Pain

by E. M. Leya

  CHAPTER TEN

  Xander napped on the couch, wondering if he should wait for Matt so he could take him back home or let one of the other guys take him when they finished up whatever they were doing in the geek cave.

  That was what he called the room where the guys had all the computers set up. He'd been in there a few times, but it was a bit overwhelming when wires and flashing boxes surrounded him, and who knew what else. The room looked like it was right out of some FBI data collection center. Truth was, it probably wasn't that far from doing the same shit the FBI could do.

  He had to give the geeks credit, they got all the information they could possibly need, plus some. It made his job much easier, but he'd leave it all up to them. He had no business being surrounded by so much equipment. He was lucky to boot up his laptop and search for an address or a guy to come fix his furnace when it went out.

  "You see the article about the three boys being found and reunited with their parents?" Dyson asked as he sat down in one of the chairs.

  "No, missed it. Glad they found them. Are they okay?"

  "You know how they are with giving out information on minors. Reading between the lines, it sounds like they'll be staying in the hospital for a few days before going home, so take that to mean what you may." Dyson kicked his legs up on the coffee table. "The article did say the kidnappers suffered injuries and were currently in serious condition." A smile spread over Dyson's face.

  "You have to wonder what the backroom conversation is at the police station and hospital after they find the perps." Xander wished he could be a fly on the wall to hear if what they did disgusted people or if they were glad the pedophiles got what they did.

  "Beau said he heard a couple doctors talking once that they hated having to help one of the guys that was brought in. Can't say I blame them. I'm glad I don't have some Hippocratic Oath to go by. I'd sit back and watch them suffer and slowly die." Dyson rolled his shoulders as if in pain.

  "You okay?" Xander narrowed his eyes.

  "Yeah, just took a fall during the weekly basketball game with some of the guys. Fell hard on my shoulder. It's fine, but keeps stiffening up on me. You should have come with."

  "Take up football or soccer or something like that and I'm in. Basketball has never been my thing." He preferred a good set of weights or a long run. "If we don't have any cases in the next few days, I was thinking about getting some new ink." He ran his hand down his arm, touching one of the few spots that didn't already have ink covering it.

  "I haven't heard if there's anything." Dyson glanced toward the geek cave door. "What do you think of the new guy?"

  "I actually like him. He'll fit in well. The question is, can he put his personal issues aside to focus on other cases. He's been delving so deep into the dark web with one goal in mind, actually having to dig up information on others is going to be a challenge for him."

  "Can't blame him for having tunnel vision where his daughter is concerned."

  "No, you can't, but I worry what happens if he doesn't find her there. How long before he breaks?"

  "It's something we'll have to watch for. He might not break. Many don't."

  "And many do." Xander shrugged. "He's holding it together better than others, but he's also holding a lot in. As much as I hate Katie, she might be just what he needs." Xander thought about the psychologist that tormented him every few months. He hated her digging into his life. She always wanted to talk about his past, but he was more than happy to leave the past where it was. For Matt, his issues were current, and having someone to talk to would probably be a good thing.

  The sound of the geek cave door opening had Xander looking down the hall.

  When Bryon stepped into the room, he was all smiles. "I knew he'd fit in with us." He went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. "The guy is going to give Carter a run for his money, and that's going to be fun to watch."

  Carter prided himself on being the best, and if Matt was as good or better in some areas than he was, that would push Carter to work harder. He hated having someone know more than he did. They were lucky to have such talented hackers working for their team.

  "He's a good guy. I think he'll be a good fit."

  Bryon nodded. "I think he was a bit shocked by our systems, but once we showed him the layout, he jumped right in. He's just going through some last-minute things with Carter and Trenton, then he'll be out. Are you taking him home?"

  "Yeah, I don't mind." Xander had to go past Matt's place to get to his anyway. "What's the week looking like? Any jobs?"

  "We're working on a few things, but the perps changed their location last night. Moved the boy they have to a more secure area. Until we can get more information, it's on hold. I wouldn't expect much until next week."

  "Want me to call Adam and schedule?" Dyson asked.

  "Yeah, tell him I need an hour." Xander rubbed his arm.

  "Ink therapy for you two?" Bryon asked.

  "You should come with us. You'd love it."

  "Sorry, I'm too old." Bryon shook his head.

  "Bullshit." Dyson laughed. "There's no rule saying you can't get ink after forty."

  "I'm pushing fifty. I've gone this long without it. You two have enough ink for all of us." Bryon nodded to Xander's arms.

  "Hey, I'm not as bad as he is. I've only got a few," Dyson protested.

  "You guys have fun." Bryon turned as Becca walked in the door. "Hey, beautiful."

  Xander raised a brow at the endearment. It was clear Bryon had a thing for Becca, but this was the first time he'd heard him call her anything other than her name.

  "Hey, guys." Becca handed a thick file to Bryon. "This one will make you sick."

  Bryon opened the file and his face paled, which meant it had to be bad. The team had seen the worst of the worst. It took a lot to get to them.

  "What's up?" Dyson asked.

  "One-year-old girl." Bryon didn't look up from the file.

  "Fuck." Xander's stomach turned as his temper flared.

  "Why do we have the case?" Dyson asked.

  It was rare a case like this fell in their lap from the court system. Almost always the courts would come down on a perp who hurt a baby with the maximum sentence.

  Becca lifted Xander's legs and took a seat on the couch before settling his legs back over her lap. "Illegal collection of evidence. The investigators fucked up."

  "Jesus, how do you fuck up on a case like this?" Bryon slapped the file closed. "How the fuck can they let a guy like this walk free?"

  "They didn't have a choice. With the evidence thrown out, they didn't have a case."

  Dyson stood. "Tell me I can do this tonight."

  Bryon nodded. "Let me go find out what is going on. We don't even know where this guy is right now. Give me an hour to get some information. If I can get you in safe tonight, it's all yours, but I won't risk your safety. If we have to wait a couple of days to make sure we can get in and out without a problem, then you're going to have to chill for a few days."

  "Fuck that." Xander sat up. "We aren't giving him a chance to skip town or even let the victim's family get hold of him. We need to move on this."

  Becca touched Xander's shoulder. "The judge warned the family to stay away, but the child's father didn't look like he had plans to listen." She looked across the room at Bryon. "The sooner we move on this one the better."

  "Let me see what we can do." Bryon walked down the hallway.

  "You okay?" Xander turned to Becca.

  "Yeah, this was a bad one. There was so much evidence. I can't believe they fucked this up. All of the evidence was thrown out other than the child's autopsy. No one wanted to let him go. I swear Judge Ferguson was ready to take matters into his own hands. They tried everything they could, even holding him on an old traffic violation while they tried to dig up more evidence." Becca looked exhausted. "He's going to run. I know he will. If we don't get him now, we'll lose him."

  "Fuck this!" Xander stood.

 
; "Xan, don't," Dyson warned.

  "No, fuck this. It's worth the risk. I don't care if it's not safe. We've done plenty of stings that are dangerous. We're trained for this. This one deserves to be tortured, but I swear a bullet to the head would make me happy with this one." Xander stomped down the hall, not bothering to knock on the geek cave's door like he usually did. He just pushed it open and walked in. "I don't care how safe this is, let us go in." He came to stand behind Bryon, looking down at the computer. The image of a large home was up on the screen, and on the screen beside it was the layout of the house from the original building plans.

  "Back down, Xan, you know emotions will only cause mistakes. We have to do this just like any other case."

  "The same way you did—"

  Bryon stood, getting right in Xander's face. "Watch it. Don't you dare fucking go there. It will be the last thing you do." He glared at Xander with an anger he seldom saw from Bryon.

  Xander fisted his hands, trying to keep his cool. He'd never brought Bryon's past up before, never mentioned his sister, but something about knowing a one-year-old died at the hands of a sick fuck, and he had the ability to handle the situation, but was being told to wait, pushed him almost past the limit of keeping quiet.

  "Xan…" Matt's hand gently touched his arm. "Let us work, okay? I know how bad this is, and we'll do all we can to deal with this as fast as we can, but fighting isn't going to help." His hand moved to Xander's chest. "Let's go have a smoke and calm down for a minute, okay?"

  Xander took a deep breath as he tore his glare from Bryon and looked at Matt. After another deep breath, he nodded. "Okay." His gaze flashed back to Bryon. "We need to handle this."

  "I agree." Bryon never blinked as they stared at each other. "And we will, but we will do it safely."

  "Come on." Matt moved from next to Xander and started for the door. "I could use a drink anyway."

  Xander forced himself to turn around, his temper still pushing him to fight, but Matt was right, fighting among each other wasn't going to get them anywhere. He ignored the feeling of the others watching him as he walked out of the room. He didn't stop in the living room, but walked right out the front door, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He'd just lit one when Matt walked out to join him.

  "You okay?" Matt twisted the cap on a bottle of water open and took a drink.

  Xander grunted, but didn't say anything.

  "You know Bryon's right. You have to do it the way you would any other sting. You can't react, no matter how bad it is."

  Xander shook his head. He wanted to ask Matt how he would react if it was Faith, but he didn't. Matt didn't deserve to be the one he attacked. Neither did Bryon for that matter, but fuck he wanted to get his hands on the sick fuck who hurt this child.

  He took a long drag off his cigarette as he realized how easily Matt had defused the situation. No one told him what to do, and only Dyson could get through to him most of the time when he was mad. With one simple comment, he'd stepped back and let Matt talk him into going outside. He blew a trail of smoke out as he stared at Matt. "I'm guessing you're joining?"

  Matt nodded. "How could I not, especially now?"

  Xander nodded, taking in the dark brown eyes that stared back at him. "Why did you get between Bry and me?"

  Matt laughed. "Death wish, I guess. I honestly was just trying to get you to take a step back and think for a second. You were acting on emotion, and trust me, that's something I'm all too familiar with lately. I don't know what that shit was between you, but from Bryon's response, you were pushing him too far."

  Xander ran his hand down his beard. "He'll probably never forgive me for that."

  "You're the one who told me the team is like a family. If that's true, it will blow over. He's just as worked up about the new case as you are. He walked in and told us to drop everything else."

  He didn't doubt that the whole team was upset about the file Becca had dropped in their lap. How could they not be? "I shouldn't have pushed him."

  "Probably not, but I bet it's not the first time or the last time that you do. I'm just glad this time wasn't one that ended with the two of you wrestling each other to the ground."

  Yeah, that wouldn't have been good. Bryon could hold his own, but he wasn't trained and as deadly as he was. Bryon used his mind to take people out. Xander learned in the Army to use his hands. He didn't always stop to think first, and that was the problem. "Still, thanks for defusing the situation as well as you did."

  "Thanks for not punching me." Matt laughed.

  "Matt, we need you," Trenton called from the doorway.

  Matt glanced at Xander. "You going to be okay?"

  "Yeah, go. Find something so we can take this creep down. We can talk later." Xander tried to smile.

  Matt nodded. "Smoke another before you come in, okay?"

  "Right." Xander laughed, but it was half-hearted. He would smoke a pack of cigarettes waiting for permission to do the sting tonight if he had to.

  He watched Matt walk back into the house, wondering again how he'd calmed right the fuck down when Matt had touched him. It was like all the tension eased, and while he was still pissed and wanted the case, he didn't feel the need to tear Bryon apart to get it.

  The more time he spent around Matt, the more intrigued he was, which made no sense because he hardly knew him. Still, he enjoyed being around him what little he had. Tonight, he didn't have to hang out and wait to take him home. Any one of the other teammates would have done it, but he found that he wanted to wait. He wanted to talk more and learn more about Matt.

  It didn't make sense. It wasn't like he was interested in the guy. Matt had been married for years, lost his wife to cancer, and now was hoping he hadn't lost his daughter too. He clearly wasn't gay, so it couldn't be a physical attraction. He also wasn't the kind of guy Xander usually hung out with. His friends were more hardcore like Dyson.

  "Shit." He gripped his beard in his fist and tugged down, wishing he had something to do to occupy his mind. He didn't need to be thinking about Matt. He didn't need to be thinking about anyone other than the fucking pedophile who he wanted to cut into pieces.

  "Xan, we're going to have a meeting," Bryon called from the doorway.

  His pulse increased as he snuffed out his cigarette against the brick outside the house and dropped the butt into a can that Bryon had set outside for him. As he walked into the living room, he saw everyone already gathered.

  "We're going to go tonight. It appears he's alone and we can make easy entry." Bryon looked at Xander. "Dyson and Kasey will go."

  "What? Fuck that." Xander's temper rushed right back. "I asked for this."

  "We all want a part of this. Hell, I'm sure even Becca wishes she could do the slicing tonight, but I had to make a call. You're too worked up over this one Xan. Let Dy and Kase handle it."

  Xander glared across the room. "I'm more than capable of—"

  "I know you are, but not only are you not thinking with a clear head, you know we always work on a rotating shift. You've done two of the last stings. Yeah, one was a joint job with Dyson, but it's Kasey's turn. I've called him and he's on his way in."

  "Let me go with them. We've done three of us before."

  "You don't need three for this one. He's alone in the house," Carter said from where he was leaning against the wall near the hallway.

  Xander shook his head. "Fuck all of you." He turned and stormed back outside before realizing he'd left his keys sitting on the coffee table. He turned, punching the brick wall beside the doorway. "Fuck!"

  "Hey." Matt stepped out beside him. "Don't fuck up your hand or you won't be going out until it heals." He reached for Xander's still-clenched fist and looked at it.

  Xander glanced down at it too, feeling the pain as he saw the abrasions along his knuckles. He slowly relaxed his hand as Matt continued to hold it around the wrist.

  "They've made their decision. There's no point in arguing. How about we head back to my place and h
ave a few beers and have Dyson call when it's done?" Matt rubbed his thumb over the pulse point on Xander's wrist. "It's been one hell of a day and I think we could both use a beer."

  Xander gently pulled his arm back, his hand throbbing. "I hate not being part of this one."

  "I know." Matt stared at him. "You know as well as I do, he's not changing his mind on this."

  "You know him that well already?" Xander laughed.

  "Am I wrong?"

  "No, but you know the only reason he is doing this is because of what happened in the geek cave."

  "Geek cave?" Matt raised a brow with an amused grin.

  "It's what I call the computer room because that is where all you computer geeks hang out." Xander shrugged. "It makes sense."

  "I guess it does." Matt laughed. "Not the most complimentary name you could pick, but I guess it's fitting."

  "Sorry."

  "Don't be. You're not the first one to call me a geek. It's a badge I wear proudly." Matt reached out and gently touched Xander's arm like he had before to calm him. "How about those beers?"

  Xander blew out a long breath before nodding. "Yeah, it sounds good." If he couldn't go on the sting, at least he could sit with Matt and wait for the verification to come that the job had been completed. "You sure you won't mind the company?"

  "I probably need it more than you do. Maybe you can find a way to keep me from staring at my computer all night. Bryon wants me to stop using it for this kind of stuff at home." Matt didn't look happy about that.

  "It's for the best. It's safer here. I'm sure he told you there were spare rooms here if you decide to spend more time searching and need to crash here for a few hours."

  "Yeah, he did, but it's still not the same as being able to wake up and work while drinking my morning coffee."

  Xander grinned. "Well, the way I see it, morning coffee is like morning wood. It's meant to be enjoyed without any distractions."

  Matt snorted back a laugh. "I've never looked at it that way."

  "Try it. You'll see how much better your days start out." Xander shook his fist as his knuckles really started to ache.