Page 26 of Pain
"Fuck." Xander's stomach turned as his temper flared.
"Why do we have the case?" Dyson asked.
It was rare a case like this fell in their lap from the court system. Almost always the courts would come down on a perp who hurt a baby with the maximum sentence.
Becca lifted Xander's legs and took a seat on the couch before settling his legs back over her lap. "Illegal collection of evidence. The investigators fucked up."
"Jesus, how do you fuck up on a case like this?" Bryon slapped the file closed. "How the fuck can they let a guy like this walk free?"
"They didn't have a choice. With the evidence thrown out, they didn't have a case."
Dyson stood. "Tell me I can do this tonight."
Bryon nodded. "Let me go find out what is going on. We don't even know where this guy is right now. Give me an hour to get some information. If I can get you in safe tonight, it's all yours, but I won't risk your safety. If we have to wait a couple of days to make sure we can get in and out without a problem, then you're going to have to chill for a few days."
"Fuck that." Xander sat up. "We aren't giving him a chance to skip town or even let the victim's family get hold of him. We need to move on this."
Becca touched Xander's shoulder. "The judge warned the family to stay away, but the child's father didn't look like he had plans to listen." She looked across the room at Bryon. "The sooner we move on this one the better."
"Let me see what we can do." Bryon walked down the hallway.
"You okay?" Xander turned to Becca.
"Yeah, this was a bad one. There was so much evidence. I can't believe they fucked this up. All of the evidence was thrown out other than the child's autopsy. No one wanted to let him go. I swear Judge Ferguson was ready to take matters into his own hands. They tried everything they could, even holding him on an old traffic violation while they tried to dig up more evidence." Becca looked exhausted. "He's going to run. I know he will. If we don't get him now, we'll lose him."
"Fuck this!" Xander stood.
"Xan, don't," Dyson warned.
"No, fuck this. It's worth the risk. I don't care if it's not safe. We've done plenty of stings that are dangerous. We're trained for this. This one deserves to be tortured, but I swear a bullet to the head would make me happy with this one." Xander stomped down the hall, not bothering to knock on the geek cave's door like he usually did. He just pushed it open and walked in. "I don't care how safe this is, let us go in." He came to stand behind Bryon, looking down at the computer. The image of a large home was up on the screen, and on the screen beside it was the layout of the house from the original building plans.
"Back down, Xan, you know emotions will only cause mistakes. We have to do this just like any other case."
"The same way you did—"
Bryon stood, getting right in Xander's face. "Watch it. Don't you dare fucking go there. It will be the last thing you do." He glared at Xander with an anger he seldom saw from Bryon.
Xander fisted his hands, trying to keep his cool. He'd never brought Bryon's past up before, never mentioned his sister, but something about knowing a one-year-old died at the hands of a sick fuck, and he had the ability to handle the situation, but was being told to wait, pushed him almost past the limit of keeping quiet.
"Xan…" Matt's hand gently touched his arm. "Let us work, okay? I know how bad this is, and we'll do all we can to deal with this as fast as we can, but fighting isn't going to help." His hand moved to Xander's chest. "Let's go have a smoke and calm down for a minute, okay?"
Xander took a deep breath as he tore his glare from Bryon and looked at Matt. After another deep breath, he nodded. "Okay." His gaze flashed back to Bryon. "We need to handle this."
"I agree." Bryon never blinked as they stared at each other. "And we will, but we will do it safely."
"Come on." Matt moved from next to Xander and started for the door. "I could use a drink anyway."
Xander forced himself to turn around, his temper still pushing him to fight, but Matt was right, fighting among each other wasn't going to get them anywhere. He ignored the feeling of the others watching him as he walked out of the room. He didn't stop in the living room, but walked right out the front door, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He'd just lit one when Matt walked out to join him.
"You okay?" Matt twisted the cap on a bottle of water open and took a drink.
Xander grunted, but didn't say anything.
"You know Bryon's right. You have to do it the way you would any other sting. You can't react, no matter how bad it is."
Xander shook his head. He wanted to ask Matt how he would react if it was Faith, but he didn't. Matt didn't deserve to be the one he attacked. Neither did Bryon for that matter, but fuck he wanted to get his hands on the sick fuck who hurt this child.
He took a long drag off his cigarette as he realized how easily Matt had defused the situation. No one told him what to do, and only Dyson could get through to him most of the time when he was mad. With one simple comment, he'd stepped back and let Matt talk him into going outside. He blew a trail of smoke out as he stared at Matt. "I'm guessing you're joining?"
