I.N.E.T 4

by Brenda Cothern

  Slade removed his ball cap and ran a hand through his hair again. So much for trying to play this off like Fish sent me with them, Slade thought with a grimace. The shit was going to hit the fan when he walked into Hunt and Payne’s place with Spider and Zep.

  “How did you know to come here instead of Nashville?” Spider asked when they reached Slade’s rental car.

  “I have my ways,” Slade gave Spider another of his trademark smirks.

  “I know it wasn’t Knight and it sure as hell wasn’t Hunt,” Spider started and Slade just watched as the wheels in the man’s head turned. He wasn’t surprised when Spider came up with the answer to his own question. “Shit. Payne told you.” Spider shook his head and chuckled. “Hunt’s going to kick his ass.”

  “More than likely, but favors are a wonderful thing.” Slade grinned.

  “Yeah.” Spider looked Slade dead in the eyes. “They are.”

  Slade gave Spider a wink and opened the door to his rental car. He never had a problem owing a teammate a favor so owing Spider and Zep by extension one now wasn’t a big deal.

  “I’ll see you back at the hotel and we’ll head to Hunt’s together from there.” Spider bounced his fist on the top of Slade’s rental before he jogged across the street.

  Slade only paused long enough to take note of the rental car Spider climbed into before he pulled out onto the street. The drive to the hotel didn’t take long, but the entire time he reminded himself that Spider wouldn’t have found him if not for the bio tracker that was implanted in his left armpit. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what made Zep check his location before he and Spider came to Charleston to back up the team here. He would have to ask because he wasn’t entirely convinced that Fish really believed he was sitting on his ass at home.

  Zep was already waiting outside the hotel when Slade pulled in and parked. He arrived at the side of Slade’s rental just as Slade closed the door. Spider pulled into the spot next to him before Zep could say a word, but his teammate only gave his boyfriend a glance before turning back to Slade.

  “Suspended is not enough for you so you’re going for fired?” Zep grinned and shook his head.

  “Fish won’t fire me,” Slade declared.

  “Yeah, just like he’d never suspend you.” Zep smirked. “Good thing he thinks you’re chasing ghosts in Nashville.”

  “He asked you to track me then?” Slade opened the back door to Spider’s car and climbed in.

  Zep didn’t answer until he was seated in the passenger side. “Yeah, and you’re damn lucky he didn’t hover to answer his own question or you’d be screwed.”

  “Knight finds out he’s here and he may never get screwed again.” Spider snickered.

  “No shit,” Slade grumbled even though he was sure his lover would show his displeasure with fists as opposed to withholding sex.

  Zep and Spider just laughed. After a moment, Zep spoke, “So, give us an update on what you know.”

  “Not enough.” Slade met Spider’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “I know where Knight and Lita are staying, but you know Hunt, Zep. There is no way in hell I could get close enough to their apartments to learn more.”

  “Yeah.” Zep chuckled. “He locks us down like Fort Knox.”

  “Yeah, so aside from where they are staying and what hours they work, I don’t know shit.” Slade didn’t bother to keep his frustration out of his tone. “The only other thing I know is where Hunt and Payne set up and how they are watching the restaurant.”

  “They have a pattern?” Spider asked with surprise.

  “Not one anyone but us might notice,” Slade started. “And even then it’s staggered enough that if I hadn’t been watching them closely, they may have spotted me,” Slade admitted without shame since all of them were just that good.

  Spider pulled into the driveway of a single-story home. The house looked just like the dozens along the street, but Slade knew that looks could be deceiving. Hunt would have the place set up with video and sensors. In fact, Slade was a hundred percent sure the moment he crossed whatever invisible threshold Hunt had set up that his teammate’s computer would alert him to his presence. Spider and Zep wouldn’t trigger Hunt’s alarm since Hunt would have programmed his sensors not to trigger the alarm once they detected his teammates’ bio trackers. Hunt wasn’t expecting him, so Slade knew his own tracker wouldn’t be programmed to bypass the system. He was right when the front door flew open.

  Hunt was dripping wet, barely holding a towel around his waist with one hand, and the other firmly pointing his Glock at them. Well, not at them. Directly at Slade since his asshole teammates had expertly stood off-center of the front door. If Hunt’s glare could’ve killed him, it would have. In fact, Slade wasn’t sure Hunt wasn’t going to shoot him on principle just for being on the doorstep when his ass should have been running roughshod all over Nashville.

  “You fucking asshole,” Hunt growled out but didn’t lower his gun. “Did you two bring him up here with you?” Hunt didn’t bother to look at Zep or Spider. He didn’t bother to wait for an answer either. “What the hell is wrong with you? Fish is going to lose his shit when he finds out about this.”

  “Then he shouldn’t find out about it.” Slade smirked and for a moment thought Hunt might actually shoot him just for being a smart ass. “C’mon, Hunt.” Slade tried to give his teammate puppy dog eyes, but knew no one on the team bought his innocent act.

  “You should probably let us in before the neighbors notice you standing there half naked and pointing a gun at your company,” Zep offered with a grin.

  “Assholes,” Hunt cursed them again at the same time he lowered his weapon and took a step back to allow them to enter.

  “What if we were the pizza guy?” Spider chuckled. “You’d have scared him half to death.”

  Hunt absently waved his gun as if he were dealing with idiots. “I’d had to have ordered pizza first.”

  “True,” Spider agreed.

  “What the fuck are you doing here, Slade?” Hunt set his gun down next to his computers that practically took up the entire dining room table. He frowned at Slade. “You’re supposed to be in Nashville.” Hunt had the decency to blush.

  “I am, right?” Slade raised a brow. “This is Nashville, isn’t it?” Slade glanced around the house as if he could actually see the city he mentioned.

  “Jesus, Slade!” Hunt went to throw his hands into the air then remembered he needed at least one to hold the towel at his waist. “It’s bad enough you’re suspended.”

  “So, everyone keeps telling me,” Slade interrupted, but Hunt kept going.

  “But Knight is going to kill us all if he finds out you’re here.”

  “Then he won’t find out,” Slade stated seriously. “Why don’t you get dressed then you can catch us up to speed.”

  Slade knew he was using his team leader, follow my lead, tone with Hunt and that was more than likely why his teammate turned away. Hunt mumbled what Slade was sure were curses directed at him until he disappeared into what Slade assumed was a bedroom. While they waited on Hunt to return, all three INET agents walked over to the dining room table. Four monitors sat on top of the table, but there was only one keyboard and mouse. The entire set up resembled Hunt’s workstation at HQ except for the additional monitor. Every monitor was dark as if it wasn’t on at all.

  “They are not on.” Spider frowned down at the dark screens.

  “Security protocol,” Zep informed since Spider had never been on surveillance since joining INET. “When a sensor is tripped, they go into this mode if Hunt doesn’t reach them in a certain amount of time.”

  “Cool,” Spider said with a smile.

  “Get out of the way you assholes,” Hunt said in a tone that wasn’t nearly as pissed off or exasperated as a few minutes before when he went to get dressed.

  All three agents moved so Hunt could take a seat in front of his set up. A few moves of the mouse and clicks on the keyboard brought the screens bac
k to life. Two screens showed the inside and outside of two different apartments. One showed the outside of the house they currently occupied. The last monitor displayed the inside of what was obviously Midnight’s. There were only three individual video screens for the restaurant.

  From what Slade could determine, the cameras covered views facing the entrance to the restaurant proper, one to view most of the dining room, and another that was obviously placed in the kitchen and faced the back door. Slade knew Midnight’s was larger than the video coverage showed. However, he also knew they didn’t always need full coverage of an area they were surveilling.

  Movement on the ‘dining room one’ camera drew Slade’s eye. Seeing his lover dressed so formally and moving between the tables to serve Midnight’s patrons made Slade’s mouth water. This was the closest he’d actually been to seeing Knight even though it was through a surveillance cam. Watching his lover from afar didn’t count in Slade’s book because he couldn’t see him nearly as well as he could this moment.

  “So, catch me up,” Slade requested, and didn’t care if he sounded slightly breathless, because he was finally able to have real close-up ‘eyes on’ his lover.

  Knight took a seat at an outside table at the Café at exactly 4:55. Less than two minutes later, before the server even came outside, Matt was jogging across the street to meet him. Knight watched the chef approach and couldn’t help but think about how different the guy looked.

  Matt’s blonde hair was still spiked up with enough product that Knight knew it would look the same after working hours in the hot kitchen of Midnight’s. No, it wasn’t Matt’s hair that made him look different. It was what he was wearing.

  Whereas Knight was dressed for work, minus the bow tie, Matt look liked he was about to go clubbing. He wore stone washed skinny jeans that made Knight wish he was watching the chef run away from him instead of toward just so he could glimpse the man’s ass. A shirt that looked like a T-shirt, but clearly wasn’t, molded Matt’s smaller frame as if it were a second skin. Just watching Matt close the last few feet between them made Knight want to adjust himself.

  “Hey,” Matt greeted. “Did you already order?”

  “No.” Knight smiled. “I just got here.”

  “Oh, okay.” Matt returned Mark’s smile and sat down next to Midnight’s newest waiter.

  The entire time he jogged across the street he drank in the sight of the man. Mark was sexy as hell and Matt still couldn’t believe the guy was interested in him. It was an interest that Matt had every intention of holding, too.

  He never wore his uniform into Midnight’s if he could avoid doing so. During the week he could avoid it and for that he was grateful. He hadn’t given too much thought to what he was going to wear to work, but was more than pleased to see Mark’s eyes roam over his body while he approached.

  The server arrived and took their coffee order before either of them could say more. Once she disappeared inside to retrieve their coffee, silence settled around them for a moment.

  Knight waited for Matt to say something else, but the chef just met his steady gaze. That gaze said almost more than words ever could. Just the way Matt looked at him, eyes appraising and hungry was enough to let Knight know that it would be no work at all to seduce the guy. Of course, seducing Matt to gain information about the drug smuggling going through Midnight’s wasn’t a hardship.

  Although, for a moment Knight pondered what it would be like to seduce him so Knight could take him home to Slade. Vivid images of having Matt between him and his lover briefly flashed through his mind. Thankfully, he was excellent at keeping his thoughts from manifesting in his expression even if his body was not as immune.

  “I almost didn’t recognize you.” Knight smiled and loved the way Matt’s cheeks tinged pink.

  “Unless it’s one of the busier nights, I just get changed there,” Matt paused and it dawned on him that Mark had never seen him in anything but his chef uniform. “I take it that’s a compliment?”

  Knight caught the slightest hesitation in Matt’s tone when he asked and knew the guy wasn’t fishing for a compliment. No, that hesitation just confirmed that Knight’s first impression of Matt being shy was correct. Well, shy if he wasn’t in his element, in the kitchen where he had total control.

  “It was,” Knight paused and made sure Matt saw him drop his gaze to look over what he could see above the table.

  “Thanks,” Matt replied just as the waitress set down their coffees.

  Matt could feel his cheeks heating up. He wasn’t used to hot guys flirting with him. In fact, he’d only had two boyfriends and they were more friends who turned into lovers than anything else. Aside from Christian and Pierre, he only had hookups, but there weren’t even enough of those to count on one hand.

  “So,” Knight started after taking a sip of his coffee. “How long have you been at Midnight’s?”

  “Three years.” Matt smiled and relaxed a bit. Talking about his passion always relaxed him. “After I finished training in France, I worked under a few well-known chefs, but apparently the culinary community seems to think I’m a prodigy,” Matt said without any shame or embarrassment. He wasn’t boasting, either.

  He knew how good everyone in the culinary culture thought he was, but as far as he was concerned, he was just a guy from Nebraska that fell in love with cooking when he was six and his grandmother let him help her make cookies.

  “You trained in France?” Knight asked as he made a mental note confirming what he already knew from the file of the chef. “Do we have a lot of French dishes at Midnight’s?”

  Matt laughed. “No, we don’t, but yeah I trained in France.” Matt took a sip of his coffee. “I’m actually pretty lucky. Keith lets me create the menu.”

  “That must be nice.” Knight grinned.

  “What about you?” Matt smiled. “Have you always waited tables at high-class restaurants?”

  Knight watched another blush color Matt’s cheeks as if the chef just realized what he asked may have sounded insulting. Matt’s tone wasn’t anything but sincerely curious so Knight chuckled. In a split second decision, Knight knew how he would reply. His reply would give him insight to not only the man, but also anything that may happen in Midnight’s from here on out.

  “Well, I went to college for a few years, then the police academy,” Knight paused and waited for some sort of reaction from Matt. All he got was a look that was full of interest. “I was a cop for a few years,” Knight paused again and Matt’s expression still hadn’t changed. “Then, I wasn’t.” Knights slight smile made it clear he didn’t want to elaborate. “Now, I’m waiting tables at a high-class restaurant.”

  “Well, I bet you’d be even hotter in uniform,” Matt blurted and slapped his hand over his mouth.

  He sure as hell hadn’t meant to say that out loud. The heat he felt in his face was akin to sunburn and his embarrassment made him want to bury his face in his hands.

  Knight couldn’t help but chuckle at Matt’s words and reaction to what he’d said. The guy was the color of a strawberry and looked like he wanted to crawl under a rock and die. Of course, Matt’s reaction also made Knight think his gut telling him the chef wasn’t involved in the drug smuggling was right on point.

  “Shame I still don’t have it then.” Knight gave Matt a wink.

  “Oh God, I don’t believe I said that.” Matt felt horrified that his brain to mouth filter totally crapped out on him. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not.” Knight continued to smile at Matt as he reached over the table and took the man’s hand.

  For a long moment Knight just looked Matt in the eye. He read a mixture of emotions as thoughts flashed through Matt’s gaze. Embarrassment and hesitation slowly turned into acceptance and want. The attractive blush that had covered Matt’s cheeks began to fade as desire filled Matt’s baby blue eyes. Knight gave Matt’s hand a squeeze and didn’t hide his interest in his return look.

  The waitress just appearing at the ta
ble broke another stare that was saying more than words. After declining more coffee and receiving the check, Knight released Matt’s hand. The guy looked disappointed he’d let go.

  “Sadly, it’s time for work,” Knight said with regret in his tone that he actually felt.

  “Yeah, it is.” Matt stood. “And unlike you, I have to get changed.”

  “You look sexy in your chef get up.” Knight gave Matt another wink and was rewarded with another adorable blush.

  “Would you like to get together on Monday? Maybe watch a movie at my place?” Knight set the lure to get Matt alone where anything they discussed could be picked apart by Hunt.

  Monday’s were the only day Midnight’s was closed and Matt usually didn’t do more than laundry and watch TiVo to get caught up on shows he followed. Spending part of his only day off with the sexy man that was currently holding the door to Midnight’s open for him sounded like an excellent idea.

  “That sounds great.” Matt smiled over his shoulder. “I’ll bring dinner.”

  Knight chuckled. “That’s good because all I know how to cook is pulled pork.”

  The look of horror that crossed Matt’s face made Knight laugh. He wasn’t embarrassed he couldn’t cook. If he really wanted to learn how to cook, he could. He just had no desire to do so.

  “Please tell me that’s a joke.” Matt prayed it was because if it wasn’t that was just sad. Not only sad, but made him want to cook for the man even more than he already did.

  “Sadly, no.” Knight grinned.

  “You poor thing,” Matt replied and once more slapped his hand over his mouth.

  Knight just laughed and used his hand that was now resting on Matt’s lower back to push him toward the kitchen.

  “Off to work with you.” Knight gave Matt a wink and was still chuckling when he went to the server station to begin his preparation for his night waiting on tables at Midnight’s.

  Eight

  Since the rest of the team knew he was there, the first thing he did was shave the scruff from his face before he slipped into the surveillance rotation as if he were actually assigned to the case. Whatever shit that hit the fan between Hunt and Payne must have been mostly hashed out behind closed doors since for the most part, Hunt only glared at Payne occasionally. Just as he still glared at Slade from time to time.