“You’re both being reassigned,” he continued. “I’ve not shared the whereabouts with anyone but you individually. If you tell each other, that’s none of my business.” And Burns would leave it at that. He looked between them one more time. Neither man spoke. “Well. I have a meeting downstairs.
Take care.” And with that he departed, leaving them alone in the room when the door clicked shut behind him.
Ty sat staring at the floor listlessly, unable to look up at Zane as he sat with his knee bouncing. Zane didn’t move from the window, and silent minutes passed. It wasn’t tense. It was just empty.
“You wanna know where I’m going?” Ty finally asked, doubt clear in his voice.
Zane didn’t turn from the plate-glass window. “Medical leave.
They’ll poke and prod and pick your brain apart at Walter Reed and a few specialty places for a while, then send you off to another city; Norfolk maybe, Atlanta. Possibly back to Baltimore. To live quietly for a predetermined amount of time and see a doctor three times a week,” he said in a monotone.
He knew the drill; he knew it too well.
“Guess that’s a no, huh?” Ty affirmed flatly. He cleared his throat and stood, taking his cues from Zane and not asking where the other man was being sent. “Well. Probably for the best, right?” he muttered as he shrugged into his coat carefully. His ribs were still tender even after the weeks that had passed. “Good luck, Garrett,” he offered with a small sigh, not allowing himself to think about why he regretted this ending.
“Get better, Grady. The Bureau needs you,” Zane said, not moving.
He tried to decide why this hurt so much. They’d known each other barely a week. Granted, they’d screwed each other like crazy. But why did this feel so wrong?
Ty watched him for a moment, a sinking feeling in his chest as he realized that Zane didn’t even intend to f**king turn around and say goodbye.
He moved silently toward the door, worn boots soundless on the industrial carpet.
“Ty—”
Ty stopped with his hand on the doorknob, turning to look back at Zane.
He had turned around to look at him, and some of the cold was out of his demeanor, revealing a hint of unusual vulnerability. “You said I wouldn’t miss you.” He drew in a long breath, and his voice was even quieter when he spoke again. “You were wrong.”
Ty was silent, unmoving as he met Zane’s eyes across the room. “I was wrong about a lot of things,” he said finally, his voice soft and wistful.
He turned the knob and quickly slid out of the room.
Turning back to the window, Zane leaned his forehead against the glass and closed his eyes.
he motorcycle sped down the well-lit freeway, far above the speed limit, the hunched figure aboard shrouded in black leather and a full-T face helmet. The bike swerved through traffic, darting around cars and trucks without a hint of hesitation before exiting and rolling to a slower speed at the bottom of the ramp.
The bike sped up again as it entered an older, run-down, darker part of town, where the city rotted from the inside out. The rider guided it down a maze of streets before stopping in front of a small warehouse. With the hit of a button, a large bay door opened, and the rider steered the bike inside before the door closed behind him.
Once the bike stopped, the rider stood up and swung his leg over, leaving the keys in it as he walked over to a scarred table. He pulled off his helmet and set it there before looking around.
Zane had been in Miami almost four months, working the inner city, trailing down some major drug deals with quite a bit of success. A lot of it was sheer cussedness and bravado; his Bureau contact had already warned him to be more careful three times. But safety didn’t matter to him, as long as he got the job done.
He tossed his gloves next to the helmet and unzipped his jacket as he walked further into the warehouse toward a loft. He climbed the steps, tossing the black leather over the railing, revealing a skin-tight, sweaty T-shirt, covered by a double shoulder holster, and sheaths holding wickedly sharp knives with well-worn handles at his wrists.
After disarming but shoving one gun in the back of his waistband, he went to a cabinet and looked tiredly over several bottles—many empty—and pulled out a half-empty one of rotgut tequila. He screwed off the top before he shook a cigarette out of a crumpled pack. He collapsed on the lumpy couch, lit up, and took a long pull of the harsh liquor, leaning his head back to stare at the ceiling and lose himself in his vices. It would be a lonely, silent, hot night.
TY sat on the balcony of his row house in Baltimore, smoking a Montecristo No. 4 Reserva and blowing smoke rings into the starless sky. The cigar was a limited production (only 100,000 had been made down in Cuba), and they were packaged in sleek black boxes of twenty cigars, each box labeled with a gold number between 1 and 5,000. In the back of Ty’s closet, he had five boxes in a safe, numbered 12 to 16.
It was good to have resourceful friends stationed at Gitmo.
“Ty?” a woman’s voice called from inside the bedroom. “If you don’t come back to bed, I’m leaving.”
Ty lowered his head and tapped the tip of his finger on his beer bottle.
“I mean it, Ty. I’m going home.”
Another smoke ring drifted its way toward the clouded moon, and somewhere in the city a horn honked angrily.
“You shithead!” the woman called. “I f**king knew this was a mistake,” she mumbled to herself as the rustling of sheets and clothing drifted out to Ty’s ears. A few moments later the front door slammed shut.
Ty sighed heavily and inhaled the cool air with its hint of fragrant cigar smoke. He sat with his bare feet propped on the railing, nothing but a worn pair of sweatpants protecting him from the chill, and he watched the sun rise silently.
It had been almost four months since his medical leave had been granted. He had been evaluated—both for his injuries and for what had been deemed severe exhaustion and shock—observed, treated, treated again, observed some more, and finally given three weeks of vacation to “get his head back on straight.” He had another thirteen days of nothing to do but barmaids. He might actually go crazy before then.
ZANE pulled off his jacket and threw it to the floor, stamping up the steps to the loft and making for the bathroom. He flipped on the light and turned toward the mirror to look at the angry, bloody gash across the meat of his upper arm.
He muttered in harsh Spanish. Fuckers. Taking potshots at him like that when he’d delivered what they wanted and more. He’d taken more satisfaction than usual beating the shit out of a couple of them before he called in the cavalry to arrest the whole lot of them.