Wicked as Lies (Wicked & Devoted #3) - Shayla Black Page 0,71

was he doing here? It certainly wasn’t looking for a place to eat. His stomach was in too many knots, and the dead silence of his apartment bugged the shit out of him. As it turned out, busy downtown Lafayette wasn’t distracting him, either. He’d been here twenty minutes, and the music spilling from open bars, along with the nondescript chatter and honking horns from hell-raisers ready to party, all grated on his last damn nerve.

He wasn’t comfortable anywhere—not in bed, trying to catch some z’s. Not riding around the city. Definitely not in the office.

Eleven fucking days since the bosses had tasked him with saving his best friend’s ass, and he’d discerned next to nothing. Worse, he couldn’t consult the two people whose advice he most wanted. He refused to put the colonel in an awkward position by bitching about his pain-in-the-ass sons, and Trees would be devastated to know the people he worked for had accused him of something so against his grain. Unfortunately, Hunter, Logan, and Joaquin had made their priorities abundantly clear to Zy by sending every operator on assignment—except him.

After protecting a clothing designer in Dallas a few weeks back, golden boy Cutter was now in Hollywood bodyguarding a starlet, identity undisclosed. Not that Zy cared. Better someone else in LaLa Land than him. Josiah had been assigned solid back-to-back posts, providing cover for visiting global bureaucrats attending swanky fundraisers up and down the East Coast. Trees had been tasked with various clients’ cybersecurity issues—all from the comfort of his desk, with Joaquin hovering. Even One-Mile, who had recently been near death’s door, had watched over a senator’s son during his Louisiana visit. Of course Walker had also been assigned to work seniors’ bingo night. Nothing else told Zy more clearly how pissed the bosses were that the sniper had abandoned his post with Valeria Montilla after moving her to a new safe house so he could pursue her estranged husband.

And if Zy didn’t want to be in the bosses’ doghouse too, he needed to figure out how to prove Trees innocent. It sucked, but his options were limited.

There would be no breaking into Trees’s computer or onto his property without his pal knowing. Cybersecurity was his thing…but he was also paranoid as fuck about his house. No one got on or off his property without Trees knowing. Ever. Hell, he’d practically given the UPS driver an FBI-level interrogation before he’d been allowed to deliver packages.

Zy thought again about admitting this whole mess to Trees and enlisting his help, but the chances of his pal not being butt-hurt and not going all scorched earth were nil. Once he opened that can, there would be all kinds of bad. Zy figured he’d get fired, too, for not keeping his mouth shut.

Instead, Zy had tried to reverse engineer the situation. Since Walker had been the one to accuse Trees—to deflect blame? To project his own guilt elsewhere?—he had some skin in this game. While the sniper had been out on the throwaway assignments meant to punish him, Zy had prowled through his desk, his computer, and his Jeep. He’d even revisited a part of his youth and done a little B and E at One-Mile’s house. Despite all that sneaking and spying, Zy hadn’t found a damn thing except that Walker had interesting decor, expensive taste in booze, and a really fucking impressive gun collection.

Now what?

Time to try something else. Tiptoeing around the bullshit hadn’t gotten him anywhere—and it wasn’t his style. He’d rather approach this bitch head on, which meant talking to One-Mile. Besides the fact he hadn’t found any proof the sniper wasn’t on the up-and-up, Zy’s gut told him the guy wasn’t dirty, just misguided. But if he didn’t get to the bottom of this soon, Trees would be hitting the unemployment line.

With a sigh, he leaned against the side of the blues bar on the corner and whipped out his phone. He never called Walker, but all the operatives had been expected to program one another’s numbers in their phones in case of emergency. So he wasn’t shocked when the sniper picked up on the first ring.

“What’s up, Garrett?”

Damn, he should have planned an approach before actually dialing. He could hardly jump down the guy’s throat or call him a dipshit and expect to get answers.

“Zy?” Walker prompted into his hesitation.

“Oh, fuck it. You free tonight?” This was a conversation better had in person, and the timing was perfect. Trees was out with