this, Irish? Or should we keep going around in circles while people are dying?”



Nick flattened his lips into a thin line and nodded. “We’ve known each other for a long time, Tyler.”



“That’s why I don’t understand why you won’t fucking talk to me,” Ty blurted. “When have we ever let something hang between us like this? When have you ever kept secrets from me as big as him?” He waved his hand at Kelly. “And he sure as hell isn’t the only thing you’re keeping close to the vest. What’s going on?”



“We’ve told a lot of lies over the years,” Nick said, his voice low and hard.



Ty’s body went cold, tingling with the rush of realization. The things he had said and done, he’d been able to validate them all to himself at the time: He was protecting Zane by not telling him that Burns had ordered him to keep an eye on his partner. He was following orders and keeping his teammates safe when he didn’t tell them why they were being discharged. Nick, though . . . his definitions of truth and honor were more black-and-white than Ty’s ever had been.



“We’ve even told some of those lies to each other, but damn it, Ty,” Nick hissed, finally letting the anger break through his cool façade. “You looked me in the eye and you lied to me. You lied to me when it mattered. You lied to us, and then you kept asking us to stand beside you like those lies wouldn’t matter.”



“Nick.”



“I tried to go on like I still trusted you, Ty, but I don’t. I don’t. And I don’t know if I will again. This is me faking it ’til I make it, and I guess I’m not very good at it when the shit starts hitting the fan.”



Ty wanted to throw up. It was like being caught red-handed by someone you idolized and getting looked at like you were trash. Ty couldn’t handle that kind of look from Nick.



“Why didn’t you say something?”



“When?” Nick was barely controlling his temper, Ty could hear it in his voice. “Should I have raised my hand and said ‘me too’ when you and Zane were throwing down in New Orleans? Should I have done it in the hospital with Kelly lying there with a hole in his chest because your past came back to bite us? Or maybe on the ship. In front of all those men who were calling you captain. Should I have done it then?”



Ty blinked hard, nodding in understanding. Nick had always put the good of the collective above his own desires and needs. He would let an issue tear him to shreds inside before he caused a ripple amongst a team. The only reason he was saying it now was because Ty had pushed him to.



“You’re right.”



“I don’t care about being right,” Nick snapped. “I care about looking at my best friend and knowing he’s telling me the truth. And I can’t do that anymore!”



Ty couldn’t swallow. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t make a sound. He couldn’t do anything but stare at Nick and search desperately for a reason for Nick to trust him again. “I was following orders, Irish,” he finally managed to whisper. “If anyone will understand that, it’s you.”



“Oh, I understand.” Nick tapped a finger at his forehead. “I understand if you were given the order to put one between my eyes, you’d feel bad at my funeral.”



He turned and paced away, leaving Ty with his mind reeling, his heart in his throat.



“Guys,” Kelly said softly. “I understand this has to happen, but we need to shelve this for a few more days. Can we do that?”



Nick didn’t turn around. Ty took a deep breath and nodded, though, trying to regain his voice. He met Zane’s eyes, surprised to find his lover watching him sadly. “Okay,” Ty rasped. “Let’s see what else we can find. We know Amelia wasn’t what Milton was trying to sell last night. So there’s something else here.”



“Department of Defense technology,” Zane offered. “That has to be what he was selling.”



“We find out who the buyer is, we find the killer,” Nick said. His voice was still low and angry.



Kelly snorted. “How do we do that?”



“Okay,” Ty said with a nod. “Zane and Kelly stay here, go through that laptop for anything even remotely related to this. Nick and I will go talk to Burns and Stanton.”



Zane gave him a raised eyebrow, his eyes darting to Nick. “Is that a good idea?”



“It’s the first good one he’s had,” Nick grunted.



Ty glared at him, torn between hurt and angry. “Why not? We’re professionals here.”



Zane snorted. “Because . . . well, sending you two out there together is like giving a toddler a lit match and telling it to go play in the sagebrush.”



Nick and Ty shared a frown. “We’ll be fine,” Ty insisted. He shook himself out, squaring his shoulders. “Nick’s calm. I’m calm. Everybody’s calm. Murderers to find, kidnappers to kill.”



It was Zane and Kelly’s turn to exchange frowns. They both shook their heads.



“Nick can stay here with me and go through the emails; we’ll discuss the interviews from yesterday,” Zane proposed. “You and Kelly go question Stanton and Burns.”



Ty snorted but nodded. “Fine. Irish, let me have that gun.”



“Nope,” Nick said, and he sat in the chair beside Zane and crossed his arms.



Kelly grabbed Ty’s elbow and dragged him toward the door.