“Shouldn’t the Agency be satisfied that she’s so good at her analyst job and leave her be?” They were already demanding so much from her. Had taken so much from her.

Bryce cocked his head. “You’d think. If you want my opinion—and I assume you do, or you wouldn’t be here—Layla crossed someone and doesn’t even realize it. And now they’re out to get her.”

“Quite an elaborate scheme for revenge, don’t you think?”

Bryce leaned forward. “You might not understand just how cutthroat the intel community is. I still sleep with one eye open.”

Hunter needed to push him again. “But you wouldn’t hold such a grudge?”

“Of course I would, but it’s hard to dislike Layla. I was seething after she ratted me out, but I eventually got over it. She has principles, which isn’t something we see very often these days. I care about her and would never want something to happen to her. That’s how friendship works. You might blow a gasket, but at the end of the day, you move on because they’re your friend.”

“But the two of you haven’t remained friends.”

“Look, it has taken me a good long while to get over it. But I am now, and if she reached out, I think we could be friends again.”

A shot of jealousy went through Hunter.

“I’ll tell you this,” Bryce continued. “If you really want to get at the person who could’ve done this to her, you need to check out Nick. He had a lot of reasons to set her up.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about him before?” Hunter felt his temper starting to flare.

“I’ve already said too much. You need to talk to Layla about Nick. It’s complicated. Very complicated. And the last thing I want to do is get in the middle of it.”

Hunter realized Bryce wasn’t going to give him anything else, so he thanked him for his time and hightailed it out of the building. He wasn’t sure who this Nick character was, but he intended to find out.

But first he had to get back to his work on who had stolen the cartel money.