“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 f**king 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.