35 Austin

Austin

The next two days were spent watching the fucking house. We’d rented another car and were taking turns rotating who was on.

Sitting around was getting to me. Staying in a hotel room when I wasn’t on was getting to me.

Ford had called me over and over again, and it was killing me not to answer his calls. At some point, I just turned off my phone. Which, I realized wasn’t any better. I’d tell him everything soon enough. Hell, Reed probably already filled Ford in on what I was doing, and I couldn’t hate him for that. And the only thing saving me from Ford trying to stop me was the fact that it wasn’t safe for him to be seen.

“How’s Violet?” I asked, feeling shitty that this was the first time I’d thought to check on him.

“Stable,” Keller replied. His jaw ticked, but that was the only sign he gave away at how much it was killing him. “Probably going to be a long recovery. Not sure he’ll ever be able to go in the field again.”

“Shit,” I said, shocked. “Really?”

Keller’s head nodded slowly.

“Lipton tortured him… or had him tortured. I don’t know the details yet, but it was really bad.” He paused and sucked in a deep breath. “I want Lipton to pay.”

I did too. For so many reasons. For all the people’s lives that he ruined. For the ones he ended.

My heart raced as my eyes locked on the shady older man walking across the street in the direction of the house.

“That’s him, isn’t it?” I asked, a deadly edge to my tone.

“Yeah,” answered Keller with the same edge in his tone.

“Fuck it,” I said as I popped open the door. “I’m taking this fucker down. You better get directions to the closest FBI office. We’re about to drag his ass in.”

I hopped out of the car before he could stop me.

Lipton locked eyes with me as I crossed the street. I didn’t think he knew me, but I was sure the fire in my eyes and the rage vibrating my body gave him a clue that I was coming for his ass.

His head whipped around. I bet he was calculating his best move. Trying to speculate if he had enough time to make it to the front door of his house. Or did he think it would be better to turn around and head away from me?

“Run, I dare you,” I muttered under my breath.

Yeah, I was feeling cocky. I was going to take him down. A two-lane street separated us. Then only feet. That was when instinct kicked in and he attempted to dash up the sidewalk in the direction of his house.

He didn’t make it to the first step before I snatched him up by the back of the shirt and slammed him down on the ground. He let out a grunt once his back collided with the sidewalk, his arms frantically cutting through the air as he attempted to slap at me.

The man fucking slappedat me. Like this was some playground fight.

“Are you fuckin’ kidding me, right now?” I shook my head at him.

I grabbed the front of his button-up shirt and hauled him to his feet with one arm.

He wasn’t anything.

This big bad that we’d been trying to find for almost a year now was nothing more than a pathetic old man.

Here was the moment I said something grand.

Oh, and there was plenty I could think of to say.

Like vocalize how he’d fucked with the wrong person. Because Ford was mine, and I’d do anything for him. I could threaten to kill him in the most painful way possible, but then I’d tell him I couldn’t because we needed him for a confession, and after that, I’d make sure he knew that I only needed him alive to give that confession. Leave it up to his imagination all the ways I could torture him and still keep him breathing. This would be a good time to tell him that I was going to make him suffer for every kid The Sons of the Holy Fire had harmed. For every dead body I’d come across that he had a connection to. For leading such a sick group of people and helping them stay under the radar by exploiting his position.

I could have left him with a promise that I would find him after the truth had been set free. That I’d end him no matter where he ended up.

But what I did was… nothing.

It was Ford’s voice in my head, telling me that Lipton wasn’t worth it. Lipton didn’t deserve my emotions, not even the angry and violent ones.

“This is the end,” I simply said as I released him so Keller could slap a pair of sturdy plastic cuffs on him.

“That’s what you think,” he said, but he looked scared.

“We’ve got your master list. We’ve got your files. We’ve got Violet.” At that, his eyes went wide with surprise. Lipton knew that if we had Violet, then we had everything in the room we used to get to him. I held back a smirk that was so ready to be set free. “We’ve got you. And there is no way out of this. Even if you think you have connections, you’ll have plenty of people turning on you soon enough that it won’t matter.”

I stared at him. His angry eyes said he knew this was the end for him. Even if those files and all the evidence we had somehow ended up going missing at some point, we had names, and once we started pulling those people in, they’d flip on him so fast there wouldn’t be anything anyone could do to save him.

“I got you,” I said, and now the smug smirk came out. I just couldn’t help myself.

I thought Ford would be proud of me.

All of a sudden, the street was flooded with SUVs and nondescript cars. Lights flashed and doors opened. We were surrounded by FBI agents, some in full gear and a few in suits. For once, I wasn’t ready to slink into the shadows to get away from the agents.

Keller didn’t look in the least bit surprised to see them there.

A tall man in a navy suit walked up with two agents in full gear following behind. The rest of the agents seemed to hold back, guns trained in my direction. I wasn’t sure if they were aiming for me or for the asshole I’d just caught.

The man stopped in front of us and his hazel eyes stared intently into mine before sliding over to Keller.

“Son,” he said.

“Yep,” Keller said back, face stoic as ever. “Thanks for…” It was like it pained him to say even that much to the man.

“I wasn’t sure what side you’d take in all of this. I know how loyal you can be. But after you sent me those files…” He cleared his throat. To his credit, he looked like he was trying really hard to make a connection with Keller— with his son. “I’m sorry this happened.”

Keller gave a jerky nod. With a sigh, the man turned his attention back to me.

“Special Agent in Charge Silva,” he said, holding a sturdy hand out in my direction. Interesting he didn’t have the same last name as his son. There was a story there, but I knew better than most, it wasn’t any of my business. “And you are?”

“Austin,” I supplied, shaking his hand quickly.

No, I still didn’t trust or want to be around anyone with the title ‘agent’ before their name, especially one with ‘special’ and ‘in charge’ surrounding it.

“Austin…”

“Just Austin.” I gave him a cheeky smile. I would have sworn I saw him laughing behind his eyes.

“We’ve got it from here.” As he said this, the agents behind him moved around to take Lipton away.

My mouth opened to object, but Keller caught my eye and shook his head. I might not have known him super well, but I trusted him because Ford did. So I held back.

“I’m going to need you to come with us, as well.” Agent Silva said. “You’ll need to give a statement. Oh, and the others that are with you, I’m going to need them to come in too.”

He turned around and walked off, leaving someone else to deal with us.

“Your dad?” I asked Keller, mostly because I needed to hear him say his dad was good and shit wasn’t about to get more fucked.

“Yeah.” He licked his lip. “I knew I could trust him, so I called him. He’s had his team waiting a few blocks over sincethe day we talked to Mrs. Lipton.” He sighed before adding, “The family shit… it’s a long story, but I trust him.”

“I hear ya,” I said as I clapped him on the shoulder and left it at that.

Having worked with him over the years and hanging in tight quarters the last few days, I’d seen a few different sides to him. In the field, he was focused and driven. Once the dust settled, he could be pretty easygoing. But I had a feeling I wouldn’t be seeing that side of him today.

“So… that’s it?” I asked, scratching the back of my neck.

“Just about. They’ll probably question us until tomorrow. It’s not going to be fun. Then they’ll want to talk to Ford, more than likely in an official setting. Be prepared for that.”

I grunted unhappily. I knew it was coming, but that didn’t mean I liked it.

I just wanted to be back home… back in Atlanta. I wanted this to be over. I wanted to be in bed with my boyfriend, sweaty after sex while we ate cold leftover takeout.

Wait, were we there yet? Was the B-word okay to use?

Or did that require some big conversation where you both agreed to it?

Well, fuck. Suddenly, nothing was more important than getting back to Atlanta and having this big talk with Ford.

After what had to be half of a day, Agent Silva— sorry, Special Agent in Charge Silva— finally walked into the small interrogation room they had me in.

His smile was sharp. His presence took up the entire room. The more I looked at him, the more I could see bits of Keller in there. The nose, for one.

I was so pissed, I was having a hard time keeping my cool.

He took a seat, placing a tablet and a bunch of file folders down on the corner of the table. The files looked old and well gone through.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

“I don’t care about you or your little four-man vigilante group that somehow roped an agent into helping you.” His face gave nothing away, but the air shifted around me. It became hard to breathe. “But I can care. I can make it my top priority to charge you with stalking and harassment, for starters. Add on interfering with a federal case. Your friend in the other room could be charged with hacking into a federal agent’s security system. Not to mention all the charges I can bring down on Ford Priestley.”

“You know he’s innocent,” I said, glaring at him.

“I do, but it doesn’t mean I can’t use what he did do to keep him tangled up in the system for a while.” He studied me sharply. “I’m not sure of your connection to him or my son, but I have a feeling it goes beyond some lame internet sleuths meeting in a chat room trying to prove how law enforcement can’t do their jobs.”

Internally, I breathed a sigh of relief. I was certain he didn’t seem to know our connection to Reed or the rest of the team, otherwise, he would have used that against me too.

I slouched back and stared at him blankly. “What’s your price?”

“I think you know my price,” he said as he pulled the stack of folders in front of him. “You walk out of here free and clear. Your friends walk out of here free and clear.”

“And Ford Priestley?” I gave him a dead stare. My question gave away enough, I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of seeing how much Ford meant to me written on my face.

“Free and clear… after some interrogation. It’s the FBI, after all. I have to have a record of the details.”

Imagining Ford having to sit in a room like this for hours, stressing about what was going to happen, made me want to snap. I had to remind myself that I couldn’t choke a Federal Agent.

“He’s in the Atlanta office right now.” He eyed me in a way that made me almost flinch. “Ford Priestley turned himself in, and he’s waiting for me to get down there to have that interrogation. The longer—”

“All of us are clear and you wipe our names from this investigation. Me, Ford, my three buddies, and Keller.”

“Done,” he said without hesitation.

“What exactly do you want me to do?”

His eyes held mine as he slid the stack of folders across the table.

My hand was shaking as I reached for the one on top, holding my breath as I flipped it open.