“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.
Zane glanced over his shoulder. Kelly stood with his arms crossed, scowling. Nick hung back, edging farther from the three of them. Zane did a double take when he saw the look in Nick’s eyes, like he was staring into the distance, no longer truly with them.
“Oh shit,” Zane whispered.
Ty and Kelly both turned to investigate, both of them stiffening when they noticed Nick edging closer to the door like he might be trying to escape. But Nick didn’t look for an escape when he suffered his flashbacks. He went on the attack.
The Snake Eaters had waded into the fray, trying to separate Stanton from the rest of the angry group. Stanton, though, had Livi by both arms, apparently trying to explain his actions to his daughter as she shouted at him. One of the Snake Eaters, the woman named Avery Kline, came up beside Stanton and pried his hands from Livi. Then, in the confusion, she wrapped her arm around his neck and yanked him backward, pulling her gun and using him to shield her body from the other Snake Eaters. Then she fired into the air before Zane could move to stop her.