Dirty Little Secrets

by AJ Nuest

  She blushed and shrank in her chair, grabbed the top and lowered the screen with a soft click.

  “But you do, apparently. And now, so do the people in this room.” Byrne sized up Xander out of the corner of his eye. “Not that I’m surprised, considering the source. But I also gotta ask myself.” Spinning around, he nailed Xander with a narrow-eyed squint. “How in the hell are you connected to Thomas Ryan?”

  Fuck. That berg was bigger than the hunk of ice that had sunk the Titanic, and if Xander wasn’t careful, Charlie’s reputation wasn’t the only one about to take a nosedive straight for the bottom of the Pacific.

  “His girlfriend’s the one who broke into Ryan’s condo and stole the formula.”

  Xander jerked his chin toward Sparks, and the guy smirked. “He showed up on her doorstep about a week ago and has been following her around like a trained monkey ever since.”

  Back up a second. Xander fisted his hands until the joints popped with a series of audible cracks. They already knew she had it? Then, for shit’s sake, why hadn’t they done something? Even if they’d brought Charlie in for questioning, at least she would’ve been safe. Out of Ryan’s reach. But instead, they’d left her to fend for hers—?

  The answer lodged in his skull like a dull axe, and he swiveled back toward Byrne.

  Those arrogant assholes. Blood pounded in Xander’s ears. His arms shook. Goddamn it, those self-serving pricks. “You were using her as bait.”

  “Oh, dear God.” Eden smacked her hand to the top of her head at the same second Tanner snorted, cocking her weight on one hip.

  Byrne’s brow twitched. “Not by choice.” He left the table and neared the fireplace, giving the security equipment the once-over. “My department was fed intelligence from a confidential source close to Ryan that put him at the top of our priority watch list. But we couldn’t touch him until he made a move, and we also knew by the time he did, there’d be a high probability we’d be too late.”

  Too late? Xander seethed through the internal squall threatening to rip him limb from limb. They knew they’d be too late and they’d still done nothing? Jesus, this was the exact same bureaucratic bullshit that had aided his relationship with Byrne in the first place. And at the same time, right where everything went to shit!

  No, he and Byrne had never met face to face, but during the three years they’d been in contact with each other, Xander had come to develop a half-assed level of respect for the guy. If someone had asked, he may have even gone so far as to state the dude was a reliable, stand-up guy.

  And this was what he got in return? “So you let someone else do your dirty work? You just sat on your asses while Charlie stepped up and decided to take on Ryan herself? What the fuck, Byrne?”

  “I never said I liked it.” The SAC Agent ground out his answer. “I was following orders. Ones that came from so high up, God had to glance over his head to see ʼem.”

  But the real ball-twister? Christ, the situation was so pathetic it was almost laughable. “And let me guess. Now that Ryan’s got her, you and your two pals here are planning to swoop in and make it seem like the FBI is the hero.”

  Over Xander’s dead body. If anyone was going after Charlie, that person was him.

  From the very beginning, he should’ve known the Feds were using her, exploiting her talents for their benefit. He’d already let her down once by getting distracted and wasn’t about to do it again.

  “She pitted herself against Ryan all on her own, Dade.” Irritation hardened Byrne’s eyes. “We never asked her to do anything.”

  “Save it.” Xander stomped forward, a rigid finger aimed at the ground. “Save the goddamned testimony for your superiors. You knew Ryan was swimming in shit up to his eyeballs and you did nothing. And now you’re gonna stand here and—”

  “My hands were tied.” Byrne spat the words. “There wasn’t a damn thing I could do unless she approached us and willingly offered us the information.”

  As if that had been an option. As if Charlie would ever go to the Feds and confess to committing a crime. Did they honestly think she was that stupid?

  A caustic laugh soured the lining of Xander’s throat. “That’s bullshit and we both know it. The truth is, you needed her. Way more than you’re willing to admit. If it wasn’t for Charlie, the FBI would be no closer to snagging Ryan than they were since he caught their attention.”

  They didn’t deserve her. And neither did he. Just like Byrne and everyone else involved in this mess, she’d recognized Ryan for the greedy son of a bitch he was, and yet she’d been the only one with enough guts and determination to take action.

  And what had that gotten her? Chased, abducted and God only knew what kind of torture they were putting her through while Byrne stood here and offered a bunch of excuses for not doing his job.

  Spinning toward the table, Xander stormed over to Molly’s laptop. She grimaced and quickly scooted her chair to the side as he opened the lid and jabbed the tab to bring up Baldy’s photo ID.

  “Him.” He stood back and pointed at the screen. “He’s the one who took her. And I’m telling you right now, Byrne, if you know who he is, you’d better start talking.”

  The SAC agent’s eyes flicked to the screen and back. Muttering a curse, he exchanged an uneasy glance with his suits and Xander braced.

  No. No fucking way. In the few years they’d known each other, Xander couldn’t name a single job when Byrne had come off nervous. Scared of anything. The agitated shuffling of Tweedle Dee and Dum’s feet filled the edgy silence, and the bottom dropped out of Xander’s gut.

  Stifling his men with a hard stare, Byrne propped his hands on his hips. “Code name’s The Postman. He was one of ours up ʼtil about six months ago, when he went through some bad shit in Kandahar and stepped off the reservation. But I’m not surprised he was able to grab her without you knowing. It’s what he was trained to do.”

  Archer grunted, the ink of a Special Forces tattoo peeking past his t-shirt sleeve as he crossed his arms.

  “He came back 5150, involuntary psych hold and killed about a dozen orderlies while breaking out of Mercy Medical. We lost track of him in Philly only to receive intel he turned mercenary and has been working for whatever highest bidder might be looking for someone with his expertise in extracting information.” Shifting his weight, Byrne swiped his palm down his face. “He’s occasionally shown up on our radar but, as of yet, we’ve never gotten close enough to bring him in.”

  Eden stepped forward, shifting a frown between Byrne and his agents. “Why The Postman?”

  Sparks closed his eyes. “Because he always delivers.”

  Xander scrubbed his hand over his forehead. Dammit, this couldn’t get any worse. “Fine. How I do find him?”

  “You don’t.” A thick rasp coated Ash’s voice, and he cleared his throat. Then cleared it again. “He finds you, and when he does be sure to pack a body bag.”

  Jesus. Xander locked his knees against the impulse to sink to the floor.

  If there was one thing he knew, Charlie would never give up the formula’s location. No matter what type of methods the guy used on her, she would never confess. Not when keeping quiet could potentially save the lives of kids like Ellis. And not while she possessed the ability to protect Dirty Deeds and everyone in this room.

  So, where did that leave them? Eyes stinging, Xander shoved his hands into his hair and paced left. For that matter, where did Charlie’s silence leave Ryan? If the guy was half the brainiac everyone claimed, he’d quickly realize the mistake he’d made in kidnapping her. She wouldn’t talk. No matter how much he tortured her. And if he wasn’t that smart then, eventually, he’d come to the same conclusion his efforts had been a waste.

  And in the meantime, what? They were all just supposed to sit here and wait? Until Ryan finally decided he didn’t have any more use for her and paid The Postman to tie up the loose ends?

  No. Expelling a harsh breath, Xander s
lid his hands down the back of his head. That wasn’t even an option. And besides that, for Ryan to kill Charlie held too much risk.

  For whatever reason, he still needed the formula. Bad enough, he’d been willing to hire the lowest form of human scum available to guarantee he got it back. To cause Charlie irreparable harm would only screw up that plan, and in the process he’d be throwing away the one piece of negotiating power he had at his disposal.

  He wouldn’t do that. The formula was too important. Whatever it contain—

  His shoulders wrenched, and Xander dropped his arms, zeroing in on Byrne from his spot near the end of the table. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  How could he have been so dumb? Byrne had already admitted he had a source close to Ryan. One who’d leaked confidential information that put Ryan smack-dab at the top of the FBI’s priority watch list.

  But not just any schmuck off the street earned the privilege of that spot.

  Byrne grumbled, darting a glance around the room.

  He was holding back, all right. With the answers to the exact same questions Charlie had fired off yesterday afternoon.

  There wasn’t any law against holding the proprietary rights to whatever Ryan had cooked up in his lab. Same when it came to how he could go on ahead and release his little miracle cure onto the market.

  That was, as long as the chemicals he used didn’t contain something that would cause a threat to the national security.

  A low whistle warbled through the room, and every head spun toward Nick DeFranco—Xander’s included. Hell, the medical examiner had been so quiet, he’d all but forgotten DeFranco was even a part of the discussion.

  “Holy shit.” He pushed his glasses up his nose, shaking his head, peeked over the top of Ryan’s laptop and blanched. “Sorry.” His magnified eyes skipped from one face to the next. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  Pale as he usually was, the guy had gone even greener around the gills. Not that his reaction was unwarranted.

  After all, Ryan’s formula was no cure. And if the cold satisfaction hitting Xander’s veins was anything to go by, Nick DeFranco had just deciphered what it contained.

  Chapter 16

  “What’s going on, Nick?” Kelly stepped beside Eden, and Xander glanced in their direction as her fiancé settled his hand on her lower back. “You find something?”

  “Hold on a damn second.” Byrne pinned Xander with a heated scowl. “This whole time you had the formula?” In two deft moves, he slipped his sidearm from his holster and targeted the middle of Xander’s chest. “You’ve got three seconds to hand it over, Dade. I’m done playing games.”

  And risk Charlie’s life in the process? No chance in hell.

  Xander didn’t move. Didn’t have to since he was pretty much counting on—

  A series of clicks echoed around the perimeter, and his focus darted from person to person as Kelly, Tanner and Archer each pressed the barrel of a loaded hand gun to the nearest agent’s head.

  “Don’t even think about it.” Tanner prodded the back of Ash’s skull. “Drop it. On the floor, right now.”

  The agent slumped mid-yank and tossed his Glock to his feet. One look at the gritty determination sharpening Kelly’s jaw, and Sparks quickly threw his sidearm to the rug.

  “You heard her.” Archer poked Byrne’s temple. “Didn’t your mama ever tell you it’s not polite to make a lady ask twice?”

  Nostrils flared, Byrne slowly lowered his weapon to his side. “Dammit, Dade. You’ve got no idea how deep this shit goes. One wrong move, and there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to keep your name in the clear.”

  Like he cared. Xander would’ve gladly flooded the web with every secret hidden on his private server if doing so meant getting Charlie back in his arms where she belonged.

  “You might want to reconsider that, Byrne. Maybe take a second to reevaluate how invested you are in your career.” If the Feds were gonna bust loose with a bunch of threats, they’d need to do way better than that. Xander rounded the conference table for the back of DeFranco’s chair. He’d already lost everything he valued, and if he had to piss off every agent or his name got shuffled to the top of some stupid watch list, then so be it.

  He wasn’t sharing the formula. With anyone. In fact, once he got Charlie safely through this, he planned to make it so that Ryan, the Feds, hell, even she never laid eyes on the damn thing again. “You’re in my house now. My house, my rules. If you don’t like it, there’s the door.”

  Bracing his hand on the table, Xander leaned over DeFranco’s shoulder and nodded toward the screen. “What is it?”

  The medical examiner shot a nervous glance toward Kelly and received a nod to go ahead before clearing his throat. “Well, at first glance, it appears to be a blueprint for some sort of antiviral medication, which is actually pretty cool considering viruses like to hide in the body when attacked. Inside the cells so they can reproduce once the threat has passed and any meds intended to fight them have cleared the bloodstream.” DeFranco scrolled farther down the document and pointed at the screen. “But see this part? It’s a protein string that induces cells to undergo apoptosis. A kind of…cell suicide, for lack of a better term, so the virus is unable to replicate from one cell to the next and will eventually die off.

  “Problem is, the string is incomplete.” He plucked his glasses off his face and swiped the bottom edge of his t-shirt over the thick lenses. “See how the line doesn’t go anywhere? How it’s sorta hanging off to the side?” His cheeks expanded as he blew a puff of air at the leftover lint and resettled his frames. “That’s the spot a marker should be included to help the protein determine which cells are the right ones to target—healthy or infected. But the marker’s missing, which is really weird since adding it should’ve been the easy part. Especially when compared to connecting this complicated inhibiter at the end.” A couple taps of the keyboard, and DeFranco shifted to the tail end of the formula. “All this stuff here hinders absorption, ensuring the drug will act slowly enough the side effects should be kept to a minimum.”

  Sitting back, he tossed his hand in the air and it landed next to the keyboard with a dull thump. “But that’s completely beside the point, because unless a delivery tag is introduced to help the protein determine which cells to destroy, the drug will only end up doing more harm than good. Ultimately, cells would be dying off all over the place, starting a chain reaction that could potentially lead to any number of complications. And in light of how every individual on the planet has contracted a virus at some point or another, if this drug is released and marketed as a sure-fire cure for something mundane as, say…the common cold or whatever, over time, people would get so sick they’d need another medication to fix the problem.”

  Another medication? Xander sneered.

  Why was he not surprised.

  If he hadn’t already, Ryan was no doubt developing that second drug at this very moment, so he’d be prepped and ready to “cure” anyone who’d been prescribed the original formula and found themselves in a world of hurt.

  Shaking his head, Xander pushed up from the table. A second later, realization poked him so hard between the brows, he flinched. “Holy hell.”

  But it got worse. Much, much worse if he followed Ryan’s process through to the end.

  For that asshole to be diabolical enough he’d deliberately leave out such a critical step in the drug’s development, who was to say he wasn’t planning on doing the same thing with the follow-up medication? Or the next and the next, and so on and so forth, until every person in the whole world needed RyaMed Pharmaceuticals just to stay alive.

  Molly lifted the screen on her laptop, the keys clicking in rapid succession as she stared at the screen. “West Nile, Influenza, Ebola…” Smacking her hand to her chest, she lifted her eyes. “Screw the common cold. There are over a million people suffering with HIV in the US alone. Ryan could tell everyone he invented the cure.”


  And folks would line up to pop whatever pills he promised would treat their illnesses, making him insanely rich all while ensuring they had no choice but to come back for more.

  Molly hunched forward as if another thought had just occurred, and Xander cocked a brow, but didn’t ask. It was anyone’s guess how far down the rabbit hole this Catch-22 of Ryan’s actually went, and if the tension simmering off of Byrne was any indicator, Xander’s window of opportunity was inching closed by the second.

  Refocusing on Ryan’s laptop, he leaned in and squinted at the formula, committing the design to memory. The groupings of the letters, every symbol and shape down to the smallest detail.

  Bottom line was, the Feds were right. It was critical Ryan’s recipe for disaster never land in the hands of anyone who couldn’t be trusted. And that included Ryan, the US Government and any other jackass who might get it in their head to make a buck off the misery of others.

  “Seems like one hell of a risk to me.” Kelly raked his hair off his brow. “I mean, I get it. How Ryan purposely omitted an essential piece in the original design so he could guarantee everyone has to take the next pill, but won’t folks eventually realize what he’s been up to? Won’t they figure out any prescriptions coming out of RyaMed are actually making people sicker than they were to begin with?”

  “Not necessarily.” Nick frowned, glancing to the side as Xander grabbed the pad filled with the medical examiner’s notes and flipped to a clean page. “Most of the side effects should be minimal to start. Headache, nausea, fatigue. Maybe some minor joint pain or blurry vision.”

  Tanner sputtered. “Sounds like the same list that’s given during every drug commercial on television.”

  Xander sketched the diagram, concentrating on the particulars to confirm they’d been embedded in his brain. DeFranco leaned closer and closer to the page as Xander jotted the letters in the proper sequence, until he finally sighed, grasped the medical examiner’s shoulder and eased him back an inch or two.