Full Domain (Nice Guys 3)

Deciding not to bother him, Kreed took the food and went out on the patio. He placed everything on the table and lit the tiki torches close by. The magnitude of grief still overwhelmed him, and it seemed one concern led into another today. The pain over the truth of his brother’s death, his fears that Aaron’s early morning confession would drive the man away from him rather than closer, and then his future with the marshal service—his uncertain future now that Mitch would no longer be his partner—all of it weighed heavy on his heart this evening.

After lighting the last torch, Kreed made his way back to the table and picked up his beer. He downed that one pretty quick before heading back inside for another. He grabbed two that time and the roll of paper towels before going back outside.

Kreed took his seat and stared down at the food, unseeing, lost in images of the slop he’d eaten in the underground caves in Afghanistan. Just like always, the visions of burned bodies and the charred remains of tiny villages overloaded his brain. He would never be able to un-see that shit.

The horror and atrocity he’d endured in order to feed information to his government and… He shook his head to clear the memories. And now he knew his brother had lived that life too, except his brother had been caught. God, the death he must have endured. His stomach roiled and both hands went to his forehead, holding his head as he closed his eyes. He should have been more open and honest with Derek, been there to protect him. He’d just been too fucked up in the head. He was still working on coming to terms with that shit himself.

Kreed had no idea how long he’d sat there, playing over the images that had haunted him for years, before Mitch’s shrill ringtone startled him, snapping him back to the present. The pain in the ass sound grated on his nerves. Mitch had obviously changed the ringtone at Colt’s place. Asshole did that shit all the time. Kreed had just never taken the time to change it back.

Kreed rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath. “What?” he growled on the third annoying cackle.

“What’s wrong?” Mitch asked, not even bothering with a greeting.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” he countered. Kreed wasn’t certain of the time difference but it was already late on the island, which made it even later on the mainland.

“You haven’t seen the news?” Mitch asked.

“Would you be watching the news if you were here?”

“Point. Everyone’s in a tizzy. Protector took over all the military and defense sites. Had to be something big to set them off. They’ve broken the usual patterns, so it seems more personal. But off the record, it’s funny as shit. The fire-breathing dragon, their calling card, made into a cartoon starring the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. It shows him bouncing all over the page, trying to protect his ass from the dragon’s flames. With the message, Deception Will Bite You in Your Ass.”

“Seriously?” Kreed asked. Mitch captured his complete attention with that description. He sat up and pushed his plate away, having never taken a single bite.

“Yeah. Protector wasn’t as clean this time. They must have been really pissed off and wanted to cause a lot of grief for those guys. They acted fast and weren’t as thorough covering their trail. Tracked it to some IP address in Nebraska.”

“Like they shut down all the military branches?”

“Yeah,” Mitch chuckled. “Every branch, the entire DOJ, everything is being rerouted to Protector’s main page. They locked that shit down. The FBI guys are chomping at the bit to apprehend whoever’s involved. Getting things back up and running’s not gonna be an easy fix. It’s been a couple of hours and their best guys are still locked out. Every time they get close, the dragon pops up on the monitor, cackles, and everything on screen goes up in flames.”

Kreed sat there quietly, listening and thinking, unease taking root in the back of his brain. His head was too fucked up. Something kept needling at him and he couldn’t shake it off.

“You there?” Mitch asked.

“Yeah. Nebraska, huh?”

“Per Masters. They’re not letting too much out about the whole Protector thing. Said they would know more when they meet with me again.”

“Why? Meet with you about what?”

“My future, which I don’t want to discuss right now. You might want to have Aaron call Masters and see if he can help. He knows all that computer shit. Guy’s brilliant. They could use him.” That comment alarmed Kreed for some reason, but he pushed down that little niggling thought.

The unease coiling in his gut, tightened, then unraveled all at once. Everything stilled inside him.

The Protector hack…

Nebraska…

The dragon tattoo on Aaron’s chest…

The earth shifted, knocking Kreed off balance in an almost violent reaction. The pounding of his frantic heart blasted in his ears. The air suddenly vanished as fear gripped his insides.

No!

His body lurched forward; his world tilted on its axis. Kreed dropped the phone as he shot to his feet, all his focus centered in stopping Aaron. Kreed took off running, his only focus was getting to Aaron before anyone could find him and hurt him. That realistic sobering thought drove him faster.

The possibility of losing Aaron had him sprinting across the deck and through the back door without regard to the rattling of the glass behind him. Kreed burst through the closed bedroom door, causing it to slam loudly against the drywall. Aaron jumped, startled at his unannounced entrance. The kid was working at the desk, Kreed could see the light reflecting off the monitors Aaron sat behind. Kreed slowed, his focus trained on Aaron as he cleared his mind and worked on getting a read on Aaron’s mood.

Dammit, no question about it, he was right about Aaron. Kreed could feel the anxiety growing in the air around him as he stalked forward.

“What’s happened?” Aaron asked. He sat back in his chair, his bare feet crossed at the desk and the keyboard in his lap. Going against every emotion in his body, Kreed forced himself to calm. He removed the earphones from Aaron’s ears, then took the keyboard from his lap. Instead of smashing them all with his bare hands, like he wanted to do, he tossed them on the desk. He scanned the two screens, searching for something, anything to prove Aaron wasn’t the one responsible for the hack. Hope began to fade the more he digested what he saw.