His stomach rumbled again, and he found himself again wondering how often that con was successful.
“What?” James barked into the phone. “I’m hungry, and whoever you are, you’re fucking with my dinner.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a rude asshole, Mr. Brownstone?” responded a voice. It sounded young and female; not a teen, but probably not that much older.
James rolled his eyes. “Yeah, lots of people, so get in fucking line.”
“Damn. Do you need your diaper changed? Is that why you’re so pissy?”
You’re giving the groupies my number now, Tyler? Oh, fuck. What if he didn’t, and they traced my plates?
“Who the fuck is this?” James rumbled into the phone.
“Based on what I saw on that video, I’m the person saving you from pissing off your boyfriend or girlfriend. However you roll.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
She laughed. “Come on. There’s only one reason a big, strapping man like yourself wants a video of women throwing themselves at him deleted, and that’s because he’s trying to make sure somebody else doesn’t get pissed off. Otherwise, you’d be spreading it around to prove how your dick makes women wet from twenty feet away.”
James grunted. That was not the conversation he wanted to have. Ever.
“So you’re the hacker?”
“Yeah, you can call me Heather. I told you’d I call with an update. I did what you wanted. Your little meeting with the Ladies of the Brownstone Cult Auxiliary at that bar no longer exists. Because of how spread around it was already, the best strategy was just to nuke the whole thing. I was going to overlay footage from the previous day, but the cultists with their camera videos made that pointless. Doesn’t matter. The point is your shame is gone, Mr. Brownstone.”
Good. Shay’s not going to go after a bunch of innocent women now. Being annoying shouldn’t get you a death threat. Or a fucking death sentence.
“Okay,” James replied. “I’ll transfer half the money now, and the other half once I’ve confirmed with my other guy that you did take out the video. It’ll be the morning at the latest.”
“Fair enough. That everything?”
“For now.”
“Good. Talk to you soon, Mr. Brownstone.” Heather ended the call.
James grumbled about Tyler for a few seconds before calling Peyton.
“Want me to recommend someone other than my badass self again?” the hacker answered.
“No, I need your badass self to verify something. I had one of your recommendations do a little job for me.”
“Hired them that quickly, huh?”
James snorted. “Yeah. Like I said, a sensitive matter.”
“But you want me to step in on it now?”
“It should be okay. I hope.”
Peyton gave a throaty chuckle. “Famous last words.”
James ignored the taunt and continued. “I had the other hacker delete a video from the Black Sun when I visited the other day, and some other places, because there were some people with phones who recorded some shit they shouldn’t have.”
Peyton whistled. “Fancy. Hitting the Black Sun would have been easy, but getting the phone video from different sources required serious skills.”
“I know this will take some effort, so I’ll pay you ten thousand to verify the video’s gone. Just check the twenty minutes after my arrival time.” James rattled off the date and time.
“You don’t have to pay me. I’m going to do this one for free.”
James eyed his phone with suspicion. “For free? Since when do you work for free?”
“Since I want to see if I can find what kind of video would freak out James Brownstone so much he wants it purged from existence. Plus, I want to see if your little second-best hacker made a mistake. It’s a matter of professional pride.”
James grunted. “Whatever it takes. Just let me know.” His stomach rumbled again. “It’s time for some barbeque.”
Peyton hunched over his keyboard, his fingers flying.
“Come on, asshole. I know you screwed up somewhere. There’s no way you got all that cleared that fast.”
He’d been inside the Black Sun servers and their offsite storage already and verified the deletion of whatever it was that Brownstone wanted hidden, much to his disappointment.
Leverage over the great James Brownstone might be dangerous to hold, but at least it was something. He still had a Deadman’s Switch to protect himself against Shay. Having dirt on her alien boyfriend wasn’t a bad idea. Even Batman kept some kryptonite around in case Superman lost it.
“Nothing? Come on!”
Peyton leaned back and ran his hands through his hair. He couldn’t find jack shit.
So much for his kryptonite.
His concern over evil Brownstone, or at least a Brownstone who might come and punch him through drywall, was swallowed by his curiosity over the identity of the second hacker. The contacts he’d offered were competent hackers that he thought weren’t as good as him, but he couldn’t be sure. He only knew their online reputations and net handles, not the people behind the aliases.
The hard and surprising truth was that whoever had pulled off the mass deletion of the video was damned good. Maybe even as good as Peyton.
“But still not better than me,” he muttered. He sighed. “Better text Brownstone, then let Shay know.”
Peyton picked up his phone, brought it to his ear, then slowly lowered it.
“Wait a second. There’s more than one way to get information. Let’s see how attempt number two goes.”
He grinned.
Shay frowned and pulled her phone out of her pocket.
“This better be important,” the tomb raider yelled. “For all you know, I’m creeping through a dark alley trying to avoid a bunch of frogmen with laser wands.”
“Shouting isn’t stealthy.”
“Fuck you.”
The tomb raider glanced around the Bucharest alley she was standing in. The high walls of the surrounding buildings blocked out most of the sun, leaving the alley covered in shadows. No frogmen or any other supernatural threats followed her, but she didn’t want Peyton getting too used to chatting her up when he got bored.
“I wouldn’t have called you if it wasn’t important,” Peyton replied.
Shay rolled her eyes and leaned against the cool brick of a nearby wall. “Okay, then, I’ve got a few minutes. What’s up?”
“To make a long story short, your man called me, asked me to recommend another hacker-for-hire, and used that hacker to delete some sort of mysterious video that was originally taken at the Black Sun.”
Shay blinked. She pulled back her phone to stare at it for a few seconds before returning it to her ear. “What the fuck?”
Peyton sighed. “Yeah.”
“Why would James hire somebody else to do that? He’s got more trust issues than the next-to-last guy in a murder mystery, so grabbing someone new doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“He told me that he couldn’t use me because it was a ‘sensitive’ matter, and he didn’t want me telling you the details.”
Shay hissed. “Seriously?”
“Yep, but I’m telling you now what I know.”
“I’m guessing you being you, you got butthurt over this other hire and decided to track that video down anyway?”
“James called and offered to pay me to track it down. He wanted to verify the other hacker had deleted it.”
Shay took a deep breath. “Sure, but they fucked up, and you’ve got a copy now though, right?”
Peyton sighed. “Nope.”
“Nope?”
“There’s no trace of it. All I know is that for a few minutes during the morning in the Black Sun, something happened that Brownstone doesn’t want to get out. I sniffed around, and I found that Tyler sent out messages to a bunch of women advertising that James would be there. The son of a bitch was charging a bunch of money for two
drinks and a chance to gawk at Brownstone.”
Shay’s heart rate kicked up, and she took several deep breaths. “Okay, thanks for letting me know.”
“Do you think—”
“No,” the tomb raider snapped. “Knowing James, he’s probably head-tripping about me overreacting or some shit. Just because of a few little incidents.”
“Incidents?”
“No one was hurt.”
“Yet.” Peyton yawned. “I don’t have anything else to tell you, and I’m exhausted. I’m going to go ahead and let you go.”
“Sounds fine. Thanks for telling me.”
“No problem.” He ended the call.
Shay sighed and slid down the rough wall. She pocketed her phone and shook her head.
James going to the trouble of hiring a hacker to purge a video associated with women did scream guilt, but wasn’t like he’d participate in some wild sexcapade in the middle of a bar, even if there were a pack of Brownstone groupies around. He wasn’t that kind of man.
Why am I so pissed about this, then?
Considering all the secrets she was keeping from James, including a few about him, she wasn’t in a position to be outraged because he didn’t tell her everything.
I did this to myself, too. I shouldn’t have let him know that Peyton told me everything about that lookalike and how he wanted it kept quiet.
James couldn’t be a cheater. He wasn’t wired that way. The man could have gotten tail before, but he’d saved his virginity until she came along, and that’d still taken her throwing herself at him and working closely with him over months to earn his respect and love.
Shay sighed and stood. “I can think about this shit later. I’ve still got a job to do.”
The shadows shifted in the alley. She spun toward the movement.
Two men with wide grins marched down the alley, rattling off something in Romanian.
“Sorry,” Shay announced. “I’m decent in a lot of languages, but have no idea what you said.”
“Oh, American, eh?” one of the men replied in accented English. His ridiculous mustache almost made Shay laugh. “Tourist woman give your money, and we leave. Or we take money. Maybe you don’t leave after.”
Shay flipped him off. “That’s my final offer, asshole. I am gonna be nice and warn you that I’m in a really fucking bad mood right now, so if you don’t walk away immediately, you might be limping away later.” She shrugged.
The two men glowered at her. Mr. Mustache charged without further comment.
Shay rolled her eyes. “For real?”
She sprinted toward the charging man, not going for her gun or any of her knives. Mr. Mustache reached out to grab her, and she repaid him by spinning out of his grasp and throat-punching him.
The would-be mugger fell to the ground, gasping for breath. His friend charged, but Shay ducked the man’s punch and pounded two quick blows into his stomach. He doubled over, and the tomb raider took the opportunity to slam his head into the nearby brick wall.
The mugger slid down the wall, leaving a smear of blood.
Shay kicked both men in the stomach, and they both groaned.
“Next time, assholes, just keep walking. You’re lucky I’m the kinder, gentler version of me these days. Otherwise, you’d be dead.” She smiled and glanced down at her clothes. No bloodstains. Always so hard to get failed-mugger stains off one’s clothes.
“Huh. I do feel better after that.” Shay walked out of the alley, humming to herself.
James was brushing his teeth in the morning when he decided to send the other half of the payment to Heather, assuming that was her real name. He tapped the Send button, and his phone buzzed with a message less than a second after.
Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Brownstone.
He stared at the phone. There’d been no lag between his money transfer and Heather’s response. It was as if she’d been watching him and knew what he was doing.
Shit? Is she in my accounts already?
16
Maria pushed into the Black Sun early in the morning. The staff were still pulling down chairs and setting things up. Tyler stood behind the bar, towel in hand, inspecting the glasses.
For a guy who wants to be a big information broker, he sure puts a lot of effort into this place.
She strolled up to the bar. “Send any interesting messages the other day?”
Tyler finished wiping the glass in his hand and turned to face her. “I send a lot of interesting messages. Is that why you’re here, to talk about messages?”
You really just don’t want to admit it was you, do you? Fine, I’ll play along.
“Nope,” Maria answered. “Just wanted to confirm everything’s set up with your new side-business. I want to make sure Dannec gets his money as soon as possible.”
He picked up the next glass and began polishing. “Why the sudden concern?”
Maria slipped onto a stool. “Dannec made me aware of some potential trouble that may be in town. He seems interested in helping out, but I want to make sure I stay on his good side. Especially if what he told me about this new source of trouble is true.”
Tyler nodded. “Don’t worry, the rest of the money should be transferred by tonight. Oh, by the way, I’m going to pass along a freebie to you.”
“Oh, why so generous?”
“Because it involves our least favorite bounty hunter.”
Maria snorted. “Of course it does. What about Brownstone?”
“Three more groupies showed up the other night looking for him, two women and a man. Weird vibe around them. I don’t think they were the standard groupies. They weren’t all dressed sexy, but more like business douches.”
“Can be a fan without being some sex-starved groupie.”
Tyler shook his head. “Don’t know, but I trust my instincts. There was something off about them, so I mostly played dumb when they asked me about Brownstone.”
“Did they say anything about who they are? What they were interested in?”
“Nope. Just that they wanted to know if I could give them any information on Brownstone. What he was like, that sort of thing.”
Maria whipped out her phone. “Got video? I could run them through facial ID.”
“Sure. One sec.” Tyler grabbed a tablet from a drawer underneath the bar. He unlocked it with his thumb and swiped to his security app. He tapped away until he found the main security camera feed. After fast-forwarding, he hit play.
Maria narrowed her eyes. “What the hell is that?”
Tyler frowned down at the screen. In the video, the bartender stood there clearly talking, but instead of the three business douches, there was only hazy air. He rewound the video and played it again. No better luck.
He downloaded a backup copy from offsite storage and played that.
Still nothing but hazy air.
The bartender gritted his teeth and clenched his hands into fists. “What the fuck? This looks like magic. I guess they weren’t just business assholes, then.”
“Looks like someone got one over on you, Tyler.” Maria stood to leave. “Let me know if they come back in, and I’ll send some guys by just to ask them a few questions. I’ve got a few other things I need to check on this morning. See you around.”
“Yeah, see you around.” Tyler gave her a shallow nod, his gaze still fixed on the tablet. Those fucktards had come into his bar and used magic to screw with him.
I hope you fuckers do find Brownstone, and I hope he tears you a new asshole.
Maria waved and headed toward the door. Tyler’s eyes widened at another painful possibility.
He rewound his video feed to before Brownstone’s arrival the morning before. This time there was nothing but a frozen image from two minutes before the bounty hunter entered the Black Sun. The video stream unfroze if he moved ahead a half hour, but the intervening footage never displayed.
Tyler took several deep breaths as he tried to resist the urge to smash the tablet against t
he bar.
What the fuck does this even mean? Did Brownstone do all this? Is this his revenge, fucking with my surveillance feed?
Tyler face-palmed and set his elbows on the bar. After a long moment of self-pity, he returned his attention to the tablet and spent a few minutes checking the surveillance feed at different times of the day. The Brownstone portions were a total loss, and the mysterious trio had been redacted somehow, but he couldn’t find any other portion of the video that looked altered.
Brownstone had every reason in the world to cut himself out of the surveillance footage, but he had no reason to mess with the images of the three assholes. They’d wandered in looking for information about Brownstone, and if they’d heard on the net about his appearance at the Black Sun, they’d know which footage to tamper with.
“So, which is it, Brownstone? Do you have some magical groupies who are trying to protect you or some assholes who are getting ready to waste your ass?” Tyler blew out a breath. “I don’t even feel like setting up a pool.”
Maria sat behind a massive blue crystal table, a twenty-year-old book and a tablet in front of her.
The consulate staffer, a pale Light Elf, offered her a smile from another seat. “Drow, you say?”
“Yes, Drow. Dark Elves. I know they’re in town, and you need to provide me with information on them. Maybe I should talk to the consul directly.”
“Unfortunately, that won’t be possible, Lieutenant. Although we value our close working relationship with the LAPD, the consul is unfortunately very busy at the moment. I will, of course, offer any assistance or consulate resources you need.”
Maria frowned. “I don’t need consulate resources, I need information.”
“About Drow?”
“Yes, about Drow. Not only do I believe several Drow are in the city and up to no good, but I also have some evidence to suggest a previous attack on my AET team was conducted by a Drow.”
The Light Elf let out a merry laugh. “I highly doubt that, Lieutenant. Now, anyone in the consulate would be the first to admit the Drow can be very…feisty at times, but I can assure you that if we were aware of any dangerous individuals in the city, we would inform the human authorities immediately.”
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