Cut & Run (Cut & Run #1)(44)
Author: Abigail Roux

Zane rubbed his wrist and flexed his hand, wincing. His body was still taut with anger and tension. But what was really, truly pissing him off was that he had an incredible hard-on. He hadn’t noticed until he’d pushed Ty against the bricks and held him there, using his entire body. What the hell was wrong with him, to be turned on by a vicious fight with a man who could easily kill him?

“Stay off my back about the drugs,” he warned in a rasp, shaking off his other thoughts. “You’ll kick my ass up and down this alley in the end, but I won’t give up without a hell of a fight.”

“It was a legitimate f**king question,” Ty spat out.

“I’d already given you the f**king answer,” Zane snapped. “I don’t lie about it.”

“I don’t care if you lie, cheat, steal, and f**k everything that moves!”

Ty shouted angrily. “You stay out of the bars while we’re working this f**king case! And stay out of my past!” he shouted in a pained voice.

“What’s your f**king problem, Grady? You’re jackassing around in my past. You know damn well Burns wouldn’t have put me back on the streets if I wasn’t clean,” Zane grated. “No wonder your partner was reassigned, if you were this f**king suspicious!”

“He wasn’t reassigned,” Ty ground out as he tried to calm himself.

The pain of the memories was taking over the anger, now, and he was deflating fast.

Zane flinched back, stared at Ty for a long moment, then closed his eyes as the heat drained out of him, leaving him cold. Fuck all. He should have known Serena Scott wouldn’t consider the death of a partner sacred ground. It was just like her to poke that kind of wound. Zane would never have intentionally sunk that low. He turned sideways restlessly and ran a hand over his close-cropped hair before leaning back against the wall.

Ty took a few steps and bent to gingerly pick up his leather jacket and brush it off. “You bury a friend,” he said to Zane as he did so, his voice hoarse and strained, “and then tell his wife and baby girl you got him killed.

See how well you work with others after that,” he challenged softly before folding the jacket over his arm and turning to head for the opening of the alleyway.

“Ty.” Zane’s voice was low, no longer throbbing with anger.

Ty slowed and finally stopped, his head lowered and his shoulders tense as he waited.

Any arousal had drained away with Ty’s clipped explanation, and now Zane just felt hollow and ill. He knew how much it hurt to lose someone and think it was your fault.

“I apologize,” he said quietly. “I didn’t know.”

Ty turned his head slightly as if listening over his shoulder, then he returned his eyes forward, raising his chin and squaring his shoulders, not responding. Zane drew a slow breath and started walking, each step jarring something physically or emotionally painful, passing Ty after several steps.

Ty watched him, head down and eyes hard. Finally he closed his eyes, trying to regain his calm. “You still plan to go back to the office?” he asked flatly.

Zane glanced at his watch and winced. “It’s too late tonight. It’ll have to wait until morning,” he answered, not turning back to look at him.

Ty began walking again, gesturing to the alley’s entrance. “After you,” he muttered.

“Better we get some more rest and start early tomorrow,” Zane told him as he moved toward the corner of the building. He wasn’t sure what else to say.

“Sure,” Ty agreed moodily while they finished the length of the city block. “Maybe something’ll hit us in the night,” he said pointedly as they rounded the corner of the hotel’s building.

“Not literally, I hope,” Zane said under his breath, wiping away the blood from his nose and lip as they approached the front doors. They got several astonished glances from people inside the lobby. Both men were dirty and bleeding. Ty’s back was wet and covered with tiny bits of gravel, and his guns were clearly visible as he held his jacket in his hand. Zane watched him flash his identification to a hotel employee who was hurriedly picking up a phone as they stalked through the lobby, and the woman slowly set down the receiver after seeing his badge. People whispered and watched as he passed, and Zane couldn’t help but admire the way Ty could turn on that dreaded “Air of Authority” when he needed it. Zane, absolutely wrung out, kept his head down and followed quietly.

On the way upstairs, he wondered if Ty would go back to his own room. They weren’t exactly getting along famously. In fact, they had basically just tried to kill each other, and Zane had no illusions as to who would have come out on top. He squeezed his eyes shut as they rode in the elevator, trying not to think at all.

But Ty didn’t even seem to hesitate as he led Zane to his room. Odd.

Maybe Ty just wanted him in the room to throttle him quietly. Or he wanted to get his things and then go back to his own room. Still, Zane’s shoulders relaxed a little, and he let the death grip on his thoughts and actions ease just a bit as he opened up the room’s door. Ty’d had the chance to shoot him. More than once. He hadn’t, but Zane still didn’t trust the crazy bastard.

“I think, tomorrow, we need to start with a fresh canvass,” Ty was saying as he trudged to his bed and held his jacket up to examine it critically before tossing it down in disgust. He began unstrapping all his weaponry as he spoke, looking down at the bed and trying desperately to sink back into the case instead of the pain of old memories and new bruises. “So far, he’s made only one mistake, and that was going after Sanchez and his partner. Why would he kill them if they had so little on him? Why would he tip his ace and let us know he was aware of the Bureau’s movements?”

Zane watched Ty as he talked. Apparently he planned on staying.

Shaking his head, Zane wondered what the hell the whole point of the damn fight had been, and how the hell Grady was already getting his brain in gear.

The short fight had certainly shown him that Ty was more than a handful and more than capable of taking care of himself. It had also shown him that he himself could still scrap after some years of soft work.

Ty was anything but soft.

Sighing, Zane wiped one hand over his face, dropping a slightly bloody hand; he obviously had something other than work on his brain, and he consciously pushed it away. It was not the time to be unfocused.

He shook himself and let his jacket slide off his shoulders. His back screamed all the way down, and Zane hissed as the weight caught on his sore wrist. “If I were undercover, I’d kill them if they found out who I was.