Chapter 28
Happy endings didn’t exist for guys like Nate.
He should never have planned a life after his stint with the Conglomerate.
It had been doomed from the start. He was always supposed to end up in a hole.
He initially thought it was going to be an unmarked grave.
Now, he’d be stuffed in a cell somewhere, never seeing the light of day.
He was in a windowless interrogation room that only promised misery.
He just hoped Alex was faring better. Nate hated himself for putting her through this.
He was sitting on a hard chair, his hands cuffed behind his back.
The chair was bolted to the floor. A large mirror took up one entire wall, while he could see cameras in the upper corners of the room.
They were carefully watching him, even though no one had come to see him yet.
He had been there for hours. Reality blended together when you had no concept of time.
Nate had perfected disassociation to keep himself sane.
No one had given him food or water. There were no bathroom breaks either.
They were letting him stew, and he had certainly been stewing.
Finally, the door opened, and Jack Hunter strolled in. He leaned casually on the wall in front of Nate, and Nate wondered if he was going to fulfill the “good cop” role.
“I’m not going to apologize for punching you,” Hunter stated. “If I could have beaten you unconscious, I would have, but my boss says that’s ‘unprofessional.’” He used air quotes and rolled his eyes. “Whatever. You fucking deserved it for what you did to Alex.”
I did, Nate thought bitterly.
Hunter crossed his arms and waited for a reply, which he did not get.
“You’re not going to talk, eh? You know, I didn’t say that I couldn’t hurt you after we brought you in.”
Nate shook his head and said, “Well, get to it then. I spent months being tortured by the Conglomerate. I doubt you could dish out anything worse.”
Hunter’s eyebrow raised.
“You’re freely giving up that information?”
Nate shrugged.
“I never said I wouldn’t talk. I’m just not going to discuss Alex. She’s off the table.”
Hunter bristled and said, “I decide what’s on the table. But…let’s say I’d like to talk about the past year and how you got to the Sims Center.”
“I went on the run. The Conglomerate caught up with me. Torture. Escape. You know the rest.”
“How did you keep your suit out of Conglomerate hands?”
“I hid it.”
“How? The Conglomerate is a determined group.”
“I hid it really well.”
Hunter waved off the comment and rolled his eyes.
“When you were caught, what was the torture like? Were you one of the people in that room with the barely alive man?”
“No. I had a special room to myself where they injected different cocktails of drugs in me to see how I’d react—or if I’d even survive. Why do you think I went after those bastards so hard?”
It was a half-truth. Nate had wanted to take down the Conglomerate before his capture, though he hadn’t had the resources. When Stratton had told him he could have a normal life if he killed Victor, that made his resolve even stronger.
Hunter’s eyes widened.
“Well…shit.”
Hunter looked at the mirror and tilted his head toward the door. Nate watched as he walked out and was again shut in the room by himself.
? ? ?
“Something’s not right,” Logan Slade stated as he watched his brother from behind the two-way mirror.
“Yeah,” Jack said, strolling in. “He’s a manipulative bastard. I had to step out so I wouldn’t fall into his woe’s me trap.”
“I think he’s telling the truth about the torture,” Logan said. “You can see it in his eyes when he mentioned it, like he was reliving it.”
“Let’s assume he was tortured, and he did go after the Conglomerate because of it. Why bring Alex into it? She gave him the super suit information, but he could have left her alone after. Yet, he stayed. I think he wanted to continue to get Gray Tower intel from her and played the lover angle.”
Logan grimaced. That was a bastard thing to do, if true. However, it didn’t seem like Nathan. The guy didn’t always make the best choices, but he never would purposely hurt someone like that.”
“Nathan’s not like that,” Logan insisted.
“He was the one who told us!”
“There’s something else going on.”
“Yeah, but what?”
Jack rubbed his temples and shook his head.
“I don’t—” Logan was cut off by the shrieking of alarms.
“Oh, what the hell?” Jack said, stiffening and on high alert.
But before he or Logan could say or do anything else, a woman’s voice came over the intercom and yelled, “Let Nathan go!”
Logan and Jack looked at each other and, in unison, said, “Fuck.”
? ? ?
The elevator to Sublevel 3 of Gray Tower Headquarters opened, and John Stratton waltzed into Gray Tower Headquarters.
He didn’t have a disguise on, though Isaac had programmed security not to flag him.
He was given full access to the facility, including the floor with the top-secret areas, as well as Miles Bryant’s office.
John needed to talk to Bryant in private before something drastic happened.
No one bothered him. He had been slightly worried he’d run into Logan or any other man who could identify him. Luckily, he only saw a few random employees.
When he arrived at Bryant’s office, he was relieved that no assistant was there. Ms. Thorn wouldn’t be there, and they hadn’t supplied a temp. Isaac said that Bryant would be in his office. Hopefully, he was still there.
John didn’t bother knocking. He opened the door, hoping that Bryant was alone, and was relieved to see him at his desk, focused on his laptop while writing on a notepad next to him.
“I don’t have time,” Bryant said, but John shut the door. Bryant’s head snapped up, and his eyes widened. “What the hell? How did you—?”
John watched as Bryant reached for a security alarm.
He chuckled and told Bryant, “Don’t bother. My associate disabled that before I came in. Besides, I mean you no harm. This was the quickest way to get a private meeting.”
Bryant stood in an attempt to look in control, but John waved him off.
“Sit. Please. I will as well.”
John sat in a leather chair across from Bryant’s desk and leaned back, trying to look disarming. Bryant’s eyes narrowed as he sat down as well.
“I am only entertaining this because you’ve been such a slippery bastard for so long, and your Keira’s father. I suppose you won’t try to kill your daughter’s boss.”
“No. Believe it or not, I’ve been trying to help you for the past two years.”
“Really?” he said sardonically as he crossed his arms. “Please, enlighten me.”
“I have been in the shadows, directing attacks against the Conglomerate. I am not the only concerned citizen who wants them gone. We have done…quite a bit of damage.”
Bryant frowned.
“I haven’t heard anything about this.”
“Then we have done our jobs well.”
Bryant’s frown deepened as he asked, “Is there a man named Isaac who works with you? There was a person who hacked into our system a few months ago but ended up helping us instead of attacking us.”
A flicker of a smile crossed John’s lips as he said, “Yes, Isaac got personally involved in that mission. I think he has a crush on one of your employees, though he’ll never admit it.”
“So, let’s say I believe you when you say you’ve been helping us. Why have you suddenly appeared now?”
John grimaced and said, “I’ve made a mess with the last mission. It was supposed to be my last one before I retired to spend time with my daughter and her husband.”
Bryant’s eyebrow raised.
“Really? You, done?”
“Yes. Believe it or not, I never wanted this life. I wanted a family and a stable job. I thought I was getting that with Damien Amherst. I…did not.”
“You could have left at any time.”
“That was the problem. I couldn’t.”
“Why not? Everyone has a choice.”
“Yes, and my choice was to stay on and be a CIA plant for Amherst Global.”
Bryant’s eyes widened, and he said, “How did I not know about this?”
“Like the CIA tells anyone anything. I was recruited after Amherst Global started contacting the Conglomerate. I was young and dumb. And the longer I stayed, the more I realized how much we needed to take down the Conglomerate.”
“Oh.”
Bryant sat back and heaved out a breath.
“This was…not what I was expecting.” John shrugged. “Are you still in the CIA? Are these missions sanctioned?”
“Uh…no, but maybe?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I was one of those agents who were in the CIA but weren’t in the CIA if anyone asked. So…there was no need to boot me when Damien was killed. However, no one officially stopped my mission. I’ve been continuing it ever since.”
“And what is your mission?”
“Do as much damage to the Conglomerate as I possibly can without being caught.”
“I see.” They sat in silence while Bryant processed the information. “So, why are you here? It seems as if things were going well for you.”
“It was,” John agreed. “Until now, when Nathan Slade got himself caught by your people.”
Bryant’s back went rigid as he asked, “Nathan was working with you?”
“Yes. I was the one who sprung him from the Sims Center. I had been looking for him for quite some time. I had wanted to bring Keira’s new family together.
When I found out he was being tortured at a psych facility, I had to intervene.
However, just getting him out wasn’t enough.
His old mentor, Victor—the one directing the X-suit program—will never let Nathan go until the bastard is caught and executed.
Nathan would always be a target, and so would everyone else connected to him: Keira, Logan, you, anyone at Gray Tower.
I believe that was the reason he left the island. He was protecting the people he loved.”
“Oh, shit,” Bryant muttered under his breath.
John smiled at the normally stoic man’s use of curse words. The man was rattled.
“What was your plan to help him?” Bryant asked.