Page 20 of Broken
“Do you believe that?” I grimaced, because I so didn’t think that was what had happened, or maybe Jerome had just gotten lucky and that was all.
“No, but Jerome does.”
“Okay. So all we have to do is puta tracker in Jerome’s jacket. Got it. But how do we do that? Can we just pass next to him at some club or something?” I had to admit, planting a tracker on a gang leader kind of sounded fun. Of course, only if we didn’t get caught.
“Not really.” Theo made a face. “His guards always make sure no one passes next to him, and he doesn’t go into crowds. If someone managed to get near him, they’dimmediately check everything, and while the tracker isn’t easily detected, it isn’t invisible either.”
“But surely he has to get close to people at some point.”
“Yeah, but the guards will let his friends through, not anyone else. There are times when he might not have that many guards with him because it would look weird and suspicious, but those parties aren’t something you can just crash.”
“Are you sure we can’t do that? Can’t we climb through a window or something?” My lips tilted up, and Theo gave me a long look.
“I’d actually love to see you climb a skyscraper in high heels and a dress.”
“Can we predict where he’ll be?” Maybe Theo thought crashing a party was impossible, but not every party was being held at the top of a tower, and maybe we could get invitations somehow.“The Cobras could help us.”
He didn’t look too optimistic as he made his way to the computer and took a seat. After a few minutes of typing, he pulled up an image of one of the tallest buildings in this city.
“What’s that?” I asked as I approached.
“Jerome will be there. It’s a party for some very important business people.”
“Oh, so he’s also a businessman? Can’t we get to himthrough his job? Does he have an office? We might be able to arrange a meeting and send one of the lesser-known Cobra members.” I bit down on the tip of my finger as I tried to come up with a solution for our problem. If Theo and I couldn’t do this ourselves because Jerome would recognize us, then maybe someone else could. Theo was too used to working alone, so he wouldn’t be searching for a solutionthat included involving a friend. “Do you think Jerome knows what we look like? Would Walter have told him? Or would he avoid doing that because Jerome could find a way to get to me and then blackmail Walter in some way?”
“We can’t be sure if he knows, but we’d have to disguise ourselves anyway if we went anywhere near him. And yeah, he’s a businessman, but he won’t agree to a meeting withrandom people. He doesn’t have a reason to.” Theo nodded toward the photo of the building. “And we can’t get in there without an invite anyway, and it would be extremely hard to get our hands on one. Everyone knows the businesspeople who’ll attend, and if they want to send someone in their stead, they have to notify the host about it a week in advance.”
“Do you know of any other parties he’sgoing to attend?”
“Not really. This one’s the only one that was announced in the press.”
“But if Jerome is such an important businessman, then how is he keeping the fact that he’s also the leader of the Spiders a secret? Could we try exposing him?” I sat down in the chair next to Theo. “Even if he only has to worry about rumors, he still might be distracted and wouldn’t have time to helpWalter with whatever they’re doing. Maybe he’d even have to lie low, so he wouldn’t need Walter.”
“People have tried that already, but he’s very slick. Obtaining proof of his involvement with the Spiders would take months, at least the type of proof that would be useful. Simply spreading rumors would do nothing. Hell, it might even raise his popularity. And even if we found solid proof andhe somehow got arrested, then his brother could take over the Spiders and everything would remain as it was.”
I let out a frustrated groan. “Okay, but what about the brother? Can we get to him? Could he be in on the whole Walter thing?”
“Jerome’s brother is out of the country at the moment, but if something happened to Jerome, he’d come right back.”
I stared at the article of the upcomingbusiness party that was still covering the computer screen. What could we do? My gaze stopped on one of the names. “Alfred Hampton’s going to be there too!”
“So?” Theo’s brow furrowed.
“He’s Vix’s father.” And he’d been Ingrid’s husband once upon a time.
“I still don’t see why that would matter. Vix might be your friend, but we can’t trust her father and, if what I know of him istrue, he won’t want to help people like us. And what would he even do? If he tried to plant that tracker on Jerome for us, he’d get himself killed. He doesn’t have the necessary skills for that.”
“Of course I wouldn’t send Vix’s father to do the job for us.” I smacked him lightly on the shoulder. “But maybe that party isn’t so important to him, and if he’s invited, then he might be able toget us on the guest list. Actually, we could go instead of him. The party is in ten days, isn’t it? That’s plenty of time to change the names of those who’ll attend. We could pretend we’re some people working for him.”
Theo’s eyebrows lifted up. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. There’s no reason for him to help us, and if he does it, he’ll want something in return.”
“No, he won’t wantanything. I’ll call Vix.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “Would we actually have to do something at that party?” My finger hovered over the call button. “Because if we have to do a presentation or talk about the company we represent, then that might be a bit difficult.”
“That wouldn’t be a problem,” Theo said confidently. “I could handle that. I’ve already pretended to be a businessmana few times. It’s not as hard as it looks, and you mostly don’t give too many details about the company to anyone.”
“So if Vix and her father are willing to help, we can actually do it?”
He nodded. “Jerome’s guards would still be there, but there wouldn’t be too many of them, and he’d let us come over to him and ask him a question or two. Everyone who enters will be carefully vetted anyway.We’d only have to make sure no one recognized us.”