Cut & Run (Cut & Run #1)(3)
Author: Abigail Roux

Zane couldn’t have been more appalled, and it showed clearly in his reaction. This wreck of an agent was his new partner? “Director Burns,” he started impulsively, but he caught his tongue and tightened his grip on the chair. What kind of reward was this?

“The hell he is!” Ty interrupted as he sat up straight. “I can’t do my job with a … a … poster-boy partner,” he practically stuttered angrily as he flopped his hand toward the squeaky-clean man next to him.

“And you can’t do it without a partner, either, Special Agent Grady,”

Burns responded with a hard glare.

“Sir, it seems obvious,” Zane said, not bothering to keep any edge of disapproval out of his voice, “that this agent needs more than I can possibly provide to help him. Frankly, it will take a miracle to make him even remotely professional. No one will take him seriously.”

“Take me seriously?” Ty echoed in disbelief. “Christ, have those shoes ever even seen pavement? Shit,” he exclaimed in a sudden panic as he gripped the arms of his chair and leaned forward. “Are you sending me to Cyber?” he asked Burns, who was sitting behind the desk and grinning like a small child at Christmas.

“Your tone of voice implies that investigating technological crime and terrorism might be below you,” Zane said to him coldly as he leveled an even gaze on the other agent. “Perhaps you should consider requesting a transfer to professional staff. Or submitting your resignation altogether.”

“Hey, f**k you, candy ass,” Ty snarled without looking over at him.

“Quiet, both of you!” Burns barked suddenly. “Grady, you’re staying in Criminal until you get your ass killed or do something so illegal even I can’t cover for you, understand? Garrett, you’re to make certain he doesn’t do either of those things. Is that clear? And you will both like it.”

Ty’s eyes widened as he realized he was being assigned a bookkeeping babysitter, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.

His stomach turned at the thought, but he supposed it was better than being fired. Or being in jail.

The thought of being attached to this troublemaking loose cannon was nearly enough to make Zane lose his composure. After all he’d done, all he’d worked for, this was all he was going to get. Despair threatened for a moment, and he had to take a deep breath to push it aside. He wanted to rail at Burns, but it wasn’t his place to object. He’d make the best of this clusterfuck, and then leave this agent behind, just as he had the Cyber Division. That or go down in spectacular flames.

“Yes, sir,” he acknowledged through clenched teeth.

“I expect you to learn from each other,” Burns instructed, his heart going out to Zane Garrett. It was a shitty thing to do to him, sticking him with a man like Ty Grady after he’d worked his way back up from hell to be Cyber’s top performing agent. But for this particular case, these two men were unusually qualified. “And the Bureau expects you to perform efficiently on your next assignment,” he added as he tossed a file across the desk at Ty.

“Respectfully, sir, I understand you need someone riding herd on this

… agent,” Zane gritted out. “But what am I supposed to learn from him?” he asked, slanting a disbelieving look Grady’s way.

Burns gave Ty a dubious glance and then shrugged apologetically in answer to Zane’s query. He was well-acquainted with Garrett’s past, but the man was resourceful. He’d had to be. He’d find a way to make this work.

“You can learn to kiss my ass,” Ty shot back as he fumbled with the file his boss had chucked at him. “Just like you do everyone else’s,” he muttered.

Zane’s temper lightened in the face of Grady’s ridiculous assertions, leaving behind more than a trace of resentment. He would have rolled his eyes if he weren’t aware of how it might be construed. The man’s language was complete and purposeful insubordination. It looked like his new partner was a real prize, one that had somehow gained the favor of the Assistant Director of his new division—just as he himself was the focus of Burns’ ire.

“Sir, if I may ask, who is this delightful new person I’ll be calling my partner?” he asked, the sarcasm thinly veiled.

“Special Agent B. Tyler Grady,” Burns answered as Ty scanned the file he had flipped open, ignoring them both as he looked through it. “Despite his appearance, he is unfortunately very good at his job.”

“You’re putting us on the Tri-State case?” Ty asked suddenly, utter disbelief coloring his words as he looked up at Burns.

Zane stiffened and inhaled sharply. He knew all about the Tri-State case. Hell, everyone in the Bureau knew all about the Tri-State case, even though they had only been working it for a few weeks. A really messy, really conniving, really frightening serial killer kept popping up and going to ground every few weeks—for almost two months now—in New York City. Two bodies were found just across state lines, near the Tri-State marker, and most involved seemed to think the killer deliberately left them there to involve the FBI. Most recently, just days ago, the man took out two of their own agents, so the Bureau was now more personally invested.

Zane’s eyes shifted back to Grady. Very good at his job, Burns had said. Zane decided it must have been undercover work. Drugs or organized crime, maybe import/export. Somewhere that rough-and-tumble image would fit in. His mind started to buzz, calculating how their skill sets might complement each other. Or not.

“That’s right,” Burns answered with a tap of his pen on his desk.

“And you will report to the New York field office—appropriately attired, Grady—at eleven-hundred Monday. Is that clear?”

Recognizing the dismissal and standing, Zane nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said curtly. Zane’s most recent tour may have been spent in a high-tech computer lab, but that wasn’t all he could do. He was a damn good agent, and he knew it. But he couldn’t help thinking of Tyler Grady as a snake that might strike at a critical moment and poison his fragile job security. He could already tell this wasn’t going to be easy. Actually, he could already tell it was going to be beyond hard as hell. But while there was the chance that one whiff of the bat could collapse his carefully reconstructed career like a house of cards, he also had a prime opportunity here. If he could make this work it would send him a long way. And he wouldn’t let any scruffy agent who fancied himself a badass get in his way.