Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Two hours.
That’s how long it had been since they’d stumbled through Bodie’s front door and sequestered Nick in the guest suite on the lower level of Raven’s Security headquarters.
He’d passed out the moment Chase had eased him onto the bed, chest gently rising, dark lashes resting against ashen skin.
Chase had checked his vitals, sighed, then joined Bodie, Rowan, and Greer upstairs with a promise to check-in regularly throughout the night.
Sloane shifted on an oversized chair, gaze alternating between Nick and the heart monitor Chase had hooked up, the steady rhythm a fragile reassurance that they hadn’t made a colossal mistake.
That they hadn’t worried more about possible consequences from the ambush and the burn notice than if Nick needed the added attention.
Nurses checking on him every thirty minutes.
Doctors only a hallway away if he suddenly tanked.
She forcibly lowered her shoulders, rolled her head a few times to ease the strain in her neck. She should have made him stay, risks be damned. Now, all she had was the whispered rasp of his breath and his heartbeat playing in the background as proof she hadn’t lost him.
A pang of regret settled hard in her gut as she listened to the beep, the thought of it suddenly going flat roiling her stomach. She didn’t often engage in worst-case scenarios, choosing to trust her future to facts and skill, but this…
This ate at the part of her she’d hidden away.
The one in love with Nick Colter.
Sloane sighed.
She wasn’t sure when she’d decided admitting her feelings was wise, even just to herself.
But somewhere between getting the ECHO message and jogging beside the gurney as Chase wheeled Nick into the hospital something had shifted.
Cracked her walls, or maybe just disintegrated them.
Left the remnants in a crumpled heap at her feet.
She groaned, stood, then crossed over to the hardwired terminal Bodie had set up for her so she had a direct line into his server farm. The swivel chair squeaked as she slid onto the padded seat, cracked her knuckles, then typed in her password, launching her secure dashboard.
Her laptop flashed to life — folders stacked down one side. She glanced over at Nick, waited for his chest to rise and lower, despite the constant rhythm, then turned back, settled in.
Under a minute, and she had the burn notice plastered across her screen, one of her algorithms dissecting it line by line. There was something in the official wording, a cadence that felt familiar, that wouldn’t stay quiet.
Time passed in a hazy blur, Chase shuffling in to check Nick’s vitals before disappearing, again, leaving her with her doubts and that damn monitor.
She focused on the task, on peeling back the layers of interagency routing codes until she discovered the origin point, but every pathway terminated at the same dead end.
As if the notice only appeared to be linked to the CIA but had actually been pushed through a different server.
One much darker — one that went beyond National Security.
She leaned back, raked her fingers through her hair, wincing at the collection of scrapes from the attack, when her cell vibrated. She checked the number and smiled. “Hey.”
Avery huffed on the other line. “You drive into an ambush, get airlifted during some Mad Max grudge match, then have a burn notice go live against you, and all you can say is ‘hey’?”
“It’s better than saying you shouldn’t be calling me because I’m radioactive.”
“Like that would ever stop me.” Avery tapped the phone, the sound hollow. “You okay?”
“It’s been a long day.” Hell, it had been a long year.
Avery’s voice softened. “How is he?”
“Are you asking about Nick or Dalton?” Sloane grinned at her friend’s sharp intake. Proof that Avery had a bit of a crush on the former-Green Beret. “Because Dalton’s fine. Some lacerations from the assault, but overall, he’s good. Would probably love to have you call.”
“I meant Nick.”
“Right, guess I misread all that sexual tension in your voice when you worked that joint case. Not to mention all the times you’ve asked about him, since.
” Sloane glanced over at the bed. “And Nick’s alive.
Sleeping like the dead. The doctor said it was mostly just blood loss, that the shrapnel hadn’t hit anything major, more of a death ‘by a thousand cuts’ scenario but…
God if you could see the color of his skin… ”
“Sounds like old times.”
Except where he’d gotten hurt because he’d shoved his buddies out of the way — had taken the brunt of the explosion in order to keep them safe. Exactly the side of him she’d claimed she needed. “Mostly, except…”
“Except what?”
“He’s different. Lighter maybe.”
Avery snorted. “You got all of that out of a quick conversation while running for your lives?”
“I’ve known Nick forever. I can read between the lines.” She hummed, drawn to the strong curve of his jaw, the way his hair teased his eyes. “Oregon looks good on him.”
Avery paused, nothing but an odd silence filling the space before she laughed. “Well, I’ll be damned. You’ve finally admitted it.”
Sloane groaned inwardly. Avery had a bad habit of looking for subtext where there wasn’t any, and she’d obviously played right into Avery’s hand. “I think you’ve been awake too long. You’re rambling.”
“Please. How long have we been best friends?”
“With how this conversation’s going? About five minutes too long.”
“The correct answer is forever and a day. And I recognize that dreamy tone in your voice when you talk about him. You’re hopelessly in love with the guy.
Have been for months, but I’m glad you’re finally acknowledging it.
” She drew a breath as if she needed the extra oxygen.
“Admitting you have a problem is the first step.”
“Shut up. And the only tone is fear because another thirty minutes, and he would have died.”
“But he didn’t, because Nick Colter’s impossible to kill.”
“He’d like to think so.”
Another pause, then a creak. What sounded like Avery leaning back in her chair. “You know you’re more than my best friend, right?”
Sloane smiled. “Sisters ‘til the end.”
“So, believe me when I say, I don’t have an issue with Nick. In fact, meeting him on that joint case with Rowan, I can see why you’re hung up on the guy. He’s got this roguish, old-world charm, when he’s not being a complete ass.”
“Then why the eye roll? And you did. I heard it.”
“Let’s just say you two were never going to find a way to be lovers and CIA agents. But now that he’s part of Bodie’s squad…”
“Assuming Bodie doesn’t turf Nick’s ass.
From what Nick’s told me, Raven’s Security is Bodie’s legacy.
What kept the man sane after that IED nearly killed him.
While I know he enjoys working part time for Greer at the sheriff’s station, this place…
” Sloane sighed. “It’s his sanctuary and his motivation all in one.
If this is connected to the CIA the way I think it is… ”
It could taint everything Bodie had worked so hard to achieve. Put Nick’s teammates at risk.
Avery went silent for a few moments. “Speaking of the CIA…”
“Damn, you found something, didn’t you.”
It wasn’t a question, and Avery merely blew out a rough breath.
“As much as I love talking about how lovesick you are over Nick, I’ve been rooting through the DHS system, and I found something.
A national security letter draft that was created, then deleted just before the burn notice went live. I’m sending you a copy.”
Sloane’s computer dinged, the message popping up a second later.
Avery yawned, then continued. “As you can see, the letter targeted Raven’s Security for potential links to domestic paramilitary activity.”
Sloane nodded as she followed along. “It’s a classic ‘poison-the-well’ activity designed to isolate them from any federal help.
Start stripping away their resources. What should have been sent as a prelude to the notice and would explain how that group got a jump on everyone today.
Deleting it doesn’t make sense.” She paused, frowned.
“I don’t see any indication of who sent it. ”
“That’s because it was buried.”
Sloane waited, clearing her throat when Avery remained quiet. “And?”
“It was your boss, Sloane.”
Sloane pulled the phone away, looked at it as if she’d imagined the word, then placed it against her ear, again. “I’m sorry, who?”
“You heard me right — Deputy Director Cyrus Hill.”
“I…” She swallowed, nearly puked. Her boss had been behind the burn notice?
“I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
“Ask me again after I find something to crucify the bastard with. And I’ll start by scrubbing every damn mission Nick and I were on over the past few years because if Hill’s behind this, the reason’s in one of those files.”
“Won’t he know you’re poking around?”
“That’s always a risk, but I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeves.”
“Jesus, Sloane, you gave yourself a backdoor, didn’t you.”
Sloane laughed. “I love how you think I only made one.”
She placed the phone down, put it on speaker as she started tapping on her keyboard, compiling a list of missions and joint task forces they’d been on where Hill had been even remotely connected.
Her computer hummed, mission codenames scrolling down her screen before it stopped, cursor blinking, endless lines glaring back at her.
Avery breathed across the line. “Well?”
Sloane read over the names. “There’re pages worth.”
“Any way you can narrow it down?”
“I’ll begin by grouping them by how successful the mission was. Start with the ones that didn’t provide a favorable outcome, then work my way forward. Though, Nick’s last mission was two months ago. Mine, too, technically. Makes me wonder why anything’s coming back on him, or us, now.”
“Maybe Hill’s pissed Nick went private?”
“Maybe.” Sloane glanced over at him. “Or maybe he’s scared for the same reason.”
Sloane punched through a few firewalls, gained remote access through one of her remote ports, then started copying over files to her server — had her algorithms combing through the data, dividing the mission notes according to her parameters.
Avery waited in silence on the other end, hushed typing implying her friend was conducting her own reconnaissance.
Avery lost patience first, clearing her throat over their line. “I can’t take the not knowing. Anything damning, yet?”
Sloane huffed. “It’s gonna take time to go through everything.
Even with the computer rating the missions on a series of key phrases, since I’m not sure what I’m actually looking for, I’ll still have to go through each one line-by-line.
But I’ll find what Hill’s hiding — what the bastard wants buried besides us.
In the meantime, I’ll keep digging into the origin of the burn notice because there’s no way this is everything. ”
“You’ll keep me posted, right? No ‘need-to-know’ bullshit?”
“Pretty sure any reservations I had about breaking national security vanished when my boss stabbed me in the back. Just, let me go hunting. I’ll tell you what I find later.”
“I’m calling back at eight o’clock. Sharp. Don’t even think about ghosting me.” Her voice faded, then surged back. “And get some damn sleep. You sound exhausted.”
Avery hung up, the eerie void only fueling Sloane to dig deeper, something to justify the attempts on her and Nick’s lives. Proof that the burn notice was just a smokescreen — Hill’s way of handcuffing them before sending in the reapers.
The night dragged on, rain tapping the window as she dove into the dark web’s financial ledgers — the marketplaces where assassins and wet-work teams got paid — using a number of black-hat exploits she’d developed over the past decade with the CIA. Failsafes she’d never thought she’d have to use.
Nearly an hour had passed when she found a payment marker using Hill’s known shell corporation — Synergenics. The one she’d created for the bastard during a sting operation partnered with Homeland Security. A couple clicks and a few encrypted firewalls later, and she found it. Not a burn notice.
Directive seven.
A seven-figure kill order issued on “Raven-alpha”, aka Nick Colter, and Raven-auxiliary, her.
The rules were simple — termination with proof.
And by pushing a burn notice through a proxy — making it look as if it had originated inside the CIA — Hill had practically served them up on a platter.
Guaranteed they were isolated from any exterior help.
All of which meant, the hunt had just begun.