Exposé

25. Nate

25

Nate

F or the last nineteen days, a low, droning static whispered from my computer speakers, the faint hum wrapping around me like a cocoon as every monitor flickered with live feeds of Ava’s studio apartment. Each screen offered me a piece of her sanctuary—the place she retreated to when she thought the world couldn’t touch her—the place where she believed she was safe.

Ava took another photo and tacked it onto her wall, drawing a red string from one to the next as though she saw some sort of puzzle inside of them, her mind working to solve the problem only one person seemed to know the answer to— Mr. Anonymous .

Who was this person?

How did they have the information that they did?

And how the hell did they know the Mayor was coming?

Our phones buzzed beside us, and I picked up my cloned copy, listening in, her voice echoing in my computer speakers.

"Hello?"

"Ava, it's Whitney. Where are you?"

"At home. Working."

"On the same story I told you to drop?"

"I did drop it." She winced.

Liar.

"Then why am I getting a call from the Mayor telling me you have an upcoming appointment for a follow-up?"

"It took him this long?"

Silence drowned the conversation.

"Odd isn't it?" Ava smiled, tucking the phone between her shoulder and ear, and then wrote on a sticky note and pressed it to the board. The word involved? was circled in bright red. “If the Mayor didn’t tell you to drop the story, then why’d he bother calling to warn you about our meeting on Monday?”

"He didn't tell me to..." She let out an exasperated sigh through the phone. "Ava, I gave you explicit instructions—"

"Yeah, I’m aware. For the record, I’ve dropped the story," she lied. "My meeting was for something else entirely, but now that I know you two are in contact, there’s no reason for me to follow up with him."

"And what was the reason?"

"Just to see who he was in cahoots with." She placed the end of the pen into her mouth, diverted a string, and drew in a deep breath. "I quit, Whitney. And I won't even do you the solid of two-week’s notice."

"You're making a mistake—"

"Am I?"

I tipped back in my chair, Echo purring in my lap as I studied her 'gotchya grin'.

"Don't do this, Ava."

"It's already done. I'll clear my desk on Monday."

She hung up the phone and dropped it on the table while I placed mine on the desk with a frown. "Dammit, Ava."

Echo chattered, then tucked his head under my arm and purred, his needle-like claws kneading into my flesh.

"You know I don't like you, right?"

His purring grew boisterous as I crossed my ankle over my knee, staring at the beauty on the large screen.

"But her... she's got me conflicted."

The thought of letting her run down her path of self-destruction had my teeth grinding against one another, and my fingers curled into a permanent fist.

We are both headed towards mutual destruction.

She'd thwarted my every attempt to sabotage her little story at every corner, and somehow, she'd roped me into distracting the Mayor's secretary so she could break into his office.

There's no way she's that manipulative.

But she had me hooked.

I kicked the cat off of my lap and turned toward my living room floor. Moving the computer screen in my direction, I dropped the picture with the transactions into the same pattern as she did, our identical canvas singing their secrets to her.

Hours later, I'd stared at the new picture she'd hung up on her board of Keith, along with a slew of red string, my gut instincts firing one right after the other.

What does Keith have to do with this?

How much does she know already?

I stood and stretched my back, then snagged my jacket off the back of the chair as my phone buzzed.

Groaning, I shrugged the jacket over my shoulders and checked the message.

Low battery.

My teeth ground together as I made my way back to the kitchen cabinet filled with batteries and pulled out a handful.

"Useless pieces of shit."

Pocketing both phone and batteries, I slammed the door on my way out, causing the cat to screech like his tail got caught.

How am I supposed to follow someone when the gear is busted?

I drove to her apartment and scanned the dark parking lot.

Ava’s car sat under a streetlight, its shadow stretching long across the fractured asphalt, the acorns littered across the ground like frozen cockroaches. Distant footsteps and the hum of a passing car pricked at my nerves as I made my way toward it.

I dropped to a crouch, my knees hitting the gritty pavement, and slid under her car. The cold metal frame loomed above me as I fumbled for the tracker. My fingers brushed its smooth edge as a dog barked in the distance, sharp and jarring. I froze, breath locked in my chest, before swapping the dead battery, each click of the casing ringing louder than it should.

Get in, get out .

Note to self: buy more batteries.

Second note to self: get a more reliable tracker.

A pair of issued black shoes stopped at the hood of the car.

Shit.

"What are you doing down there?"

I slid the tracker into my pocket and pushed myself up to my feet.

"Hey."I gave him a curious look, my brow raising. "Liam, right?"

"Yeah, Nate?" He nodded and glanced around. "What are you doing underneath Ava's car?"

I pulled a coin out of my lint-lined pocket and held it up. "I dropped my penny."

He narrowed his eyes—the corners tightening as if trying to peel back the layers of a lie. "You crawl under random cars to pick up pennies?"

A chortle shook my shoulders. "I don't know what your salary is, but every penny matters to me." I tossed it into the air, caught it, and tucked it back into my pocket with a pat.

Thank you, random lucky penny.

"Right. And what are you doing out here picking up pennies?"

The corner of my mouth turns up. "Visiting my girlfriend."

His body tensed as he blinked at me, his Adam's apple bobbing.

Liam cleared his throat and pitched a quick look toward Ava's apartment.

Does he know which one is hers?

"You two are dating now?"

I popped my other hand into my pocket and rocked on my heels. "Yeah, about a month now. Did you come by to see her, too?"

An inkling of darkness branched out across my vision.

Liam's eyes narrowed. "No. I work around here."

I gave him a slight, acknowledging nod. "Did you want to come up with me? Say hi? She's locked herself in her apartment for a while. Maybe she could use some more company."

His features softened, and he stepped back, shaking his head. " Nah, I have a lead to follow up on. You go ahead. Tell her I said hello, though."

"Will do." I stepped around him toward her apartment. "Have a good night."

"Same."

His eyes bore into the back of my skull, making my hair stand on end.

Now, how am I going to keep track of her?

Great.

I bounded up the stairs, two at a time, my footsteps light, and dropped the useless plastic device in a potted plant beside a door.

Stopping at her door, I inhaled a deep breath, calming my lungs, and knocked.

The door swung open, and her gaze knocked me off my feet, setting my chest into a vise. "Hey."

"Hi." She smiled, her eyes darting across the walkway. "What are you doing here?"

I shrugged. "Thought I'd drop by and see how you were. You've been MIA for a while."

Ava's eyes narrowed. "It's only been a few days."

Shifting, I raised a brow and leaned on the doorway. "Ava, it's been almost three weeks since... you know..."

"Yeah, but I saw you a few days ago."

She saw me?

When?

"Unless I'm the one having a memory issue, I haven't seen you since we left the Mayor's office three weeks ago ."

"You were helping Mrs. Fontaine to her car."

"On Monday?" Jesus. "Why haven't you been answering your phone?"

She pulled the door closer behind her, disallowing my view into her apartment. "I've been busy."

Very busy, my recluse.

"Can I come in? You can catch me up on what you've found."

Her head turned slightly to the side as though suspicion ran through her veins. "What do you mean, what I've found?"

The paranoia is growing.

"From the photos. Have you figured anything out yet?"

A shine hit her eyes as though she'd hit the lottery.

Will she let me in?

"I think..." She took another look down the walkway, grabbed my forearm, and yanked me inside, slamming the door behind us. "I think I might have found something huge."

Looking around, I whistled as I peered at the growing board I'd stared at for weeks. "Wow, you did this?"

Nodding, she walked to the right side of the board and pointed. "It's all connected."

"Come again?"

"All of it." Her hands hovered over the evidence board as she spread them wide. "It's some wild internetworking scheme. I don't know why they are doing it, but it's huge, Nate."

I sat down on the couch, my elbows on my knees, hands clasped. "Alright, break it down for me."

She stuck the edge of her pen into her mouth and chewed, the detail more intricate in person than from the camera hovering above her.

"First, I found this." She pointed to a piece of paper. "It's a header of a transfer slip. Elara Holdings. I recognized it, but for some reason, I couldn't place it, but then I remembered. A while ago, I read a piece about corporate veils being used for laundering. Elara Holdings was at the center of the controversy, but they cleared their name. For the public, at least. So I dove into it."

Elara Holdings... Doesn't ring a bell.

"And what did you find?"

“This,” she gestured toward the board, “is how I figured out who Keith Brentwood is and what he’s tied to.”

My stomach flipped. "One person? I thought this was big?"

"It is. Just stick with me."

I leaned in, my brow raised as I scanned the new details pinned to the board. Brentwood, dressed in military-issued BDUs, posed for a photo that now hung in the center of her board.

How the hell did she get this?

She'd written his name on a Post-it note and circled it in red ink. Surrounding his photo were snippets of newspaper articles, printouts of government contracts, and blurry photos of transfer slips.

We've got a big problem.

“It started with the transfers.” Ava pointed to a cluster of documents in the bottom left corner. “There were several well-to-do names on there, but this one unknown name kept appearing." She pointed to his photo. "Keith Brentwood. At first, I thought it was a normal transfer because the amounts were insignificant, so I thought nothing of it, except the routing was suspicious for such small transfers."

"Suspicious, how?"

"Offshore accounts, shell corporations, that sort of thing. So, I ran his name through every database I could think of. That’s when I found this."

She pointed to an old DOD report pinned next to Brentwood’s photo. “It’s a public report from the Department of Defense, buried in the archives. It listed contractors who worked on classified projects about ten to twenty years ago. And guess who was on that list?" A broad smile formed, creasing her laugh lines.

"Keith Brentwood?"

She clapped her hands together. "Bingo. Keith Brentwood has his name stamped all over a program labeled ‘Project Horizon.’"

My gaze narrowed. “What’s Project Horizon?”

“That’s where it gets tricky.” She pulled a sticky note from the board and read it aloud. “‘Development and testing of advanced chemical compounds for military use.’"

"What the hell does that mean?"

She's in deep.

Does she know how close she is?

Does she know what comes after this?

Do I?

"Sounds vague, right? But I cross-referenced it with a leaked report from a watchdog group." She pointed to a photocopy with a bright yellow highlighter streak across it. “Project Horizon wasn’t just about chemicals. It involved testing substances that could ‘enhance cognitive and physical performance,’ which is code for experimental drugs."

I frowned, stood from my chair, and leaned into her board, studying all the pieces. "Okay, are we talking about something like The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, Operation Whitecoat, or something bigger, like the British Nuclear Testing at Maralinga?"

"For the record, your off-the-top knowledge of governmental experiments is concerning." She gave a nervous laugh. "But no, think MK-Ultra."

"MK-Ultra was an LSD study on soldiers by the CIA. What does Keith Brentwood have to do with the CIA? And how the hell did you get this information?"

Her lips curved into a sly smile. “There are people who don’t like secrets staying buried. A few years ago, someone leaked a trove of internal documents to a nonprofit. Some of it had redacted information but enough slipped through to give me a trail to go off. I followed the names on the leaked contracts, looking for connections, and that’s when I hit my next lead.”

She pointed to another section of the board, where she'd pinned a photo of a government building beside an article. “Brentwood worked as a security consultant after leaving the military. His clients? High-ranking officials and private contractors tied to the pharmaceutical industry. It all lined up—he was perfectly positioned to bridge the gap between government projects and private sector distribution.”

"Wait, wait. What are you saying here?"

" Shhh. Just wait." She pushed at my shoulders until I sat back down on the couch. "It gets weirder. Brentwood ends up being part of a congressional inquiry into misappropriated funds for defense projects, brought to you by none other than... my other source, Kane Rogers, who..." she held up her finger. "Suddenly died after I spoke to him. Coincidence? I think not."

"This is starting to sound like fiction, Ava."

That's the connection that asshat had to Kane.

"I know. I had a hard time believing it, too, but listen." She tapped the pen on her lip as she paced. "Six years after this, he disappears."

“Disappears? As in dead or a poof ?” I stared at the timeline she'd etched into the bottom of the board.

"Exactly what it means. Brentwood dropped off the radar. But," she held up her pen in the air, "before he vanished, his name showed up on one more document—and this one was from a Russian acquisitions company with the sole owner, Ruslan Vladomirovich Primack, who is now deceased. His company procured ownership of a pharmaceutical company, and they started funding a drug trial under the guise of military testing. That drug?” She grabbed a sticky note from the board and slapped it down on the coffee table. “It’s the same one I’ve been tracking—an experimental compound that’s now flooding our town as an addictive street drug.”

I stared at the note, the weight of her words sinking in. “So Brentwood was involved in this conspiracy theory to introduce the drug to the market?”

“It’s not a conspiracy.” She shook her head, a sharp edge to her tone. “Did you know the CIA is credited with turning ‘conspiracy theory’ into a dirty word? They did it to shut down anyone questioning the Kennedy assassination—anyone who dared to challenge their narrative.”

"I didn't mean it in a negative way." I stood and brushed my hand through my hair. "This is all a lot to take in."

A lot.

It means it's all been a lie.

"I get it. Trust me." She nodded. “But I think he was a key player in this. He had the connections, the access, and the know-how to keep it under wraps, and if it wasn't him, it was someone higher up." She stepped close to me, her emerald gaze tipping up to mine. "When things got too hot—when the congressional inquiry got too close—he vanished. Either someone made him disappear, or he went underground to protect himself.”

Or he became the director of a secret government agency...

And he's hell-bent on stopping her.

I glanced back at the board, scanning the red string that tied Brentwood’s photo to senators, judges, defense contractors, and corporate executives. The web stretched wide, but it all led back to the same central point: the drug operation.

“You’ve pieced all this together on your own?”

She shrugged like it was nothing. “It’s what I do. The truth doesn’t just land in your lap—you have to hunt it down. Brentwood might be the key to blowing this whole thing open. I have to figure out where he went before someone realizes I’m on his trail.”

Dammit, my little recluse, he already knows.

I cupped her face in my hands, a dark, heady feeling settling deep in my belly. "If this is as you say..." My eyes bounced between hers, studying each brown fleck in her vibrant irises. "And he's the man behind it all. You're in more danger than you know."

Her delicate hands wrapped around my wrists and slid to my forearms, her eyes softening as she tilted her lips toward mine. "You sound as if you know the man."

Ava brought her lips to mine, and every protective instinct I had crashed in around us.

I wrapped my arms around her waist and lifted, her legs snaking around my hips and holding on like a vise. Our short trek to the bed ended with her shirt tossed to the floor and my belt hanging loose before I tossed her onto the mattress, her tits bouncing in her obstructing bra.

A smile stretched across her mouth, her top teeth digging into her pillowy lip.

"Is it strange that I want to ravish you like a wild animal, even though every ounce of my being wants to keep you safe?" I removed my pants and knelt on the bed, my arms pinning her down as she shook her head. "Good, because I plan on doing the former first."

My hands worked over her bra clasp, revealing her hard nipples, and I tossed it over my shoulder.

"God, you're so beautiful."

I bent down and took a nipple into my mouth, sucking hard as her hand wrapped around my erection between us, her palm slipping over the head. Jerking, I slid her nipple out of my mouth, my teeth grazing the sensitive flesh, then moved to the next.

My body shuddered above her as I rocked my cock in her hands. "If you keep doing that, this isn't going to last long."

She laughed, and I slid my tongue between her breasts, her back arching up to meet me. I unbuttoned her jeans and slid my fingers between her soaked folds.

"You're always so wet for me."

"You make it easy."

My fingers pressed against her clit, rubbing in tight circles, her jeans hindering my exploration.

"Yes." Her eyes rolled back, and her hips bucked against me. Her hands abandoned my throbbing cock, seizing the comforter as a lifeline.

I was her lifeline.

The only one that would help her survive this.

Desperation fed me as I jerked my hand away from her greedy body and rid her of the rest of her clothes, her feet in the air, giving me a full view of her pussy.

"Perfect." I grabbed the back of her thighs, pushed her knees to her chest, and plunged in tongue first, sucking her clit.

"Oh, God." Her fingers ran through my hair and pulled me closer as she rocked her hips into my mouth. "More. Nate, I need more."

She's going to be the end of me.

Flicking my tongue against her, I pressed two fingers into her trembling body, her back arching as she let loose a slow, sensual groan that had my cock threatening to spill all over the mattress I ground against.

"Come for me, Ava." I grinned and blew a delicate, cool breeze across her soaked flesh.

Chills ravaged her shaking thighs. Her fingers clenched tighter in my hair, and a soft whimper filled the surrounding air.

Her back rounded as my fingers pushed in deeper, my tongue teasing.

"Oh, God. Yes." Ava's thighs tightened around my skull as she spasmed, her tight pussy quivering around my fingers.

A rush of warm liquid flowed over my tongue and chin, soaking my plunging fingers.

When her thighs loosened, I withdrew my fingers and sucked them clean, her eyes widening as her breaths moved her chest, her cheeks warming. "You are an absolute delicacy."

"Whatev— AHHH—"

I gripped her hips and flipped her onto her belly, my heavy cock pressing against her center. "Never question that."

Plunging deep, I pulled her hips up to meet my hard thrusts. Her moans filled the room. "Harder." She hissed through her teeth as I met her demands, a wicked smile pinned on my face.

Seizing her wrists, I fastened them to her lower back, her cheek forced into the comforter. "Are you ready? I can feel you gripping me tight."

God, so tight.

My pulse roared in my ears as I tilted my head back, absorbing the sensation of her body and mine, united in a forbidden dance.

We shouldn't be doing this.

I shouldn't be this close to her.

But—

"Yes," she moaned, her teeth clenched, hips bucking against me. "Right there."

I thrust hard and fast—her moans becoming frantic as she took every inch of me, my thoughts disintegrating.

My movements faltered. A heaviness tugged on my balls, and I spilled into her with a heavy grunt. Her cries harmonized with mine as she let go, her breaths causing the loose hairs on her forehead to rise and fall.

"Jesus, I'll never get used to this." I released her wrists and ran my hand up her spine, my cum spilling from between her legs.

Dammit.

I froze, and she tucked her shoulder beneath her, allowing her to look at me. "What is it?"

"I didn't use a condom."

Her hand dipped between her legs, pulling away the sticky cum, her brow raised. "I'm on the pill." Ava inserted her wet fingers into her mouth and sucked off my cum. "Remember?"

My cock twitched like Frankenstein coming to life.

"That was the sexiest thing I've ever witnessed."

She pulled her fingers out of her mouth one by one, leaving the middle one in as she glanced up at me and smiled. "You liked that?"

I gave her a nod as she turned toward me on her knees, grabbed my growing cock, and sucked it deep into her mouth, her tongue lapping at my tightening balls.