An Offer You Can't Refuse by Sal Bianchi (best beach reads .txt) 📕

“Oh well,” I thought to myself as I watched Jase hand Ryan over to the police. I’d just have to deal with the consequences when they came.

10

Jase

The atmosphere in the office was tense. After the arrest, Ryan Rothschild had been taken to the hospital. He’d claimed that he was injured when Nick grabbed him and had moaned and complained dramatically until he was taken away in an ambulance. Even though I was certain that he was faking it, we couldn’t deny a suspect medical treatment, especially with so many people recording the incident. In the meantime, we were in Agent Stein’s office going over the security tapes with Chloe.

“This is why I keep saying he’s a liability,” Agent Owens hissed venomously at us. I wasn’t even sure why she was in here. If I recalled correctly, she and Theo were currently on a different case. It really seemed like she went out of her way to harass Nick any time he was here. “Now, the SDCT is going to get in trouble because some wannabe action hero decided to put his hands on a suspect when he doesn’t even have the authority to make arrests.”

Nick, who was leaning against the desk and resting his chin on his palm, turned to glance at her. He’d been doing a pretty impressive job of ignoring her since she’d come in, but I guess even he was capable of losing his temper.

To my surprise, though, he didn’t get angry. On the contrary, he shot her the same charming smile I’d seen him use on girls every time we’d gone out drinking. The look on Bette’s face was murderous. In hindsight, it had probably been more effective than any verbal barb that he could have come up with.

“Bette,” Chloe sighed as she turned away from the computer screen. “Did you come in here just to pick a fight? If you don’t have anything important to contribute, could you just leave? You’re distracting me.”

Bette rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything else before turning on her heel and stalking out of the room.

“What’s her problem?” Agent Stein chuckled.

“She’s got a severe case of sanctimony,” Chloe smirked as she turned her attention back to the video feed playing on the screen. “One of the worst plagues to ever afflict mankind. Anyway, I know I said she was distracting me, but honestly, there isn’t much here.”

My shoulders drooped in disappointment. Chloe was an expert in human behavior, and she could usually tell a lot about a person without ever even speaking to them, just by observing the way they walked and carried themselves. We’d asked her to go over the security tapes from the restaurant to see if she could pick up anything significant from either Ryan's or the woman’s behavior. Agent Stein had even managed the pull up the recordings from some of the cameras from stores across the street for her to review.

“Ryan seems nervous,” she explained. “And the woman seems agitated and hostile, judging from the position of her shoulders and the way Ryan seems to cower away from her despite being bigger. That much is obvious, but I can’t really tell much else from this distance, especially without being able to see her face. Sorry, I know this isn’t telling you anything you didn’t already know.”

“Don’t apologize.” Nick smiled. “It’s still helpful. Now we know that she had something on him, if he was cowering from her. Thank you, Agent Summers.”

I watched as Agent Summers beamed and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, and I had to resist the urge to roll my eyes. I wouldn’t go as far as Bette did, but even I had to admit that watching Nick flirt with every woman who crossed his path could get old pretty fast.

“Well, if you kids are done, would you mind taking it somewhere else?” Stein suddenly piped up. “My office is getting kind of crowded.”

“Kids?” Chloe scoffed indignantly. “I’m thirty-one.”

“Sorry,” Agent Stein chuckled. “All of you new agents seem like kids to me. I have a daughter about your age, and sometimes I forget that she’s an adult now, too. Crazy how fast time flies by.”

Now that he mentioned it, there was a pretty large disparity between the ages of the administration and the field agents. Director Markus Flint, Assistant Director Lila Abrahms, and Agent Marshall Stein were all in their late forties and fifties.

When the SDCT was established, the three of them had been the ones assigned to oversee it. Because the organization was so new and unknown, most of the agents hired were rookies with little experience. It had been stressful, at times, to have an organization managed almost entirely by newbies, but I liked to think it had also made us more united. We’d all started on the same level and on an even playing field.

“Jase,” Nick suddenly called, breaking me out of my thoughts. “Let’s go, man.”

I realized then that Nick and Chloe had already left the office while I had spaced off again. Nick was waiting for me patiently. It was something I’d always appreciated about him. Even though he’d tease me about it occasionally, he never got annoyed or angry at me for getting distracted like I did. I used to get bullied for it a lot until Nick started hanging out with me in high school. Everyone had been too afraid of him then to bother me anymore.

I quickly left the office and followed him back over to my desk in the bullpen.

“So, what do we do now?” Nick mused out loud as he took a seat on my desk. I sank into my chair as I thought it over.

“It’s weird,” I muttered. “On the phone, Ryan was the one barking out orders, saying that she better meet him right now or he’d go to the police. But Chloe said that on the video, it looked like she was in the one in control