Page 79 of The Dis-Graced

“God, I hate being around eggheads,” Zevran quips, then looks over to Jim. “I’m sure you’re bored out of your noodle.”

“I’m just here to listen,” Jim says in a flat tone.

Gabriel takes a pull of Scotch. “At first, I didn’t know if perhaps you were behind the offer.”

My lip curls into a sneer. “Me, behind the theft and sale of my tech innovation?”

“Well, your family is kind of like a mafia, and I didn’t know if you wanted to take the whole cut for yourself. And, well, it could very well be that it’s a fib, and you’re making a play to see what I’ve developed so far.”

“I’m not looking to prove anything to you, so if you’re angling for a demo, you’re out of luck. At this point, I’m sure I’ve pinpointed who the culprit is, I’m just gathering information.”

“Oh, I’ve already had a demo.”

I narrow my eyes, praying my ears have deceived me. “Excuse me?”

Gabriel takes out his phone, tinkers with the screen, and ALAN’s voice fills the room.

It’s not the prim and proper ALAN inside my apartment. In the bored and crass ALAN from the lab, the one that gets huffy when he doesn’t understand a plot arc in a show that he likes. But ALAN’s voice isn’t the most telling aspect of the recording. It’s the voice that accompanies his.

Luke.

“I believe you, now, put it away.”

“Well, that’s not all.”

Holy fuck, what else does he have?

“I was given a few lines of code from the reasoning center of his programming.”

My heart sinks. All of ALAN’s code is intellectual property, and can’t outright be stolen, but the coding language he’s in makes him distinct, and it’s had a hand in ensuring its success. Gabriel having access to it will certainly give him a leap ahead.

“I have to admit, it’s quite brilliant. Almost primitive. I never thought to go down that path, but now, I see the genius of it.”

“Merry fucking Christmas,” I reply back.

“Oh, don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me, though I can’t say it is with all the other potential buyers.”

“Wait, other potential buyers?”

“I had an inkling that I wasn’t the only one approached, so I reached out to Aston, Bart, and Chan. Aston and Chan have both been made an offer.”

“Fuck! Dammit all to hell.”

Gabriel’s mouth twitches to the side. “So, about this leak…”

My eyes narrow. Sure, I’m pissed as hell at Luke, but I still don’t feel right talking about him behind his back. “That’s not for us to discuss here and now.”

“It’s that friend of yours, isn’t it? The one from college.”

I answer in silence.

“I get it, you were betrayed. I know betrayal, trust me.”

I take another pull of Scotch, thinking over how I’m actually going to call the feds on my best friend. Or who I thought was my best friend.

“We never did chat much. I mean, or parents were rivals, and you always had your brothers. And then there was Luke. I was actually jealous of you having him. I mean, we have to be so careful about who we trust, it’s ingrained in us since birth. I don’t know what my father would have done if I had befriended someone from such…unfortunate circumstances. But what you two had was real.”

“Apparently not.”