Page 28

28

ROMAN

B y the time I ride the MTT into the Mercura basement, my mind is laser focused. My past, along with the problem of Lucia Lopez’s true identity, has been tucked away in a box I will open later.

After I’ve taken care of business.

Because that, after all, is what I fucking do.

I walk into the ops center, stripping off my helmet and gloves as I go. “What have we got?”

Dimitry’s eyes narrow when he sees my leathers, but he wisely doesn’t comment. “Pavel?”

Pavel wipes pizza sauce from his beard and blinks nervously behind his glasses. He’s wearing a Thor T-shirt. I cannot imagine anyone who resembles a superhero less, although the way he puts down pizza certainly rivals a fucking Viking appetite.

“We’ve isolated the breach and plugged it. We’re working the trojan through analytics now.” At least he doesn’t try to bamboozle me with tech speak.

“Explain to me exactly what happened.”

“The virus came through the software center upstairs. That is, whoever wrote the virus sent it into the software center first. As you know, Mercura is maintained entirely separately, which is why we caught the trojan before it caught us. That said, whoever wrote it is clearly looking for something. And they know what they’re doing. The trojan didn’t get picked up until it hit one of our firewalls.”

He goes on to explain, in increasingly confusing language, what actually happened. I hear him out. Sometimes it’s worth putting up with geek speak just to get the full picture, even if I don’t understand half of it.

Randomly, I think of Mickey and smile inwardly. He’d probably be able to explain the fucking thing better than Pavel can. I can’t believe that a fourteen-year-old has been left in charge of programming the audio for an entire Holy Week procession. Making a mental note to let him know how impressed I am, I tune back into Pavel’s recitation.

“So the bottom line,” I cut him off as he starts to peter out, “is that somebody suspects we’re doing more than software development here and is trying to find out exactly what is going on. Is that correct?” I look between the nervous faces surrounding me, all of which nod vigorously.

“Right. Given that I sprayed the walls with the brains of the last traitor, do we have any idea who this mudak might be?”

“They’re not one of us,” Pavel says hastily. “That much I can guarantee.”

“You made that clear enough in your report. That doesn’t change my question.”

“We’re running it through analytics, trying to track it back.” Pavel is becoming increasingly nervous. “But like I said, whoever wrote it—”

“Knows what they’re doing.” I finish the sentence for him. “Let’s hope they don’t know as much as you lot do, or I might have to start paying them instead.” I almost smile at the indignant expressions on their faces. They’ll work doubly hard to find the problem now. Nothing pisses a tech head off more than being outsmarted. I could offer a million-dollar reward for finding the origin of the trojan, and it wouldn’t motivate them any more than the sheer satisfaction of gaining revenge. In their own way, the tech heads are just as ruthless as any gun-wielding pakhan . I can respect that.

“We did find one clue.” It’s one of the younger guys. He’s so skinny he looks like a big wind could blow him over, but he’s got the killer look in his eyes that tells me he wants this bastard almost as badly as I do.

“Talk.”

“The programmer did a good job of bouncing the virus around before bumping it into our system. But we’ve managed to track three hard points that give us the approximate location the programmer was when they first tapped into our system. They’re too smart to still be there,” the guy adds. “And it isn’t a hundred-percent accurate. But they’ll have needed an extremely fast connection, so that should narrow down your search.” He turns his screen toward me. It shows a map with a fifty-kilometer radius.

At the center of which is Pillars nightclub.

Dimitry and I both look at the screen, then at each other. He doesn’t have to speak for me to read his mind, because I’m thinking the same goddamn thing.

Are you fucking kidding me?

“Are you sure about this?” I look around the room, zoning in on Pavel.

“It could be coming from a yacht,” he says uncertainly. “Although it would need to be one of the superyachts. This kind of work would need a lot more than a simple Wi-Fi connection to set up.”

“It didn’t come from a fucking yacht.”

“Right.” Pavel looks between Dimitry and me. “Well, basically, whoever originally created the trojan uploaded it to an external site, then waited for someone at the software center to download it, thinking it was a required update. Dimitry’s already taken care of that particular individual,” he adds hastily.

I nod. No less than I would have expected.

“That initial upload point we’re still trying to track back. But after they’d uploaded it, the programmer had to wait on the external site until someone took the bait. Fortunately for us, that took long enough to leave a trace. The position you can see on the screen is as close as we can get to establishing where they were at the point the trojan got downloaded.”

“Good work.” I grip Pavel’s shoulder, trying not to grin when he flinches. “Keep it up, and let me know the moment you find anything else.”

“Boss.” The geeks exchange relieved looks as Dimitry and I exit.

“There’s fuck all down at that part of the docks,” I say as soon as we’re out of earshot. “And only one place I can think of that has high-speed internet hardwired in.”

“Only one place with someone dumb enough to be looking into your business, at least.” Dimitry’s face is equally grim. “Does this mean we’re heading to Pillars?”

I pause at my bike. “I think that would be a mistake. At least for now. We need to let the tech heads do their thing first. Tipping Nikolai off that we know what he’s up to will only confirm his suspicions and send him further underground. I’d rather the little mudak think he got away with it. It will embolden him to make even dumber mistakes. But I do want to know who he’s using to do his dirty work. It isn’t like Nikolai has a whole lot of friends with enough brains to pull this kind of shit off.”

“Pavel is already hard on that trail.”

“Yeah, I did get that impression.” We exchange a grin. For all our impatience with the tech heads, Dimitry and I have learned a healthy respect for their competitive nature—and their abilities.

Without them, there’d be no Mercura, and we both know it.

“The real question,” Dimitry says, frowning, “is what the fuck Nikolai is looking for. Has he really got enough brains, balls, or resources to even suspect what we’re doing out here? Let alone actually attempt to sabotage it?”

“Nikolai’s always been jealous of Hale. He ran that meeting with Cádiz FC behind my back. He met that fucking pap, Ryder, for reasons I still don’t understand. And he’s clearly in closer contact with Inger than I’m comfortable with. Let’s just say that combination adds up to a fuckton of trouble in my book.”

Dimitry nods. “Agreed.”

“Reach out to that kid from Pillars, the one who helped us out the other night. Gregor. Do it discreetly; we don’t want Nikolai freaking out. Find out what he knows, if anything.”

“Boss.”

“While we’re on the topic of that journalist. Ryder.” I look sideways at Dimitry. “Have you got anything on him yet?”

“I had Pavel on it, as you asked. This blew up before I had any answers.”

“And the little ratfuck himself? Ryder?”

“Gone.” His grim one-word answer contains a wealth of frustration. “I had him covered until this morning—when he managed to run into Lucia.”

What the fuck?

“She was meeting Abby,” Dimitry adds before I can erupt. “The men following Ryder saw him approach Lucia outside the café. They called me to ask what I wanted them to do, but before I had a chance to give them the go-ahead to grab the guy, Lucia had brushed him off and the fucker was gone. It took us an hour to pick up his trail again. By that time, he was on a flight to London. And before you ask,” he says, “I had men waiting to meet him in London. Problem is, he never turned up.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“As far as I can tell, he checked in and boarded. My guess is that he did a runner right before the plane took off. We haven’t been able to find him since.”

I digest this for a moment, with an increasing sense of unease.

“What did he talk to Lucia about?”

“Said he was a friend of Abby’s. Made some comment about Abby going to Pillars, and that she keeps interesting company. But my boys said the real reason Ryder was there was to get a happy snap. He had his camera right up in Lucia’s face, apparently.”

My unease snowballs.

“I know, I know,” Dimitry cuts in before I can speak. “We’ll find him. And I’ll get Pavel back on his trail tonight, trojan or no trojan.”

Thunder lights the sky, and the first rain starts to fall. I straddle the bike.

“Nice night for a ride,” Dimitry says, casting me a curious glance. “Boxing ring not enough punishment for one day?”

“Nope.” I pull my helmet on, then my gloves. “Keep me up to date. And I do mean up to date. I want to know anything there is to know.”

Dimitry gives me a shit-eating grin. “Then you’d better start answering your phone. Not like you to tap out for siesta.”

That comment throws me straight back to my penthouse this afternoon.

Lucia, wearing nothing more than a scrap of lacy underwear, legs spread over mine, writhing in ecstasy on my hand and cock. Lucia, face down on my dining table, me thrusting into her until she’s screaming my name and begging to come.

Lucia—with an Orlov sparrow on her back.

I scowl. “I thought I told you not to mention her.”

Dimitry raises his eyebrows. “I didn’t,” he says mildly. “But I’ll take that to mean I have Miss Lopez to blame for your time-out this afternoon.”

“Fuck off, Dimitry.”

His shit-eating grin doesn’t move. “Copy that, boss.”