Page 1 of Matched into the Mob

ONE

MATT

Because of my work, I kept a low profile these days.

My life depended on it.

Lying on the couch, I stared at peeling paint on the ceiling and picked at a hole in a sofa cushion before grabbing my phone.

Not having had access tothisdevice in days, there were a number of missed calls and a whole heap of crap in my inbox and message folder. My index finger spun into action, hovering over the delete button.

There were messages announcing a cataclysmic event and pleas to buy whatever the sender was selling. I labeled them as junk, and they vanished. Ignoring invitations to dinner and a concert, I hit delete again and again.

Are you up for a round?

Rubbing a hand over my eyes, I erased that too. My finger worked overtime as I yawned, my vision blurry while scrolling and deleting the crap that had accumulated.

I paused at another spammy text.

I’ll drag you there if you don’t agree to come.

Unusual tactic for a spammer. If I had the energy, I’d get my tech guy, Baxter, to hack into their account and… what? Deleteit? There were worse consequences for a cyber pest, but I was too tired to come up with a more drastic punishment.

And yeah, yeah, hacking was bad, but I wouldn’t be doing my current job if not for Baxter’s hacking ability. Without his help, my lifeless body would probably be encased in a block of cement.

You need to get out more, and I haven’t seen you in ages.

This person was determined to get my attention. But as I was about to hit delete, I glanced at the sender. Probably should have done that sooner. Oops! It was my older brother, Josh. Not a spammer, just him being really irritating.

Scrolling through the deleted messages, I re-read Josh’s first two messages. Something was missing. A round of what? Drinks? Nope, not when I was working. Applause? Why yes, I’d take a bow. Poker? Nah, I wasn’t a gambler. Golf? Boxing?

Whatever it was, I was supposed to leave home to do it.

Josh was an idealist, always looking for the good in people and assuming things would work out, no matter how lousy life was. He was a good guy who worked for a charity, and he’d been my father figure after our folks died.

And me?My outlook on life was more bleak.He was an optimist, and I was the opposite, always assuming the worst. How were we siblings? Somehow we muddled along.

I couldn’t make sense of his messages, and my eyes fluttered and closed. I should crawl into bed, but the sofa was comfortable and I’d finished the frozen dinner I'd microwaved earlier.

Maybe Josh’s account had been hacked. That would be hilarious… sort of… not really, because of my current work. But there was a fourth and fifth message, talking about an event tomorrow evening.

Rather than respond, I ignored the texts and tossed the phone aside. But the phone buzzing sent my heart racing. I’d lived on a tightrope of tension for weeks… months, if I counted all the preparation and interviews.

A ringing phone could signal an impending disaster or a huge scoop that would elevate me to the top of my profession.

My emotions seesawed as I checked the caller ID. Josh!

“So, are you coming?” He didn’t wait for me to say hello.

I hadn’t come in a while, thanks to my dual identity and not allowing myself to get close to anyone. “Huh?”

“The speed-dating event.” There was a slight pause, and Josh gushed,“We’re both going. You have no life, it’s always work work work.”

Josh didn’t know the half of it. He believed, ‘cause I’d told him, that I was a sub-editor at the newspaper where I worked. He joshed—it was his little joke, as that was his name—that few newspapers existed in the twenty-first century and I was really a spy.

He was closer to the truth than he imagined and might not have believed me if I’d spilled the details. Not that I would. Josh’s superpower, if I could call it that, was empathy, not keeping secrets.

“Explain, please.”

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