Cut & Run by Madeleine Urban, Abigail Roux Read Free Book Online Page A

be shot in the chest as he slept. You never thought you were safe. Feeling safe got you killed.
    Zane could almost see the tension pouring off Ty in waves. “Are you going to the hotel or are you planning on staying here all day?” he asked.
    “I’m going to a hotel,” Ty answered as he stood and gathered his coat and satchel. “A different hotel. And you’re coming with me.”
    Zane simply leveled a gaze at him, waiting for explanation. It was the first time the other man had even remotely indicated that he wanted Zane anywhere around him.
    “I don’t plan on losing another agent to this shit, got it?” Ty responded sharply as he stuffed several of the files in his bag and glared back at Zane. “Even if it is you.”
    Zane supposed he should feel all warm and fuzzy about Ty at least not wanting him gruesomely murdered and left to bleed out in his shower or something. Somehow, the sentiment didn’t really inspire much camaraderie, though. “So where are we going?”
    “Holiday Inn, man,” Ty answered. “If I’m footin’ the bill, I ain’t paying no damn five hundred bucks a night.”
    Zane shrugged. A room was a room. He’d stayed in better and he’d stayed in worse. He followed Ty out of the lab and back down the hall to the elevator. “And then?” He wanted to know if Ty’s sudden concern for his well-being included staying in close proximity; he’d planned to come back after dinner to study the maps and evidence notes.
    Ty shrugged as he punched the elevator button. “Then we see what’s brewing,” he answered carelessly.

    30 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

    Zane looked over at his partner in exasperation. First, complete and total focus on the case, a case that wasn’t even their main focus, and now, this. “Do you do anything like a normal person?” he asked, although the question was wholly rhetorical. And not at all complimentary.
    Ty turned around and looked at him in slight surprise once they were in the elevator. “Only the fun things,” he answered finally after a moment of looking at him thoughtfully.
    “Fun things,” Zane echoed, not looking away from Ty once he was pinned by the man’s hazel eyes.
    “You remember those, don’t you?” Ty questioned with a smirk as he let his eyes travel up and down Zane thoughtfully. “Maybe you don’t,” he decided with a sigh.
    Zane knew with absolute certainty that he did not want this conversation to continue. “How many strikes have I got left?” he asked abruptly. He knew Ty had been taking his measure, in more ways than one.
    “None,” Ty answered immediately, though he was somewhat surprised Zane even knew to ask the question.
    A ghost of a self-deprecating smile crossed Zane’s lips. He knew Ty had no respect for him. Frankly, Zane didn’t care. He didn’t plan for this joke of a partnership to last long. He just wondered who higher up in the Bureau had decided to take him out along with Ty. “So why hasn’t the ump thrown me out of the game?”
    “’Cause there ain’t no umps in this particular game,” Ty answered seriously as the doors whooshed open on the ground floor. “And there ain’t no rules.”
    Zane walked out ahead of the other man. “So we do without.” He could live with that. Better than working under someone else’s thumb like the past two years. “Or we make up our own.”
    “Yeah, you seem the type to need rules,” Ty responded with a derogatory sneer.
    Zane didn’t answer as they walked through the parking garage. He drew back into his stony silence, focusing on thinking about the next steps of the investigation instead of the insolence of his jackass of a partner.

    Cut & Run | 31

    fter checking in to a hotel just a block or two from the swanky establishment where they were supposed to be staying, Ty Grady Aimmediately fell into the shower and went about washing the frustration of the day away. He had been a little surprised when his new partner had paid for his own room, but it suited