Nick was on his feet so fast Zane didn’t even have a chance to grab for him. He blocked Burns’s path, and the two men stood eyeing each other, trapped in the space between the chair and the coffee table.
“Son, you don’t want to make a mistake here,” Burns said almost kindly. “You need to get out of the way.”
“I don’t take orders from you. Sir. Sit down.”
Burns narrowed his eyes and jutted his chin out, but he must have seen just as plainly as Zane could that Nick wasn’t going to let him leave this room. He gave a curt nod and returned to the chair by the fireplace.
Nick remained standing, his arms crossed over his chest like a bouncer at a club.
Zane gave him a wary once-over before turning his attention back to Burns. “Was he one of your men?”
Burns cleared his throat and nodded. “He was.”
“Was he planted with the Stanton company?”
“He was already part of the Stanton company,” Burns said. “They’re developing highly classified equipment for the military, we needed a watchdog. We recruited him.”
“Why the hell didn’t you come out and say that when we found his body?” Nick demanded.
“Because Stanton can’t know. I don’t have to tell you what a mess it would be if it got out that a government agent had infiltrated a private company like that. You can imagine how that would make Stanton and his board of directors react if they found out.”
“Did you put him up to introducing Deuce and Livi?” Nick asked.
“What? No, why would I do that?”
Zane rubbed his fingers over one temple. “So, his sole job was to guard this technology being developed?”
“For me, yes.”
“That means whoever killed him probably did it for the information he was protecting,” Nick said to Zane.
“You should have told us this,” Zane said to Burns.
Burns shook his head. “It’s need-to-know, Garrett.”
“That woman’s life, the cook? Her blood is on your hands,” Nick growled. “All your cloak-and-dagger bullshit, all it does is get people killed.”
Burns didn’t answer. He sat staring at Nick, his expression unreadable.
“O’Flaherty,” Zane said gently. “Why don’t you go find Grady and Abbott, see what they found?”
Nick continued to glare at Burns, his nostrils flaring and his jaw jumping as he clenched his teeth. He finally nodded and turned to leave. The door slammed shut behind him.
When Zane returned his attention to Burns, the man was still watching the door. His face had softened, and he seemed almost melancholy. He sighed heavily when he met Zane’s eyes. “I admire his loyalty. And his fire. That was why I tried to recruit him.”
“Director Burns,” Zane said, continuing with his questioning despite the surprise of learning that Burns had actively sought Nick out as well as Ty and Elias Sanchez. “Why would someone take the watch off one of your operatives? Is information stored in it?”
Burns frowned deeply. “No. No, all it has is the GPS. And that’s all a live feed; it doesn’t store information. For that, you’d need the accompanying software system.”
“And where is that?” Zane asked.
Burns shrugged. “My office.”
“Is there any way to reach it remotely?”
“I suppose you could go through my tablet or laptop. Neither of which I have here. I’ve honestly never tried.”
Zane nodded, even more confused than he had been. “Would breaking the watch corrupt the GPS?”
“Not the information that’s already been sent. Why crack the watch open?” Burns asked.
“We have no idea. The watch makes no sense right now, and it’s gone, so . . .” Zane ran a finger over his nose. “Who would even know it was special?”
“The watch?”
“Yeah.”
“Anyone who knew it had GPS. Another operator. Anyone who’s done black ops or dark ops and used a similar system, including Grady and O’Flaherty. I would suspect even you would have known to do that, had you recognized the watch for what it was.”
Zane narrowed his eyes. “So, whoever knew the watch was a tracking device is who we’re after.”
“I would suppose, yes.”
“And you didn’t think that was need-to-know?” Zane asked through gritted teeth.
Burns sat forward. “Zane, you’ve always been a big-picture kind of guy. That’s a unique ability. You shouldn’t lose it.”
Zane couldn’t find his voice to respond.
“Is that all?”
Zane met his eyes. There were so many things he wanted to say to this man, and most of them would probably end with a punch being thrown. He almost wished he’d unleashed Nick just so he could witness it. He had to remind himself, though, that Burns was also the reason he and Ty were together at all. The reason they had remained partners long enough to solidify their relationship, even if it had been for ulterior motives. Burns was the one who’d given Zane his second chance. He couldn’t find it in himself to truly hate the man even though he wanted to for the underhanded things Burns had done.