Page 10 of Beau and the Beast

"Holy shit, you guys broke up? Why didn't you tell me?"

Beau shot him a dubious look. "Excuse me, I guess I got a little distracted with my brother's kamikaze plan to get fifty G’s. How unreasonable of me."

Noah chuckled. "I'm proud of you, though. That guy was dead weight from the beginning."

"He's not so bad," Beau said, not sure why he was feeling suddenly defensive. "I just... don't love him."

"No love lost between him andme, either," Noah said. "The dude's a brute."

"He's not a brute—"

“I saw him crush a beer can on his forehead one time.”

“Ok, but—”

“I listened to him burp the Star Spangled Bannerin public,Beau. I watched him drink a pitcher of beer out of aFrisbee.”

“Ok. Well.”

“I’ve seen him play cornhole with condoms full of pudding. I watched him explain, in detail, the difference between beer pong and Beirut. I’ve seen him drink Franzia straight out of the bag like a suckling calf, Beau.”

“Fine, fuck, you win.”

“You always fall for such monsters.”

Beau sighed. He couldn’t exactly argue with that. He watched his brother struggle to spool up pasta around his fork.

“Honestly, I should’ve seen it coming,” Noah said. “You always liked the villains more than the heroes in stories, anyway.”

Chapter Three

Violet was shockedwhen Geoffrey called a staff meeting just a few days after he’d scoffed at hers.

Geoffreyhatedmeetings.

They gathered in the living room this time, Geoffrey sitting on the edge of the coffee table with his fingers laced.

“I’ve got good news and I’ve got very, very bad news,” he said.

“Hit us with the bad news first,” Song suggested.

“Someone has pictures of Wolfram.”

It felt like all of the air had been sucked out of the room.

“Like… 2007 Wolfram or 2017 Wolfram?” Alfie asked.

It was a useless question. They all knew that a photo of 2007 Wolfram wouldn’t warrant a staff meeting. Geoffrey didn’t even bother answering. He just shook his head.

“How?Who?” Violet asked.

Geoffrey sighed, laced his fingers, and explained what had happened. As their tech and security guy, Geoffrey had put plenty of safeguards in place that prevented anyone from tapping into the security system inside of the penthouse. He hadn’t, however, put the same sort of intense measures in place for the security that protected the rest of the floor.

Yes, he’d developed plenty of safeguards for the elevator, the lobby, the hallway outside of the condo. But no, he’d never seen a reason, after that first year, to put the redundant, ironclad guards in place that he’d instituted inside of the penthouse.

“So somebody hacked you,” Violet said, wanting him to get to the point.

“Somebody hackedus,” Geoffrey corrected. “A kid on the other side of New Whitby, actually. He managed to take control of one of the cameras in the hallway outside the doorandhe managed to do it just as our boss was in the midst of one of his signature sleepwalking sessions.

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