17. Dean
Dean
The last two days had become a blur of information and drama—especially between Derek, Alexis, and Eli.
Who would have known that Alexis was working closely with Eli and that Derek and I would just so happen to walk in on the two of them right in the middle of a heated make-out session? Derek, not taking that scene too well, immediately knocked Eli to the fucking ground.
“Derek!” Alexis shrieked, her eyes meeting mine from over Derek’s shoulder as she attempted to block him from attacking Eli further.
Without pause, Derek shoved Alexis into me, and I gripped onto her biceps, holding her in place as I watched him charge over to where Eli sat on the floor, hauling his ass up and slamming him against the refrigerator.
“Derek, stop,” Alexis’s voice broke as she attempted to pull herself out of my grasp .
“Tell me I’m wrong, Lex,” Derek growled, not removing his eyes from Eli, twisting his fist even tighter in his shirt.
I was always one for a good show, and Derek definitely gave that with his over-the-top, aggressive, and possessive behavior regarding Alexis and what he just witnessed. But at some point, a line needed to be drawn, and he was reaching that line at an alarming pace—
“Don’t you fucking move, you piece of shit.” Derek snapped at Eli as he attempted to reach for something—most likely a knife—to defend himself.
I could continue to stand here and hope that Eli would survive Derek’s wrath and we could resume what we had initially come here for, but the look in Derek’s eyes told me everything I needed to make a decision.
Derek was more than ready to murder this man’s ass right in front of Alexis and me—fuck the consequences, would be the accurate phrase for it.
“Derek.” I cut in, releasing Alexis and approaching his side. “Do as she says, I’ll deal with him. You deal with her.”
Needless to say, I figured out who Derek had been sleeping with. Alexis .
I shouldn’t have been surprised in the least. He always seemed like the type of man to chase after feral women—and she was the tip of the iceberg in terms of viciousness.
I was, however, very caught off-guard when the two of them decided that right then and there was the appropriate time to kiss, make up and tear each other's clothes off before fucking in Eli’s bed .
In Derek’s fine choice of words:
“You two, get the fuck out, now. Or stay and watch, I don’t give a fuck.”
Trouble in paradise, remedied by coming all over another man’s sheets.
Eli and I stood next to each other in the hall, listening to their grunts and moans before he finally had enough of listening to them and agreed to meet us at the CIA— whenever Derek had finished…
Apparently, fucking Alexis had put Derek in a mood because once we had returned to the office and sorted all our shit out with Eli, he went ahead and accepted Eli’s ridiculous demands for a scrubbed background, new identity, and cash to sustain him for a year after the fact.
All for a single goddamn name that we didn’t even know would hold weight in this case.
Derek had unquestionably lost his fucking mind, but I went ahead and followed his orders regardless. With him being the senior agent on this case, I wasn’t about to argue with his request as long as he was fully aware that when shit hit the fan, I was not taking any of the responsibility.
Conrad could have at Derek all he wanted; I was sitting this one out.
When the contract promising Eli all of his insane demands was signed and filed away, he gave me the name the CIA ultimately paid for.
Adrian Valtores .
Not wanting to waste any more time, I immediately got to work, pulling a full, in-depth background check on Adrian. I didn’t recognize his name and had never heard of him before today, leaving me to initially believe that the name Eli had given us was complete and total bullshit.
It took me significantly longer than expected, but within a few hours, I had everything I needed for Derek, and I already knew how he would react to the single-page background check I currently held in my hand.
The only problem was the second name that appeared in his history: Madison Scott .
Fuck .
“You are absolutely out of your fucking mind if you think I will say anything to you about that sick son-of-a-bitch.” Madison growled, ready to slam Marcus’s bedroom door in my face.
Before confronting Derek with the less-than-successful background check on Adrian, I went to her first, figuring she could shed some light on her history with him before I had to have my ass chewed out by Derek for giving him… essentially nothing.
That wasn’t going to fucking happen.
“Mads—”
“The answer is no , Dean. I would rather stab myself in the eye with an ice pick than relive the years that we were together. Fuck that.” She barked, her chest rising and falling with exaggerated, rage-filled breaths.
It annoyed the fuck out of me that she wouldn’t open up about him. I knew the two of them were engaged in the past; it was in the report— and it made me jealous as fuck . I wanted to know what went on between them, not for Derek but for my own goddamn sake.
What the fuck was I doing getting worked up and jealous over a woman I barely even knew and had fucked only a handful of times. Jesus Christ.
Marcus would never let me hear the end of it if he found out I was becoming possessive and obsessed over Madison after mere days of—whatever the fuck we were now.
I need to lock my shit up.
I could want her… Couldn’t I? If Marcus was catching feelings for her, wasn’t I allowed to do the same? Fuck sake… too soon, Dean… too fucking soon…
I was being ridiculous—naive. I was still getting over Amber and that fucking trainwreck of a relationship.
Madison refused to give me what I needed, regardless of how hard I pressed her for information on Adrian. Eventually, I had to ease up on her, knowing full well that her past with him was traumatic enough and that I was only rubbing salt on a wound that never fully healed.
What kind of man would I be to send her right back into whatever spiral she just climbed out of ?
Done with any attempt at further conversation, she slammed and locked the bedroom door in my face, and I could hear Marcus laughing in the living room.
“I know something you don’t know.” He sing-songed as I left the hallway, trading Madison’s rejection for an ice-cold beer from the fridge.
“Oh yeah? And what’s that?” I scoffed in irritation, cracking open a can of grain belt and plopping my ass down onto the far end of the couch.
I now had nothing to give Derek tomorrow besides a single page of useless fucking information.
“Does the name Anathema sound familiar to you?”
I arched my brow as I gave Marcus my full attention.
“How do you—”
“Sergeant Drake of the Minneapolis PD SWAT division told me everything, or at least most of it.” He shrugged as if this was the kind of thing we discussed daily.
“What exactly did he tell you?” I questioned, not wanting to break my oath within the CIA—but if he already knew about Anathema, then there was no reason for me to hide anything more from him.
As long as the initial information didn’t come from me, Conrad couldn’t do shit about it.
“Something along the lines of: They are pitch black mercenaries set to take over the nation. Adrian is their leader and has been on Drake’s shit list for the past few years… Oh! And they have co rrupted a good chunk of the United States already. Sound about right?”
I stared at Marcus, entirely dumbfounded that this Sergeant Drake guy would have disclosed that kind of confidential information about Anathema to Marcus without even batting an eye. Why did he tell him?
“Yes…” I hesitantly answered, unsure of what to say to that bombshell of news he had just laid on me. Of course, I already knew all of what he had just said, but the fact that he did too, threw me off my A-game. “And why would he tell you all of this?”
I was curious to find out why Marcus was being brought into all of this. He had no reason to be involved in the Anathema case, or at least that is what I believed to be accurate.
If I remember correctly, he was on some bullshit filler assignment from Conrad to hunt down Roman Atwater. So how the fuck did he go from that to this?
“Drake came by the apartment looking for you, and when you weren’t home, I suggested he work with me instead.”
“Again… Why the fuck would he work with you if you knew nothing to begin with?”
“Because I told him you wouldn’t, and before you say anything, you know that’s the truth.” Marcus cut straight to the obvious point. “You would never work with someone outside of that black folder assignment unless Conrad allowed it.”
There it was, and Marcus was right. We both knew what that folder meant and the stipulations that came with it. He just managed to find the loophole he needed to get in on it himself, and I had to hand it to him—Marcus was lucky as fuck.
“You make it hard to be mad at you when I know you’re right…” I sighed, relaxing back on the couch, finishing my beer, and tossing the empty can onto the coffee table between us. “So what does Drake genuinely want with you?”
“He wants to coordinate a raid on Anathema. Something he’s been trying to achieve for the past year but hasn’t been able to. Wouldn’t tell me why, but instead, they’ve just been covering their tracks—”
“That explains fucking everything!” I slammed my hand down on the armrest, interrupting Marcus as everything clicked into place.
I fucking knew something was up when the PD blew me off without so much as batting an eye.
They don’t even know what the fuck is happening underneath their own city. Drake was covering everything up…
Marcus just sat there, staring at me in confusion as I shot up from the couch and started pacing between the TV and the coffee table.
“The officer at precinct one said he saw nothing when he investigated one of the complaints… They blew all of the calls off as if they were pranks or kids just fucking around, trespassing… What if they never actually went there? What if Drake took the calls himself and lied as a cover?” I started rambling more to myself than Marcus, running my hands through my hair and tugging at the strands as realization took hold of me .
So many possibilities .
However, the main point here was that the Minneapolis PD was, in fact, not working with Anathema and under their control. They just didn’t know what the fuck was going on. Drake, on the other hand…
“Marcus, can you get me in contact with Drake?” I rushed out, suddenly stopping my pacing and locking eyes with his.
My heart was racing from the excitement as all the pieces started connecting one by one.