Page 1 of Indecent Demands

Chapter1

Seth

Iwas in the office holding down the fort when I got the call about the job. Of course I was on my own, since my two partners, Vaughn and Bryce, were on other assignments. They always seemed to get the exciting jobs while I, the man with the hacking abilities, sat behind my desk most of the time using my computer skills in various ways.

My specialty in the military had been technology and I’d been the one to put our IT team together at Elite Protection and Consulting when we founded this security company. I enjoyed what I did, but my hacking skills were low on the list of client requests compared to Bryce and Vaughn’s offerings.

Even my time after work had grown more . . . quiet and boring, since both Bryce and Vaughn now had women to occupy their time and preferred their company over mine after hours. Go figure.

Vaughn claimed I just didn’t understand because I was single. I hadn’t ever been in love. And honestly, that comment was damn rich coming from the man who had claimed he hated people too much to ever want to spend the rest of his life with one. He was almost as bad as Bryce, our perpetual playboy—at least until Leigh walked into his life and stabbed his heart with one of her stiletto heels. Leigh was terrifying, which was why I liked her. She was good for Bryce, just like Claire was good for Vaughn.

While I rolled my eyes at Vaughn’s declarations, I could admit I felt a little… left out. It had been one thing when it was just Vaughn and Claire. But then Bryce fell for Leigh—and that had been fine, especially since Leigh now worked with us and I considered her a friend. But seriously, I was now the odd man out.

Okay, so maybe Iwaswondering when I’d find someone who accepted me the way my friends had. So what? I wasn’t going to dwell on it. I told myself the moment I started looking was the moment the game was up.

None of my friends had been searching for love when they’d found it. We were rough men who’d had difficult lives. We killed people when necessary and we weren’t always moral or legal in how we went about protecting our clients. It was hard to find a woman who would accept that—the light and the dark within us. But if my friends had gotten lucky, I told myself I would, too. I just couldn’t be desperate for it.

The call came in, distracting me, and thank fuck—it was a tech job. Rare, but those requests gave me my own personal boost of adrenaline. Computers were, to me, like how musical instruments were to other people. I loved seeing how they worked and learning every inch of their hardware and software, making them sing for me in their own unique way. Vaughn hated tech jobs, and Bryce had no clue about the finer workings of anything electronic, but we hadn’t received a lot of those assignments lately, which had been fine with my partners.

As for me, I’d felt increasingly annoyed, but now my itch would be scratched and I couldn’t be happier to relieve my own personal stress by diving into a case that was well suited to my interests and abilities.

I listened patiently to what the potential client—Damien Harcourt, the CEO of the Smirtech company—wanted. Apparently, someone had been systematically robbing them. Their accounts were out of whack, and Damien’s suspicion was that someone high up—someone he otherwise trusted—had been altering the finances and figures.

“The money and expenses just aren’t adding up,” he explained on the phone while I paced leisurely back and forth in my office.

Unless I was working with computers, I didn’t like to sit still. There were few things that could calm the restless energy inside of me. Diving deep into computers and their inner workings was one of them. The other…well, those distinct and erotic proclivities were another reason I was unsure a woman would ever want to be with me on a long term basis.

“Are you suspicious of anyone in particular?” I asked.

“No. We’re a rapidly growing company, especially since we opened our cryptocurrency division, and I’ve had to rely a lot on my C-level team to handle our growth and development. I trust all of them—or I did until I realized that money was leaving our company and vanishing.” He exhaled a frustrated stream of breath before continuing. “I don’t know where it’s going, but I know that the expenses listed are simply untenable and they don’t make any sense. Someone’s trying to make it look like we’re spending money on viable expenses, but I know how my company runs, Mr. Maxwell. I know what we do and don’t need.”

“Of course, of course,” I soothed. I wasn’t anywhere near Bryce when it came to my people skills but at least I was sympathetic, unlike Vaughn who had no patience for coddling. “I think it’s very responsible of you to keep such a close eye on everything. Most CEOs let the rapid success get to their heads and next thing you know they’re scrambling to find a way out of debt.”

“Will you be able to find the rat?” Damien asked. “I don’t think I can trust my internal tech team since I don’t know who’s responsible, and I don’t know enough to trace where the money is disappearing to do it myself. I’ve made a few attempts, but this person seems to have prepared for an internal investigation and the trail keeps getting stymied.”

That was typical of a professional embezzler—which made me instantly suspect that if it was a C-level executive betraying Damien, then they’d hired someone either from the tech team or from the outside to really put in the dirty work. Most executives barely knew how to update their phones, never mind staying one step ahead in a financial scam. It was why they were so easy to catch. Ponzi schemes, that was all these idiots knew, and even that wasn’t fool proof and eventually collapsed in on itself.

“Of course I’ll do my absolute best, Mr. Harcourt,” I assured him. “However, I think we need to proceed with caution. If the person rerouting these funds is close to you and knows that you’re looking into things, they might cut and run or do something else to wipe away the evidence of what they’ve done. We don’t want that. Perhaps you can bring me on as a consultant, or for another reason? We’re coming up on the time you’ll need to do a quarterly report, so it could be related to that.”

“Yes, yes, good idea.” I could easily imagine Damien nodding eagerly along with my suggestions. “I’ll figure something out so no one thinks twice about why you’re the new guy at the company.”

Perfect.“In the meantime, I’d like you to compile a list of who you think could be skimming off the top, and who in your company would have the access, the ambition, and the selfishness to do something like this. Once you have a list compiled, I can investigate each person independently while I'm also following the digital trail in your system. Sound good?”

“Yes, I can do that.”

“Excellent.” I stopped pacing and glanced out the window overlooking the city skyline, my mind already on the job. “It will take a few days for us to plan everything and set me up, and then I can come into the office. I’ll have to be on-sight for a lot of the investigation. It’s always best to search the computers themselves rather than trying to hack in to them from a distance. Does that work for you?”

“Yes, that’ll work.” Relief suffused his voice. “I don’t want to lose any more money than I need to, but I don’t want this person to get suspicious. Take the time you need to do this right.”

“I appreciate that, Mr. Harcourt.” I nodded absently. “You can be assured you’ll have my full attention on this case.”

I always appreciated it when our clients could actually be reasonable. People came to us scared, upset, and fearing for their lives. They came to us on the verge of losing their companies or their loved ones. That meant—understandably—they could be pretty damn upset and not in the mood when they learned their needs couldn’t be met immediately.

Luckily, Damien Harcourt didn’t seem the type. Thank fuck.

Privately, I hoped this job would be a bit difficult to solve. I wanted something intellectually stimulating. I wanted an exciting challenge.

If I’d known what was in store for me, I might not have hoped for that quite so hard.

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