Page 7

Chapter Seven

Luke

Luke’s desk in the bullpen could barely contain the mountain of files and folders precariously scattered across the surface. His brain was even more chaotic in comparison. There was too much and yet not enough. Never enough. The information available to him was, at best, a glimpse of a shadow. His mind raced with intensity akin to that he'd experienced during any number of field operations in the Marines—high stakes and not nearly enough intel meant trusting his gut, but instincts wouldn't hold weight in a federal investigation. All he knew for sure was that someone, perhaps many someones, had their sights set on Elias and that meant they were all back in the crosshairs—if they'd ever actually been out of them.

He circled back to the center stack and the ominous note that had been hand delivered to Elias the day before. Unease over the knowledge that he was missing something vital kept him in limbo. There wasn't a damn thing any of them could do and that helpless feeling was a major trigger for him. Not for the first time, he regretted leaving the military if only because in the armed forces, his directives always came from above. He didn't need to figure out the next step because someone else was calling the shots. Sinking back in his chair, he spared a tense smile as Abriella approached.

“Anything, mi carino?” Her palms landed on the edge of the cluttered desk as she bent low, the waves of her auburn hair not yet corralled in a messy bun.

“Too much and never enough,” Luke bemoaned, snatching a pen between his fingers to flick one of the folders open. He didn't even want to touch the paperwork for how dirty it all seemed. “There's a big hole right here and I can't shake the feeling that we’re missing something massive.”

“Si. The dots connect, when we have them all.” She turned a folder to better read the contents before expelling a weighty breath.

Luke's finely-tuned senses registered Taz’ approach before he came into view. The soft scuff of well-worn Converse, the light-footed gait that hugged the periphery of any space, and then the familiar scent of his body wash announced his presence before the hushed words broke through the white noise of an always busy FBI bullpen.

“I might have found a few more of your dots,” he ventured quietly. Luke’s eyes gravitated toward the voice, a cursory glance setting his protective instincts into overdrive as the distress on Taz’ face became evident.

A brief moment of hesitation, the whitening of his fingers as he gripped the edges of a tablet, a shaky exhale, he spoke. “I found… I f-found…”

Luke acted before thinking. His hand reached out to grab a fistful of Taz’ sweatshirt and pulled him closer as he pivoted the chair in place. Taz came willingly, the docility of his movements betraying how tightly-wound his emotions were. Without second-guessing it, Luke spread his knees and muscled Taz to perch on his thigh, leaving his palms firmly planted on the smaller man’s hips as a touchstone to keep him grounded. Frankly, he needed it just as much as Taz did.

Taz cleared his throat and settled the tablet on the mountain of slippery papers threatening to spill their grim contents all over the floor. “I dug into the backdoor for the forum and found a few tracers. I also ran a script on the information that got dumped and it revealed a breadcrumb trail of fuckery.”

Luke leaned over to skim the screen as Taz slowly scrolled through the details.

“Whoever did this also tapped into the Fed systems. At first, I assumed hackers, someone working outside the scope of the office, but…” Taz trailed off again, tension sloughing off him in palpable waves as his wary eyes darted around the room with an edge of paranoia and the anger he often used to hide his fear.

“T?” Bella’s voice was a mere breath. The hair on the nape of Luke’s neck stood on end.

Luke could feel his partner's breath quickening through the touch points between them. This was not good. He acted with decisive movements before the panic could spiral further. It took more strength than it should have to compel Taz to stand. “Your office, Timothy. Up you get.”

The three of them crossed the space, with Luke in the rear and numerous eyes tracking their progress. He made a mental note of each and every agent that glanced their way, cataloguing micro expressions and movements without conscious thought. Never had civilian life felt quite so much like a battlefield. He released a sigh as soon as the door shut behind them, and yet another as he watched Taz physically shake off his tension before collapsing into his computer chair.

“Talk, Taz.” Bella’s hand breached the distance and gently stroked a path through Taz’ mussy hair. Luke had to work hard to smother his smile as he spied the subtle softening of his lover's expression.

“Right, whatever. Stop fucking touching me.” Taz absently batted at Bella’s hand with zero conviction. “So, I traced the backdoor, followed the trackers, and then my script blew up when it found this.”

The largest screen on the wall switched to a different page and it took a moment for Luke to puzzle through what he was seeing. Realization sat sick and slimy in his gut.

“That’s the internal database,” he whispered.

“A-yup.” Taz clicked through a few more pages with a trembling hand on the mouse. “You get a gold star, Daddy.”

“This means the person is, what? Inside?” Bell squinted at the screen, equal parts confusion and annoyance.

Taz pointed to a specific line on the screen with his index finger. “Right here. Someone with a high-level clearance planted this. It's basically… imagine it like a door stopper. A smidgen of code to let someone slip in and out. It's messy, though. High-level clearance, low-level skillset.”

“Fuck,” Luke swore as his blood reached a boiling point. “Fuck! We’ve got a goddamn mole?”

Taz nodded, his eyes darting toward Luke with a beseeching expression.

“Who? How many have this level?” Bella started to pace and promptly stopped as she ran out of real estate in the closet of an office. With an aggravated huff, she perched her hands on her hips.

“It’s not a long list, but I'm not… it could be anyone. Just because someone has clearance doesn't mean they did it. Someone could have cracked in with their clearance and they wouldn't know.”

The words gave Luke pause. Far be it from the norm for Taz to be the voice of caution. “Compile the list. I don't care who is on it. I want names.”

With a squirm and a disgruntled sound, Taz yanked open a desk drawer to reveal at least six different bags of gummy candy. His lack of response rankled.

“Timothy.”

“Fuck off.”

“T,” Bella cautioned with a similarly stern voice as Luke had just used.

“Fuck. Off.” Begrudgingly, he continued in a quieter tone that held a waver of insecurity. “Let me work.”

“Baby,” Luke closed the gap between them and settled a palm on the back of Taz’ neck. “Whoever it is, whoever they are, we have to act. Consequences be damned, because the consequence of not acting is not something I want to entertain.”

Taz froze for a moment, his body buzzing with tension, before shrugging off Luke’s touch. “I fucking know that. Go away. Let me do this alone.”

“No, not alone—”

“Out!” Taz erupted. His chair flew backward and clipped Luke’s kneecaps as he abruptly stood and backed himself against the desk to glare daggers at them both. “Get out! I'm not doing this with a fucking audience! It's going to be on my head! Not yours, and not yours! Get the fuck out!”

Luke stared in utter bafflement, his jaw slack. Taz didn't just tremble or shiver—he quaked from head to toe like a caged animal ready to claw his own skin off or fight them both bloody.

“T, porfa…” Bella, the stupidly brave woman she was, stepped closer to Taz. “Talk to me.”

“Bell.” Taz’ voice cracked on the single syllable before he swallowed thickly and scrubbed the tell-tale glimmer of tears from his eyes. “Please? I'm not going to put targets on your backs.”

A chill ran down Luke’s spine as understanding bloomed. Of course Taz’ actions would throw up flags in the system. He’d seen it in action before. Every analyst at his clearance level and higher would see the same alerts, the digging and diving and snooping and ultimately, the list that resulted from it. Protest sat heavy on the tip of his tongue, but Taz held up a hand before he could get the words out.

“Just go. I'm not doing jack shit till you're out of this room and busy doing whatever the fuck else you do all day.” Taz shifted his weight back and forth between the balls of his feet. “I'm so fucking serious right now, Luke.”

“Christ, fine.” Luke scrubbed his face with his palms and took a step back. “Airdrop what you find to me directly as soon as you’re done and then get out. I'll have someone drive you home—”

“Fuck all the way off if you think I'm getting in an agent's car. I'll take my chances with the Metro.”

They had a silent battle of wills with eye contact alone, jaws tense and fists clenched in mirror before Luke surrendered with a sigh. Taz was, by far, the most stubborn man on the face of the planet.

“Wilco, Scrappy.” He slowly approached and was hit with a wave of relief as Taz abandoned his fighting stance and crashed into him with a desperate hug. “Please be careful.”

“You too.” Their embrace tightened briefly before ending. Taz glanced toward Bella with equal intensity. “Both of you.”

It was nearly impossible for Luke to make himself leave the office. It was even harder to close the door behind him. The hardest part of all was returning to his desk and acting as if everything was routine and he was simply rifling through the files without a care in the world. He deserved a goddamn medal for not looking up when Taz’ office door opened hours later and it took every ounce of willpower he had not to follow the man’s retreat to the elevator. His focus honed on the sound of every step, the ding of the car arriving on their floor, and the ominous swish of the doors sliding closed behind him.

Twenty minutes passed—twenty long, painful, weighted minutes—before a chime broke the tense silence of his desk. Seconds later, Bella’s office door opened on the far right. Their gazes met and Luke was on his feet in a flash. Long strides carried him across the expanse and into her office without either of them speaking a word, and as soon as the door closed, they both pulled their phones out in sync.

Dread sat heavy in his gut as he and Bella scanned the same file in soundless unison. It wasn't a long list by any means, but the contents of it were enough to have him swallowing his damn tongue to keep the terror from rising. Especially knowing every name on this list likely knew of the investigation into their names in some capacity. If they didn't, someone close to them did. His hand was shaking as he glanced up to meet Bella’s wide-eyed stare. Resolving himself to the inevitable, he gave a clipped nod.

“Where do we start?”

“The bottom, I guess.” She tossed the phone to her desk and sent a cascade of pastry wrappers flying. “Dios mio.”

“The bottom it is,” he muttered, turning his eyes back to the screen with a firmer set to his jaw. “God help whoever is responsible.”

Bella grunted a noncommittal sound and stared into the middle distance, likely scanning the list in her mind as he read it over with rising anxiety, from the bottom to the top.

Three Executive Assistant Directors, the Associate Deputy Director, Deputy Director Rick Simmons, and the goddamn Director of the FBI herself. Considering one of the EADs on the list was responsible for the Information and Technology Branch of the bureau, he had every reason to believe the gig was up, and that fact had him ready to leap into action or run for the hills. He pressed the phone to the space between his eyes and shut them tight.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

“I will set up a room. By the book, Luke. Forget the names. We do this by the book.” Her hand reached out to squeeze his bicep. “It is the only way.”

His shoulders sagged with the weight of it all, but most heavy of all was the truth behind her words. They’d taken an oath to protect and preserve. Never had he ever thought that would mean opening an investigation into a half dozen people he called colleagues. Men and women who had taken the same damn oath. Being duty-bound suddenly felt a lot like being duty-trapped.