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

some kind of domestic violence going on, I didn’t have any legal standing to stay here.

I sighed as I made my way back to the car. It was an unspoken secret that one of the reasons the director allowed Nick to work with the SDCT was because of situations like this.

As a federal agent, I was bound by the restrictions of the law. If I were to break the law by executing a search without a warrant or getting too rough with a suspect, I could lose my job. The entire agency could face repercussions because of something I did while on the job.

Nick, on the other hand, wasn’t officially affiliated with us. If he got caught doing something stupid, he’d be the only one getting in trouble. It was just a matter of claiming that the SDCT never authorized him to act that way, and we would probably get away with a slap on the wrist or less.

Of course, no one ever said anything about that. It was the elephant in the room that everyone ignored because, ultimately, it was beneficial to us to have a mercenary who was willing to get his hands dirty for our sake. It made me feel awful, to be honest. We were seriously skirting the law here, and even worse, Nick would be the one bearing all the blame if things ever went south. He always insisted that he was too good to get caught, but I couldn’t help but worry that his luck was bound to run out, eventually.

I fidgeted nervously as I waited for some sign of him. I was about to give in and call him when I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. I snapped my head around toward the rear of the house and saw Nick sprinting around the side of the house and toward the car.

I leaned over to push the passenger side door open as he approached at a rapid pace. He didn’t look injured or anything, which was a relief.

“Drive,” he instructed as he jumped into the car and pulled the door shut behind him with a slam.

I was curious about what he’d been up to, but now wasn’t the time for questions. I did as he asked and quickly started the car before flooring the gas pedal. Whatever he’d just done, I could only hope that it had been worth it.

19

Nick

“I’m sorry,” I suddenly interrupted Jase’s interview with Ellie. “I don’t suppose I could use your bathroom?”

Ellie shot me a look of surprise, and Jase was glaring at me with a mix of anger and confusion. I knew that I was probably interrupting at a bad time, but I’d suddenly had an idea, and I needed to move quickly before Shane got home.

“Oh, of course,” Ellie sniffled. “I’ll show you where it is. Just a minute, Agent Park.”

She stood and led me out of the living room and down a narrow hall.

“It’s this room on the left,” she informed me as she wiped her eyes clean and took a deep, steadying breath before returning to the living room. I mentally apologized to Jase. I could tell that he’d been trying to wear her down to get her to admit whatever it was she was hiding, but we probably wouldn’t get an opportunity like this again.

I took a moment to check and make sure that I couldn’t be seen from the living room before creeping my way slowly down the hallway. Since Shane wasn’t here, this would be a good time for me to search his room for any signs that he’d been in communication with Ryan Rothschild.

The first room I came across was filled with tubs full of fabrics, yarn, and other craft supplies. As much as I would have liked to search every room thoroughly, I didn’t know how much time I had, so I needed to be quick.

The house was small, and there was only one other door at the end of the hallway. I crept toward it silently before turning the doorknob as quietly as I could. I pulled up on the door as I opened it so the hinges wouldn’t creak as it moved and then slipped inside as soon as the gap was wide enough.

This was obviously Shane and Ellie’s bedroom. There was a queen-sized bed in one corner, with a small, wooden crib at the end. The room was cluttered in a cozy way. There were unused baby toys and clothes stacked in piles at one corner, and a small vanity with some cosmetics strewn across the tabletop. A laundry hamper overflowing with clothes sat by the edge of the bed, and a battered acoustic guitar was propped up against the door of the closet. I scanned over everything in the room quickly until my gaze landed on the laptop sitting on the nightstand by the bed.

I stalked over to the bed and quickly opened the laptop. If there were any records of Shane having interacted with Ryan at any point, they’d most likely be on here. I turned the laptop on and waited nervously as it booted up. To my relief, it didn’t prompt me for a password.

I dug through my pockets until I felt my fingers close around the small device I needed. Dante had given me this USB drive. According to him, there was a program on it that would extract the contents of a computer’s hard drive in just a few minutes. I’d never used it before, but this seemed like a great opportunity to try it out.

I plugged the drive into the computer and was immediately greeted by a notification asking for permission to run the extraction program. I clicked yes and watched as the program quickly scanned and downloaded files. The progress bar at the bottom of the screen was already at four percent, which meant that it really would only take a few minutes for the program to finish running.

I grinned with relief.