Chapter 2
Grayson
The St. Louis FBI field office was just how I’d imagined it to be.
Young, restless agents were running around like the world was ending, the more seasoned agents sipping coffee quietly as they shifted through case files. It was madhouse, yet there was a certain order to all the chaos. I was comfortable here.
As the elevator closed, Jeremy looked at me over his shoulder, jerking his chin to the right.
“Her office is this way,” he told me as he moved.
I followed him silently, the visitor’s badge remaining in my hand as we made our way past the bullpen and into a brightly lit hallway with navy blue carpet. My eyes scanned the names on the closed office doors until Jeremy slowed in front of one labeled Casey Gomez-Jones, rock music blaring from inside. He didn’t bother knocking on the door; instead, he pulled out his phone. I watched his thumbs move over the screen for a moment before he pocketed the device and leaned against the wall by the door, folding his arms over his chest, eyes to the floor. “She’ll be just a second,” he muttered. “Judging by the Nickelback blaring, she’s in the zone.”
I didn’t respond.
I was too busy going running through the probability of Hale actually being dead. She couldn’t have gotten far, not with any money to her name. A woman alone like that, in a world like this? Her chances of survival were slim, a princess who willingly walked into the wolf den.
A few minutes later, I heard the music cut off, followed by someone cursing in Spanish. When the door opened, the tech genius’ eyes went to her husband before flicking over to me, her honey-colored eyes widening a bit as she said, “Tell your boy he’ll never crack my codes.”
I held her eyes as Jeremy looked over to me. “If he really wanted to, Mrs. Jones, he would. I told him to back off out of respect for your husband,” I told her. “Can we get on with this?”
Jeremy nodded and looked to Casey. “Honey, Grayson is going to need everything on Carrie,” he told her, his voice soft.
“I’m not unsealing her files, Jer,” she quipped. “I sealed them for her protection.”
A muscle in my cheek jumped at her words. “Protection?” I parroted, jaw tight once more.
Casey looked at me, her eyes pleading behind her glasses. “Tell your boy to stay away from those files. If he somehow manages to breach them—”
My patience was wearing thin now. “If you want me to find her, then I have to know everything, including why she was in rehab to begin with,” I said, cutting her off before I looked to the Oasis leader. “You called me and I’m here. Do not waste my time sending me on a wild fucking goose chase.”
Jeremy’s eyes darkened, his jaw jumping as he slowly pushed away from the wall.
A voice came from behind me. “What do you need?”
Twisting my neck to look over my shoulder, my eyes landed on Agent James Garner.
Here we fucking go.
He was dressed in a black suit and a white shirt sans tie, his hands in his pockets. His dark eyes bounced from his hacker to Jeremy before landing on me. His eyes dropped to my shirt. “You need to put that badge where it is visible, Mr. Grayson,” he said calmly as his eyes met mine.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I returned, my voice as cold as the complicated history between us, a lifetime of secrets, surging to the surface.
Garner raised his chin slightly but gave nothing away. I was the only one here who could see the frustration hiding behind his perfect little mask.
“You want me to find Carrie Hale or not?” I asked, looking back to Jeremy and Casey. “Give me what I need so I can make that happen. I’m damn good at what I do, everyone here knows that, but even I can’t go into this fucking blind.”
“And I asked what you needed,” Agent Garner repeated, his voice hard this time.
Slowly, I looked back to him before cocking my head to the side. Did the people around him know the truth? Or was he still hiding things from his little “family?”
“Everything you have on Carrie fucking Hale ,” I clipped.
The agent nodded as he looked to Casey. “Add more protection to her files. I’ll be giving Mr. Grayson hard copies.”
“Yes, boss man,” Casey responded quietly, clearly realizing the tension simmering between us.
Garner looked back to me. “Come with me.”
Two minutes later, we were on the second level of the field office as he moved around his desk, opening the right-hand drawer after scanning his thumb print. I rounded the front of the desk, not bothering to take a seat, folding my arms over my chest as frustration built. That was another thing I hated about this fucking city—everyone and everything was connected.
It was a fucking nightmare.
Garner pulled out a thick file, and it landed on the desk with a heavy slap as he put his hands back into his pockets, looking at me once more.
“Everything in that file is confidential,” he stated.
“Clearly,” I drawled.
“You need to sign an NDA,” he continued.
“What’s one more?” I returned, my voice void of emotion. Despite the annoyance and tension forming inside me, I was doing my best to keep it in check.
“This is connected to the Bratva,” Garner informed me.
Everything was always connected to something.
“How?” I questioned.
His eyes dropped to the file. “The leader of the Bratva got to ex-Mayor Gellings.”
Gellings was Carrie’s father, that much I knew.
I went to grab the file off the desk, and, in a flash, Garner’s hand was around my wrist, the head of my red snake tattoo below his fingers. Suddenly, I was fighting the urge to kill him where he stood and then forgetting this city and Carrie all together. “Get your hand off me,” I ordered, my voice calm as ever as I worked to restrain the darkness swirling inside me.
Garner pinned me with a look, not letting go of my hand. “You pick up that file, there is no turning back. You don’t think about anything but Carrie. You don’t take any other cases. You don’t do anything else until she is back here, safe and fucking sound. That understood?”
I gave him five seconds to remove his hand.
He didn’t.
My head ticked to the side. “Do you think Haley would like a one-handed husband?” I asked darkly. “Take your fucking hand off me before I call her and make her listen to your screams, Agent .”
As he pulled his hand away, he kept our gaze locked.
Oh yeah. This man didn’t show fear.
Most men would’ve been crying in the corner by now, but James Garner had been around darkness his entire life. He knew it, down to his soul.
Just like me.
“You take that file; Carrie Hale becomes your number one priority. Understood?” he clipped, sticking to the issue at hand.
My next words came out calmer than before. “I don’t take orders from you.”
His upper lip curled as he huffed. “Oh, that’s right. Joseph Grayson doesn’t take orders from anyone.”
I grabbed the file and turned, ready to the leave this fucking city, get the job done, and get back to my fucking life.
“Even in the Marines, right? Following orders was difficult for you then too , right?” he continued.
There it fucking was. Last year, he didn’t mention it—not once. He pretended I was a stranger to him. That was fine. It wasn’t like I went home and cried about it.
My footsteps halted, and I looked over my shoulder, a smirk forming on my lips. “You would do well to remember who saved your unit’s ass over there, Garner.”
Everything was fucking connected.
Agent Garner served in the Marines the same time I did.
“I remember, Grayson,” he said, coming around to the front of his desk. “I’ll always remember.”
Curiosity got the best of me, and I found myself turned around as I asked, “Tell me something, Garner. If you remember so well, then why didn’t you disclose that you knew who I was when Oasis was drowning last year?”
He shrugged a single shoulder. “Wasn’t relevant.”
I lifted my chin. “Hmm. And what about when Oasis struck a deal with Hallow Ranch?” I pushed.
His brows furrowed. “I never knew Denver Langston when I was enlisted, Grayson.”
The darkness inside of me grinned. “I’m not referring to the fucking ranch owner,” I told him. “I’m referring to the Marine running the mission that prevented you from getting blown to bits. ”
Agent Garner didn’t blink. “Mags had nothing to do with any of that, Grayson, and you know it.”
“Bullshit,” I said quietly.
That got a reaction out of him. “I didn’t know Mags was at Hallow Ranch, let alone that he hasn’t left the fucking place in over ten years.”
“Always the one with secrets,” I muttered.
His dark eyes flashed. “Always the one with authority issues.”
We stared at each other for a few more minutes, and when he finally broke the silence, I could hear a hint of regret in his voice. “Bring Carrie back home.”
I said nothing, turning to head to the door once more.
“I’m sorry, Grayson,” he said to my back.
My hand landed on the doorknob and twisted it. Then, I was gone, leaving the agent’s apology in the dust.
I sat in the SUV I’d rented, bracing myself for the information I was about to inhale about Carrie Hale. Leaning back, I rested the file against the steering wheel before pinching the bridge of my nose. A second later, the cab filled with the sound of my cell ringing.
Muttering a curse, I connected the Blue-tooth and answered. “Grayson.”
“Goodman is taken care off,” Hayes informed me, not bothering with a greeting.
Well, that was something.
“Where was he?”
“In a resort hotel down the coast,” he answered.
My brow furrowed; the Hale case forgotten for a moment. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Hayes grunted. “Yeah, neither did the fifteen grams of cocaine in his system and the four hookers with him.”
I looked at the window. “You take care of it?”
“Always do,” Hayes returned, his voice low. “Money should be in our account within the hour.”
“If its not, then—”
“—Dominic gets to play,” he said, finishing my sentence.
My lips twitched. “He hasn’t had a chance to play in a long time.”
“Enough about that,” Hayes declared. “The case is done, the money is coming, and the question is: when do you want me out there?”
“Told you last night, Hayes; I got this one.”
“You sure?” he pressed.
That was the thing about Hayes. He didn’t like any of us working alone. Of course, that went back to him losing his team during his last tour. It was a bloody nightmare, and Hayes still hadn’t fully recovered. He never would. He’d told me once that he didn’t have the strength to grieve; all he could do was bury the pain and pray to God it would stay buried.
Who was I to tell him how to deal with his shit? I had my own shit, my own demons.
“Have you gotten what you need?” Hayes asked, pulling me back to the present.
“Just left Garner’s office,” I mumbled, sighing as I focused back on the file.
“Fuck,” he cursed, his voice hard. He, like the rest of the team, knew about my history with Garner. “You good?”
“Always,” I answered automatically.
“Right,” he muttered, not bothering to press it. He knew me too well.
I stayed on the line with him as I opened the file, scanning over the first report. Three sentences in, and my blood was already boiling. Two pages in, and I was ready to burn this goddamn city to the ground. “Fuck,” I bit out, my eyes scanning over the crime scene photos. “Jesus.”
“Bad?” Hayes guessed.
“Worse.”
He muttered something under his breath as I heard typing in the background. “Send it over,” he ordered.
“I will when I’m done. Then I want you find out everything there is to know about Robert Hale.”
“Who is he?” Hayes questioned.
My eyes stared at the photo of the mutilated body in the bathtub. “Carrie’s dead husband.”
I hung up the phone and inhaled the rest of the information. Once I was done sending it over to the team, I tossed the heavy file into the passenger seat and stared out the window, my eyes on the Arch just a few blocked away.
For two minutes, I connected the dots in my mind.
For three minutes, I managed to shove the unexpected fury down.
Once five minutes had passed, I pulled out my phone and made a call.
“St. Louis Police Department. This is Angie,” a woman answered.
“Get me Chief Amara Harrison,” I said, my voice firm.
“Who’s calling?”
“This is Joseph Grayson. Red Snake Investigations,” I told her.
The woman gasped. “You’re the bounty hunter.”
I let my head fall back against the headrest.
This fucking city.