“Director Burns,” Zane said, continuing with his questioning despite the surprise of learning that Burns had actively sought Nick out as well as Ty and Elias Sanchez. “Why would someone take the watch off one of your operatives? Is information stored in it?”

Burns frowned deeply. “No. No, all it has is the GPS. And that’s all a live feed; it doesn’t store information. For that, you’d need the accompanying software system.”

“And where is that?” Zane asked.

Burns shrugged. “My office.”

“Is there any way to reach it remotely?”

“I suppose you could go through my tablet or laptop. Neither of which I have here. I’ve honestly never tried.”

Zane nodded, even more confused than he had been. “Would breaking the watch corrupt the GPS?”

“Not the information that’s already been sent. Why crack the watch open?” Burns asked.

“We have no idea. The watch makes no sense right now, and it’s gone, so . . .” Zane ran a finger over his nose. “Who would even know it was special?”

“The watch?”

“Yeah.”

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“Anyone who knew it had GPS. Another operator. Anyone who’s done black ops or dark ops and used a similar system, including Grady and O’Flaherty. I would suspect even you would have known to do that, had you recognized the watch for what it was.”

Zane narrowed his eyes. “So, whoever knew the watch was a tracking device is who we’re after.”

“I would suppose, yes.”

“And you didn’t think that was need-to-know?” Zane asked through gritted teeth.

Burns sat forward. “Zane, you’ve always been a big-picture kind of guy. That’s a unique ability. You shouldn’t lose it.”

Zane couldn’t find his voice to respond.

“Is that all?”

Zane met his eyes. There were so many things he wanted to say to this man, and most of them would probably end with a punch being thrown. He almost wished he’d unleashed Nick just so he could witness it. He had to remind himself, though, that Burns was also the reason he and Ty were together at all. The reason they had remained partners long enough to solidify their relationship, even if it had been for ulterior motives. Burns was the one who’d given Zane his second chance. He couldn’t find it in himself to truly hate the man even though he wanted to for the underhanded things Burns had done.

He swallowed hard and nodded. “That’s it.”

Nick practically pounced on Ty and Kelly as they were making their way through the great hall toward the kitchen stairs. His sudden appearance damn near kicked Ty’s instakill into action.

“What’d you find?” Nick demanded.

Ty examined him with a growing hint of apprehension. He was as taut as a bowstring, and Ty could tell the next person to pass in front of Nick’s target area was going to seriously take one for the team. “Did you do violence to anyone?”

“Only in my mind,” Nick growled. “What did you find?”

Kelly held up the laptop. “It’s password protected. We’re going to let Zane take a stab at it.”

Nick stared at him incredulously. “Take a stab at it? Really?”

Kelly blinked. “Oh. Oh, that was an unintentional pun. That was bad form, I’m sorry.”

Nick just shook his head.

Ty snorted, though, feeling guilty for doing it. “We were heading for the meat locker to get Milton’s phone, see what we could pull off it,” he told Nick. “What’d Burns have to say?”

“Milton was one of his.”

Ty’s blood seemed to run a little colder. “Seriously?”

Nick nodded curtly. “Garrett made me leave before I heard anything else.”

Ty could imagine why Zane had kicked Nick out if he’d been half as wound up in there as he was now. “Okay,” he said carefully. He and Kelly shared a glance. Ty’s eyes drifted down to Kelly’s little bag of medical tricks, still slung over his shoulder. Kelly gave him an almost imperceptible nod. “You two go see what you can do with the phone, I’ll take the laptop to Zane, see if he can get past the security on it.”

“That really the best use of our time right now?” Nick asked.

Ty came up short, frowning at Nick. “You got something better to do?”

Nick snorted and turned to stalk off toward the kitchen stairs. Ty hissed at Kelly and pointed to his bag as Kelly handed off the laptop. “Sedate the f**k out of him if he goes off the rails.”

Kelly snorted and gave him a smart salute, then jogged after Nick.

“Holy shit,” Ty whispered to himself before turning and going off to find Zane.

“Ty.”

Ty skidded to a halt on the slick marble floor. He’d walked right past Zane, coming out of the parlor door. Ty turned on him, eyes wide. “Milton was one of Dick’s guys?”

Zane nodded grimly.

“What’d he tell you?”

“Okay, so Burns says Milton was guarding some sort of new technology or information, he isn’t sure which.”

“That’s what they cut him open to find, huh? Thinking he swallowed it? Has to be a memory chip or . . . a flash drive wouldn’t go down easy.”

“Likely not. Abbott’s convinced they didn’t find it, though. That’s why they took the watch.”

“For the GPS?” Ty guessed.

“Yep.”

“Because he probably stashed it somewhere, and the watch can tell you where he’s been.”

“Yep.”

“But they can’t read it without the proper equipment. Why would they take it? And why f**king smash it?”

Zane shrugged. “They might not know any of that. Thought it was a transmitting chip. I don’t know. What’s with the laptop?”

Ty held it up for Zane. “It’s Milton’s. Password protected. You think you can get into it?”

“Yep,” Zane said again without hesitation. He took it from Ty and glanced around the great hall. “Let’s go find somewhere quiet.”

Ty trailed after him, a smile playing on his lips. “You’re kind of sexy when you take charge like that.”

“Shut up, Ty,” Zane said, but his voice trembled with laughter.

The kitchen had mostly been cleaned up by the time Nick and Kelly got back down there, but Nick still hesitated, just as he’d done that morning at breakfast. It was embarrassing as hell to completely lose it like he had, even if it had happened before in front of Ty and Kelly, even if he had pulled both of them through similar episodes of their own. Nick didn’t like not being in control of himself, and he definitely didn’t like the idea that he’d taken a swing at Kelly without even realizing what he was doing.




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