Page 60 of Breaking the Rules
“There better be fire and blood,” Micah groaned into the phone.
“More like four armed assailants in the alley, one car crash, and an escaped asset.”
“I take it this ties in to my text?” Micah yawned.
“I’m guessing it does. You go first.”
He heard Micah murmur something. “Sorry, Suz wanted to know if anyone was dead.”
“Pretty sure the guys crawled out of the alley under their own power,” Xavier told him.
He heard Micah stumble through the dark and then a thud and a string of curses. “Jesus, man. Thank God you’re not back on night raids,” Xavier muttered.
“I’m a fucking ninja when I need to be,” Micah snorted. “Just not when someone leaves Barbie’s Corvette in the middle of the dark hallway.”
Xavier smiled in spite of himself. “Can you hurry up and finish traversing the dangers of family life so you can fill me in on Tomasso?”
“Yeah, yeah,” his friend yawned. “Okay, so I had a chat with our old pal Travers.”
Agent Malachi Travers was the perpetually irritated FBI agent that had worked the Ganim case and more recently turned up squat for Xavier on Waverly’s purported car wreck and the Stepanov home invasion.
“I dropped a few names—Brad Tomasso, Target Productions, Dante Wrede, Stepanov,” Micah continued. “Three of them rang bells. Are you sitting down?” Now that he was awake Micah was having fun dangling the carrot.
“Tomasso turned Target into a contractor for the intelligence community.”
“You’re an asshole in the middle of the night, you know that, Saint?” Micah complained.
“Just trying to speed things along. What did Travers have to say about the Stepanovs?”
“Zip. He’s not aware of any investigations into any of them. In fact, he made a few unofficial inquiries to pals in other agencies. No one’s looking at them, or at least no one’s willing to admit they’re looking at him.”
Xavier’s brain started firing on a theory. “What about Wrede?”
“No one’s aware that he’s missing. Travers did know about Wrede’s moonlighting though. Said he’s been helpful to the Bureau in a couple of sticky cases. They like siccing him on ladies with information. If you know what I mean.”
“I don’t need you to draw me a picture,” Xavier told him. “So Wrede went missing on an investigation that no one wants to own, and Target covers his disappearance by leaking an open-ended vacation.”
“Essentially, yes.”
“Well, I’ve got one more piece of intel for you. Waverly works for Target, too.”
Micah’s silence stretched on for five full seconds before he said anything. “You’re shitting me.”
“Nope. She told me tonight after she kicked the shit out of three of the four armed assholes outside of a club.”
“You’re shitting me,” Micah said again.
“Still not shitting you.” Xavier filled him in on Petra and the excitement at the club.
When he was done, Micah blew out a breath. “So what are we doing?”
“We’re going to help her find Wrede,” Xavier said.
“You realize that you’re delivering your dream girl’s boyfriend back to her?”
“It’s what she wants,” Xavier said lamely.
“Who are we bringing in on this?” Micah asked.
