14. Dean
Dean
I had forgotten all about my Anathema assignment until I found myself wide awake and unable to fall back asleep at two in the morning.
Madison was wrapped in my arms, and Marcus was passed out on the other side of her, snoring and nearly falling over the edge of the bed— we will need a bigger one, that’s for sure…
I didn’t want to pull myself away from Madison, the sweet smell of her washing over my senses as I buried my face in the crook of her neck. It was probably not the smartest thing for me to do—to latch on to her so quickly after leaving Amber—but I couldn’t help it.
Madison was pulling me in like a seductive siren calling my name, and I didn’t want to fight it—to resist everything she was.
If it were any other woman, I would remind myself that feelings at a time like this were a mistake.
But for some reason—one that I couldn’t even begin to explain—I wanted her badly enough to say fuck it and throw caution to the wind.
Young hearts were so easy to fall, and mine was no different.
She stirred in my embrace before rolling her body towards Marcus.
I took that as my sign to slide out of bed, leaving my best friend and the woman who made me want to break all of the rules, to continue sleeping.
I picked up my laptop and phone on my way past the dresser and shut the door quietly behind me as I left the bedroom.
I set myself up in the kitchen to review some of the research I had started on Friday before Marcus dragged me out of the office. I focused my attention on the documents regarding the headrace system that ran underneath the city, connecting the now-abandoned flour mills.
The tunnels were previously used to power the mills before technology took over, making them a prime location for an inconspicuous hideout. While digging through my emails, I found two responses from the Minneapolis PD over the weekend—one of which confirmed my assumptions.
On Friday afternoon, I was informed that suspicious individuals had been spotted lurking around the mills—specifically the Twin Cities A-Mill.
I inquired further about the public complaints that had been made, and the subsequent email I received from one of the responding officers was nothing more than a shrug-off.
The email stated that the mill wasn’t an immediate priority of the city to investigate as “no harm was involved” and “the public was not at risk. ”
Unconvinced by the emails I had received, I picked up my phone and texted Derek, emphasizing the urgency of meeting early in the morning at the Twin Cities A-Mill.
Derek was reluctant to work with me, so I knew I had to leave my messages to him as vague as possible without toning down their importance.
If the Minneapolis PD didn’t want to investigate the mill and tunnels more thoroughly on their end, then I would do it myself—and that meant Derek, having been assigned to this case whether he liked it or not, was obligated to join me.
I borrowed Marcus’ new black Dodge Charger for this early morning mission, not wanting to bother carrying all my riding gear on our Indiana Jones-style expedition.
“Adven—Dean, what the fuck? I didn’t ask for this, this morning!”
I don’t know why I expected any less. Derek was not pleased when he discovered that I was dragging his grumpy ass into the tunnels and immediately attempted to pick a fight with me over it, turning my good mood sour in the blink of an eye.
I didn’t have the patience to listen to his bitching and moaning about how unfair it was and that he didn’t ask for this .
I didn’t ask to be assigned to this case with him either, but I had no control over Conrad’s decisions, and if I was going to be stuck with Derek and his piss-poor attitude this morning, he was going to get the same right back at him. Two could play that game.
Just before heading inside, I tossed Derek a flashlight, assuming that there would be no light or power once we entered the headrace tunnels through the basement.
Before diving in head first, Derek and I scanned the main floor without uttering a word, neither one of us wanting to break the stubborn silence first. This was going to make for a long fucking morning…
As I wandered the main floor, I noticed unsettled dust leading toward the basement entrance, which indicated that we might be on the right track—although it could have been created by a wild animal all the same.
Derek and I descended into the headrace tunnels after spending about twenty minutes searching the mill itself. Not knowing where to start our journey, we just picked a random path and went with it.
We spent most of our exploration still in silence, and during that time, I started doubting my intuition.
Anathema had to use these tunnels to work and navigate the city unnoticed. They only existed to those who knew of them, and the police reports fit the pattern of a secret society—or whatever the fuck they were calling themselves right now. Pitch-black mercenaries.
“This is ridiculous. There is nothing down here, Dean.” Derek growled in frustration as he pulled out his phone, searching for a signal .
So far, he was right, and I fucking hated it. There was nothing down here.
We had been walking for what felt like an hour and never encountered anything out of the ordinary for an old ass sandstone tunnel.
“What could you possibly have to do today that is more important than doing your fucking job?” I barked, unable to control my anger at the situation, and abruptly turned around to confront him.
It pissed me off that he felt as though he was the only one being inconvenienced with this assignment—that I wouldn’t have preferred to have stayed back home, buried between Madison’s thighs, instead of here arguing over bullshit.
“Nothing. Forget it… Let’s keep going.” Derek sighed as he stepped past me, taking the lead.
I frowned, feeling a little like an asshole for my emotionally charged outburst, before following him and sliding my free hand into my pocket, the other still holding my flashlight.
After another fifteen minutes of wandering the endless maze of passages, Derek stopped and directed his light to what appeared to be a boarded-up archway.
“Holy fuck.” I whispered in awe as I took in the symbol of a mangled-looking rabbit that had been burned into the barricade's top right corner. There was a letter A burned into the center of its body, almost like a branding—the symbol of Anathema.
A shiver trailed up my spine, and the air around us suddenly grew heavy. There was an eerie feeling of being somewhere we weren’t supposed to be—of being watched, and all I wanted to do was get the fuck out of there.
“Well, there’s your confirmation, Dean.” Derek’s voice caught my attention before it drifted further than it should.
“Mark this location on your phone, and we’ll return later—when we are better prepared.
” He instructed, and I was already ten steps ahead of him, not wanting to stay down here a second longer.
I loaded up my GPS to save our current coordinates and find the fastest exit route before what little signal I had left disconnected me entirely from the network, leaving us fucked for getting out.
“Right. Done. That way.” I pointed down the passageway to our left, and we made a beeline towards the nearest exit of the tunnels, neither of us wanting to take a chance of getting caught by any of the members of Anathema.
Before meeting Derek at the mill, I had Agent Kelly pull a full background check on Eli Wilder, the potential third-party informant currently involved with Anathema.
By the time we had left the mill, he had confirmed exactly what I had hoped—that Eli was a solid lead.
The only problem now was figuring out how to approach Eli without scaring him off. Derek has had several run-ins with Eli over the past year, always playing the bad cop and threatening Eli’s life for information—typical Derek stuff .
The CIA could never gather enough evidence to convict Eli of the crimes he was accused of, and so whenever his name was mentioned, Derek was always the one to torment him. It was almost as if he had a vendetta against Eli, and it wouldn’t be complete until he was off the streets for good.
I swung by our apartment to pick up Marcus on my way to the office, but he was already gone when I arrived.
Having the bare minimum of cell service underground, I couldn’t update him on when I would be back, so with him already gone, I just assumed he either caught a ride from another agent or had Madison drop him off on her way into work, not wanting to wait any longer for me.
When I checked our office before catching back up with Derek, Marcus was nowhere to be seen. None of his things were there, and the lights were still off.
Marcus was never one to get himself into any kind of serious situation, so I just told myself that he was most likely working on his own assignment and that I would catch up with him after the day was over.
Standing in Derek’s office, I stared out the window, observing the traffic and people on the busy street below.
I knew what we needed to do and where to go now that I had what I needed with the information on Eli. But I couldn’t keep my priorities straight today—my mind constantly wandering back to Madison.
No matter how hard I tried to focus on my work today, all I could see were her beautiful eyes—her sweet sounds from yesterday overwhelming my senses .
Fuck, I was growing hard just thinking about her—
“We need a third party, Dean.” I heard Derek mutter, and my attention snapped to him, shaking me from my drift. “There is no way we are going to be able to progress any further in this case without one. It would need to be someone on the inside willing to risk everything for a way out of Anathema.”
I huffed out a laugh, feeling proud as fuck that I already had exactly what he was asking for. Eli would help us gain entrance into Anathema, and Derek would ensure that happened at all costs.
“Lucky for you, I found us just that,” I grinned, pulling out my phone. “It took a while to find him, but while we were exploring the headrace tunnels, I got a confirmed name and an address.”
I scrolled through my phone for Agent Kelly's email containing the information on Eli while Derek sat there and chastised me for not telling him sooner.
In hindsight, I probably should have told him sooner. However, my mind was preoccupied with a blonde bombshell that I could still taste on my tongue. Remembering how her thighs felt wrapped around my—
“Are you going to tell me who this mystery lead is or make me sit here silently for another hour?” Derek barked, growing even more impatient than he already was. Fuck sake, this guy needed to get laid. He was wound up tighter than a fucking spring.
“Here. Take a look…” I handed Derek my phone, and his eyes widened as he read over the email and information regarding Eli .
I could see his eyes fire up with rage and knew that this was either going to go really fucking well or I was going to have to restrain him from putting Eli in a body bag by the end of the day.