Page 14 of Devil's Azalea

I tap the obscure button on my desk—just like in my office at Inferno. All my desks have the same hidden design, so even if someone breaks in, they’ll find nothing worth stealing.

As I turn on my laptop, my phone starts vibrating. One text. Two. Three. I slide my gaze to it and distractedly pick it up with one hand while typing my laptop password with the other.

The group chat with my brothers is blowing up. All three of them sending similar messages within seconds of each other.

Maximo

What the fuck is going on with Sergey Volkov? Did he finally lose his ever-living mind?

Romero

The Russians have gone mad.

Michael

Tell me I’m not the only one who got the honor of a fucking threatening video from the fucking Russians.

Huh. Of course they got messages too. So we’re all targets.

Me

I take it we all got a variant of the same message from our friend then. Meet me at Inferno in four hours. We have much to discuss.

More messages flood in as I set down the phone, but I’ve already moved on. I need information, and I know exactly where to get it.

I move the laptop’s cursor to the browser and type in the address. It loads fast, bringing up a porn site cluttered with explicit thumbnails and pop-ups begging for attention.

I scroll past the chaos until I spot the ad I’m looking for: a dark box with white text.

Are you alone right now?

Two options sit below:Canceland a blinkingYes.

I clickYes.

The screen immediately fills with footage of a cam girl pleasuring herself. I ignore her performance entirely and dive straight into the comment section. It’s packed with thirsty idiots, so it takes a while for me to sift through the filth.

Then I find what I need—an encrypted link to a chatroom that erases itself after thirty minutes.

ME

Did you know about Sergey’s intended attack on the Nightshades?

I ask, going straight to the point.

SP

I found out too late. The men were already killed. I tried to reach out to you, but you were not online.

That’s the drawback of this communication method—if we’re not on at the same time, messages vanish into digital oblivion.

ME

Tell me everything you know.

Three pulsing dots appear as my mysterious informant types.

I recall the first time SP reached out to me—just under six months ago at a charity event. A flyer for a porn website was shoved into my hand, and whoever did it vanished into the crowd before I could spot them.