Ball & Chain (Cut & Run 8)

Ty seemed offended that Zane would even imply that. He huffed in answer. “No. What’s bothering him, it’s our issue. Him and me.” He pulled his arm away and started up the steps. “And I don’t know how to fix it.”

When they reached the great hall, Kelly was trying to explain to Nick why they needed to go to the sunroom, but Nick had planted himself in the middle of the hall, arguing that he needed to get into Nikki Webb’s room and search her things.

“It might already be too late, but we need to see what she had up there. She might have answers.”

“We need to arm ourselves is what we need to do,” Ty countered. “Who cares who’s doing this or why if we’re all dead by morning?”

Nick glanced at him, then he and Kelly shared a look. Kelly nodded, but Nick’s jaw tightened.

“Gun room? Or our rooms?” Kelly asked.

“Both,” Ty said with a nod at Nick and Kelly. He tossed Kelly the key to their room. “Gather everything we’ve got from our rooms. You know where I stash my shit. We’ll head for the hunting stuff. Meet in the sunroom.”

Before they could separate, though, Stanton stalked out of the sunroom, two of his Snake Eater bodyguards trailing after him with lanterns.

“I hope you have a good reason for causing this sort of alarm, young man,” he said to Ty. His normally placid voice echoed off the walls of the great hall.

Ty took a few steps to meet them. “Sir, we’ll explain everything, but right now you and everyone else are safer together in the sunroom.”

“Then join me, won’t you? And explain now before there’s a panic.” Stanton waved a hand toward the sunroom doors, and Ty had little choice but to do as he was asked. The request wasn’t exactly unreasonable, after all.

Ty gestured for the others to come with him. Zane would rather have them there as backup if things got out of hand, so he was glad Ty was at least on the same page with him. The Snake Eaters took up their posts on either side of the doors, and they wouldn’t let Ty follow Stanton in until he submitted to a search.

“Are you f**king serious right now?” Ty asked.

English put a meaty hand on Ty’s chest and pushed him a step back. “You’re doing your jobs. We’re doing ours. Hands up.”

Ty did an impressive job of keeping a tight rein on his temper, doing as he was asked. English ran the wand over him, then let him in the room. The others each went through the same routine, with Nick’s hip setting the wand off again. Frost patted him down just as he’d done the first night, quietly joking about his shrapnel being inconvenient, then let Nick through. Nothing else pinged, though. Where and when had Nick stashed his gun?

“Gentlemen, you have the room,” Stanton announced once the glass doors were closed.

Ty glanced over the small crowd. He looked to Stanton again, narrowing his eyes at the man. “That’s good, Mr. Stanton,” he said, his tone changing to one that made Zane groan internally. He was about to do something ill-advised, Zane knew that much.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Zane saw Nick and Kelly share a glance and then subtly move farther apart, spreading out. They knew that tone of voice too.

“We’ve determined one of the victims is actually a culprit. One of the victims was trying to sell your company’s technology. And one of the victims was trying to buy it,” Ty announced, keeping his voice bland and almost amused. “Care to guess who is who?”

“Is this some sort of a joke?” Stanton asked.

“Ty, what the hell is going on?” Deuce asked from one of the sitting areas.

“Did Ernest Milton have access to the DOD tech you were developing?” Zane asked Stanton.

Stanton looked briefly shell-shocked before recovering his wits and nodding. “But only pieces of it. He was trying to sell it?”

“To someone on this island,” Ty provided.

“It’s kind of obvious it wasn’t the cook,” Kelly added drily.

Stanton rubbed at the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. “This makes no sense. Ernest would never sell that technology. He knew how sensitive it was, and he was a patriot.”

“Aren’t we all,” Nick murmured.

“He also didn’t have all the pieces. Without all three sets, it’s useless to any buyer. Is that what got Ernest killed?”

Zane glanced at Ty, earning a raised eyebrow in return. Three sets? That meant it was possible Milton had gone through with the sale of his information, hoping his buyer wouldn’t be wise to how many pieces there were.

“Who has the other pieces?” Nick asked.

“I control one,” Stanton answered. “It remains with me at all times. The other remains with the head of security. He is currently in Philadelphia.”

“Milton wasn’t just selling his piece of the technology,” Ty told Stanton. His eyes darted to Deuce and Livi. When he spoke again, it was through gritted teeth. “We found a confirmation on his laptop. He’d hired someone to kidnap Amelia from their home in two days’ time. Probably as leverage for your piece of the information.”

Deuce lurched to his feet, protesting wordlessly. Stanton put a hand to his mouth, turning to look at Deuce and Livi before meeting Ty’s eyes again. “That . . . I told Milton to do that.”

“You what?” Livi cried.

“It wasn’t a kidnapping,” Stanton said, raising his voice as more people protested. “It was a test of your security, to see if someone could get to her.”

“And you didn’t think to tell us this?” Deuce shouted.

“Once the wedding date was moved, the point was moot.”

Ty took a step back and turned to Zane, frowning as the Stantons and Gradys began to argue. The shouting and accusations bounced off the walls, wild gesticulations and posturing mirrored by candlelight in the darkened glass. The scene quickly devolved into chaos, but Ty and Zane ignored the feuding families.

“Something’s not adding up, right?” Zane asked. Ty nodded. “If Milton was running a check on Amelia’s protection, it’s possible he was doing the same thing the night he was killed.”

Ty nodded again, covering his mouth with his hand as he spoke. “He could have been baiting the buyers, trying to find out who they were. If they killed him, it means he recognized them, and they knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t be selling this shit.”

“So our bad dead guy is now a good dead guy?” Kelly whispered. He’d come up behind Zane, so quiet in the confusion Zane hadn’t realized he was there.