The Middle Man

by Gadziala, Jessica

  Now Bellamy was possibly not someone that others would look at and think of as strong and capable of fighting off attackers. If I were being perfectly honest, he wouldn't have been my first pick. Smith would. But Smith wasn't around. Everyone else had shit to do.

  Despite outward appearances and the carefully crafted persona that he showed the world, I knew Bellamy to be smart and capable. And lethal. Very, very lethal. The man could make a weapon out of a paperclip. Maybe he didn't have the training most of us did, but he had a passion that the majority of us were lacking, a bloodlust that the military had leeched from us long ago.

  She was safe.

  But I hated leaving her.

  I hated crawling out of the bed we'd been sharing for the past two nights, sneaking off into the room I normally stayed in, showering, dressing, meeting with the guys, then making my way out of the building before the sun even got a chance to come up.

  She was going to be mad at me for going behind her back when she got up too. But I was comforting myself with the knowledge that of all emotions, anger was the one Gemma was least adept at. She couldn't hold onto it. Even when she really should have, when she was well within her rights to do so.

  By the time I got back, she would have likely have let it go already.

  Besides, this had to be done.

  I knew she was forgiving by nature, always saw the good in people. It was sweet and rare and something I never wanted her to lose.

  I, however, was a bit more of a realist. I had been in this shady underground of life for far too long to always think the best of people. More often than not, people were self-centered and shallow. They cared for themselves and their desires and they didn't give a fuck who they hurt along the way.

  Cynical? Probably.

  But also true.

  Maybe Gemma believed that Rylan was just trying to do good in the world. I even believed that his mission had likely started out that way.

  But the man was losing it.

  He called and texted her dozens of times a day, each message showing a shocking slip toward losing his sanity.

  He'd gotten her package. From what she'd told me the drive and pages had contained, it was enough. Enough to blow a whistle, to expose them, to make sure the product never hit the market, affected thousands of lives, to make is so the EPA got on their asses in the future to make sure that what they were putting out was safe.

  Hell, I was no lawyer, but I was pretty sure they even had enough to convict.

  Yet he was ranting and raving about how there were no names on the documents, no proof that Phillip had seen and discarded the information. Despite said information being found on the man's computer.

  He wanted her to go back in.

  While I knew she knew it wasn't even a remote possibility to go, that I would literally make good on my threat to tie her down to keep her from doing it should it come to that, I could see the cracks forming with each increasingly aggressive text or voicemail.

  Gemma had a soft heart that she didn't know how to protect. Not even from those who meant to bruise it.

  Rylan was bruising it.

  I couldn't stand by and let it keep happening.

  Oh, and, well, on fucking principle, I could not let it slide that anyone thought they could call my woman a Selfish fucking bitch.

  That wasn't going to stand.

  Sure, he didn't know she was my woman.

  But that shouldn't have mattered.

  You didn't talk to women that way. Period. I'd been raised better. I would bet money that he had been raised better as well. I would just need to remind him of those early lessons.

  After that, I would make it crystal fucking clear that he was done with Gemma. At least until he got his head together, until he thanked her for going undercover for him, for putting herself at risk for him, for getting hurt for him.

  I knew this would hurt Gemma too. To have her connection so harshly severed. Maybe it wasn't even my place to make sure it was done. I just figured this was the lesser of two evils. There would be hurt at his sudden absence from her life, but I thought it would be infinitely less painful than if she continued to be on the receiving end of his vitriol indefinitely.

  Aside from not being able to leave the office, Rylan was the only dark cloud in our world at the moment.

  We were dealing with the former problem with spending as much time as possible naked and wrapped up in each other. It was amazing how quickly time passed when you were exploring the body of someone you cared about. Hours passed in a blink. We both forgot in those hours that the outside world even existed.

  It would get old eventually. Not the sex. I never saw that getting old. But being stuck, not being able to go out together.

  We got to play house in a way. Jules or Finn or Bellamy would run out and fetch the list of things Gemma needed from the grocery store so that she could cook and bake. We got to eat and watch TV or movies.

  It was nice.

  But it wasn't real life.

  We needed to get back to that as soon as possible.

  Step one in that plan was to get rid of Rylan.

  From there, well, Nia was doing her best. Quin told us that she'd been working day and night, that she was constantly bitching about the level of security, about the paranoia of all the higher-ups in the company.

  It was no wonder they were paranoid, though. They clearly had something to hide.

  While I couldn't pretend to fully understand everything that Gemma did about chemicals and they way they affected people and the environment, I knew her well enough to trust that if she said this shit could be the end of the corporation or the freedom of the owners of it, then I had to believe her.

  It didn't even surprise me, either.

  We dealt with a lot of shady people who did a lot of shady things. While Quin would never sign on to do a job like someone had signed up to do for Blairtown Chem--the bodily harm of an innocent woman--we did, on occasion, help fix situations for equally sketchy corporations. Mistresses who were threatening to go public, love children who would seriously fuck with the morality clauses signed at the time of employment, even angry children out to destroy their parents' reputation. It was all harmless. We never physically hurt anyone. But we did enough business with those kinds of people to know that they would do anything--anything at all--to protect their reputations and their money. No matter the cost.

  We had to take them down if we wanted Gemma to be able to get back to her life.

  Now, in what way we took them down, well, that depended on a lot of factors.

  Like if Nia could get remote access to Phillip's computer, could dig through things more thoroughly than Gemma had been able to do, could find absolute proof of wrongdoing. And, the clincher, that they knew and disregarded the threat to the public health.

  That would be the easiest path for us.

  With that information, we could gather a packet, go to the police, claim someone from the company slipped us the information, but ran off before we could get more out of them. Or, well, we could also go to the good, old-fashioned blackmailing route.

  We show them the evidence we have. We tell them that if they don't back off, we go public.

  It was non-traditional, though, in that we needed two things from them.

  One, we needed to make sure they had no threats on Gemma's life, that they would let her live until old age claimed her.

  But, two, we needed them to scrap that new product.

  It was nonnegotiable.

  Not just for Gemma's conscience.

  But for all of ours.

  Now that we knew what was at stake, everyone was on-board about making sure that weed killer and the bug repellant never saw the light of day, never fell into innocent, unsuspecting hands, never ripped families apart.

  I had been in this business long enough to know that getting a company like Blairtown Chem to agree to those blackmail terms would be hard. Maybe even impossible.

  Which was why I had a third p
lan, one I was keeping from Gemma despite telling her that we needed to come from a place of honesty if we wanted things to work out. I had mentioned it to Quin. I had talked about it at length with Bellamy when Gemma was showering or sleeping.

  If nothing else worked, there was always our last-resort method of fixing a problem.

  Bellamy.

  And his particular brand of services.

  With maybe a little bit of help from Finn to make sure nothing could ever be traced back.

  See, sometimes, people who got involved in big, ugly, deadly cover-ups, well, they had a crisis of conscience. They couldn't go on. They couldn't live with it.

  So they took their own lives.

  Sometimes they even left a note explaining why so the problem could be dealt with after they were gone.

  If we had to handle it that way, it could be arranged. A suicide note confession and a noose around the neck or fatal dose of something in the medicine cabinet or even a shot to the head.

  If all else failed, we had that option.

  The problem was, I knew it had to be avoided at all costs.

  Gemma, well, I wasn't sure she could ever handle that knowledge. I wasn't sure she would ever be able to look at me in the eye again after knowing it had been my idea, that I had been the one to okay it happening.

  Keeping it from her indefinitely was an equally unpleasant prospect.

  I hadn't been putting on a show for her when I talked about honesty. I believed that. Sure, it was okay to have private thoughts, things you didn't tell your partner. But the big shit, that needed to be shared.

  This would be big shit.

  Not sharing it would be a crack in the foundations that never got repaired. We could keep building, but I would always know it was there; I would always be worrying that someday, it might split open wide and take down everything we had created.

  I didn't want to live that way.

  I would if I had to.

  But I wanted things to work out some other way.

  "Of fucking course," I grumbled as I pulled up in front of the address Gemma had--a bit grudgingly--given me.

  There was a reason clichés existed.

  Because there were dozens and dozens of people who reinforced them. With their thoughts. With their actions.

  Rylan was a prime example of a cliché in real life.

  The paranoid investigative filmmaker who found himself in the middle of a corporate conspiracy.

  The building itself was just a typical penny brick former business in a part of town that never took off like the developers hoped it would, leaving everything crumbling and unkempt.

  It was the kind of place you figured someone who worked as an independent filmmaker with little to no income would live.

  But Rylan went ahead and took it to conspiracy theorist level by covering his windows with what seemed to be old pizza boxes.

  In my head, I could practically hear Gemma saying that it was good the boxes were getting a second life since they couldn't be recycled.

  But, well, it didn't look good.

  For Rylan.

  For his mental health.

  If I went in there and found tinfoil on the inside, I wasn't sure how the fuck I was going to handle the situation.

  With a sigh, I climbed out of my car, making my way toward the door, going ahead and breaking the law a bit by picking the lock, not wanting him to get a chance to run off.

  While I was someone who went for runs on occasion, these days, I was getting all the exercise I needed behind a locked door with Gemma.

  The door opened without much of a fight. It would never cease to amaze me how people who were paranoid about some big, shady corporation and their hitmen never seemed to install a solid deadbolt. Or five.

  That said, when I pushed the door, I got to know that at least this Rylan guy wasn't a complete idiot.

  I had no idea what had been leaning against the door, but as soon as I pushed on it, whatever it was went crashing to the floor. And what was inside it--judging by the sounds of things, a mixture of cans and glass bottles--went shooting all about.

  On an exhale, I shoved the door, rushing inward before the guy could do anything stupid. Like figure out how to shoot a gun or grab a knife.

  I found him just inside and to the left in a big space that had clearly been a storefront in another life.

  The counter that had likely once housed a cash register was being used as a stand for several laptops and various lenses for a camera.

  Toward the back of the room was what seemed to be a makeshift filming set with circle lights and microphones set up in front of a simple black screen.

  It was low budget at best.

  I couldn't claim to be a film expert. In fact, I just wasn't a huge fan of documentaries in general. I got enough of the ugly, harsh realities of life at work; I didn't need it in my free time.

  But I couldn't deny, either, that it seemed that a film of any sort always benefited from something other than a shoestring budget in a building I was now starting to wonder if he was renting or simply squatting in. All the laptops and lights appeared to be hooked up to little portable electric generators or solar banks.

  If you were legally renting a place, you tended to make sure at least the lights got turned on. If for nothing else, then to make your life easier. Who wanted to go out and charge their stupid generators all the time or remember to get the solar sun banks outside to charge up every day?

  Rylan himself was not in great shape.

  I knew that Gemma had described him as skinny and long-haired when she'd told me about him, but this was taking skinny to a whole new level. He looked like skin draped over flesh, bones sticking out at grotesque angles. His hair that she had told me was long was also hanging low with at least a week or two's worth of grease.

  Eyes that she had described to me as intense in an almost off-putting way were, well, bulging.

  Sure, he'd just gotten broken into. A strange guy was now standing there wanting God-knew-what from him.

  But this wasn't a normal fear bulging. I'd seen enough of that in my life to recognize it when it was looking me in the face.

  This was the look of a man losing his fucking mind little by little, someone consumed by his obsession.

  That, too, was something I had seen more than a few times in my life. Unfortunately.

  "Who the hell are you?" he asked, scrambling backward, fumbling for a metal bat that was propped against the counter, knocking it on the floor before retrieving it. When he finally lifted it, he brandished it like it was the most lethal weapon the world had ever known, clearly oblivious to the fact that I could have him disarmed and out cold in the span it would take him to draw in a breath.

  "Lincoln," I told him, waiting for it to click. Which took entirely too long, to be honest.

  "What do you want?"

  "I am here to tell you that Gemma is done."

  "What? She can't talk for herself? I should have known she was chickenshit..."

  "Yo," I snapped, reaching out, grabbing the bat from his hands, flipping it, pointing it at him. The shock on his face, yeah, it was more than a little bit satisfying, I won't lie. "Let me be more clear here. You don't fucking call her or text her or email her. You don't talk shit about her. In fact, you forget you even know her fucking name from this point on. She is done getting hurt because of you and your revenge mission."

  "My father..."

  "Yeah, bud, that sucks. It's not fair. Something should be done about it. But you can't hide behind Gemma anymore. Step the fuck up if you want to change it. She's done. And I won't stand by and let you whittle her down with guilt for not doing more. She almost got killed for you. That is all she is going to risk for this."

  "She's fine."

  "Yes, she is. She has a lot of people in her life who have her back. Luckily. For her. But also for you. Because let me tell you, Ry, if something had happened to her, and I found out about your part in it, something would happen to you too."


  "Are you threatening me?"

  "Yes." He didn't seem to be expecting that. He'd likely thought I would backpedal, assure him that I was all bluster.

  I wasn't, though.

  And he needed to know that.

  I didn't, as a rule, just go around killing people. I'd done it to save my ass. I had done it in the name of my country. But never for revenge.

  For Gemma, though, I would do it.

  Without a second-thought.

  Without an ounce of guilt.

  "Fine, she wants out, fine. She was too much work anyway."

  "And by that, I know you actually mean that you're sorry she was hurt because you pushed her too hard, and you understand that she has done more than enough for your cause, so you will leave her alone. Right?"

  "Yeah, whatever, right."

  "You have enough, Rylan," I told him. "Believe me. This is coming from someone who deals with scandals every other month. You have enough to go nuclear. Go home, get a shower, get some food, get some sleep. Then come back to this with a clear mind. You will see it for yourself."

  To that, his shoulders slumped, looking defeated.

  "This is important."

  "I agree. Which is why you need to get a hold of yourself before you lose your fucking mind. I don't know how much you know about people, but they don't tend to believe raving lunatics who look like they haven't slept in a month. Get your shit together. Then avenge your father. But leave Gemma the fuck alone."

  With that, satisfied he wasn't a threat, and that he believed in my threat, I turned, made my way back out of his makeshift office.

  I drove back to the office feeling lighter than I had when I left.

  It wasn't over.

  I still had to deal with Blairtown Chem.

  But this was a step in the right direction.

  There would be time to handle them later.

  Right now, I missed my woman.

  I heard voices as I reached for the keypad.

  Figuring it was the ever-chatty Bellamy and Gemma, I thought nothing of it as I let myself in.

  I froze inside the door, though.

  Because while Bellamy was in the room--standing in the kitchen texting on his phone--that was not who Gemma was talking too.