Page 62 of Hero Worship

The sun climbed higher over Paris as we finalized details, warming the dregs of our coffee. We had ten hours until Roche's party. Ten hours to prepare for whatever waited in that mansion full of beautiful, deadly things.

Maybe the unlikely alliance between my overprotective brother and my possessive handler would be enough to get us through the night.

Maybe it would be enough to keep us all alive.

The hotel suite hadtransformed into an impromptu command center, laptops and surveillance equipment scattered across every surface. Xavier hunched over three screens, his massive headphones thumping bass loud enough that I could hear it from across the room. Behind him, laid out with military precision across the bed, were the evening's party clothes, though calling them clothes was charitable. Each piece had been chosen to draw exactly the kind of attention we needed at Roche's private showing.

The designer's reputation for these events was carefully hidden behind closed doors and NDAs, but the implicationswere clear in the dress code requirements: minimal and memorable. The kind of party where phones were surrendered at the door and guests used fake names to protect their reputations.

I watched Xavier work, cataloging details with decades of behavioral analysis experience. The predatory grace of his movements, the absolute focus as he navigated digital landscapes I couldn't begin to understand. Each keystroke was precise, like a sniper adjusting for wind conditions. But there was tension in his shoulders that hadn't been there before he'd discovered exactly what kind of showing we were infiltrating.

"What exactly are you doing?" I asked, moving closer to study the rapidly scrolling text across his screens.

"Someone else is probing Roche's security network," Xavier replied without looking up, his fingers never pausing their dance across the keys. "Not just random hackers, either. This is professional work." His smile turned sharp. "Going by the signature, it's KitchenSink."

“You know them?” I asked.

Xavier nodded. "She's ex-FSB cybersecurity who went private sector. Named herself after the time she crashed an oligarch's smart home system and made every faucet in his mansion run simultaneously." He slammed another energy drink, eyes locked on his center screen. "We've had some interesting run-ins in certain digital circles."

The EDM pulsing from his discarded headphones took on a more aggressive beat as his typing speed increased. "And right now she's trying to slip past Roche's security using..." He broke off in a laugh that held more appreciation than humor. "Using a modified version of code I wrote last year. Fucking Russians, always stealing my work."

"Sounds almost like you respect her," Xander said from their position by the window.

"We've never met in person." Xavier's smile turned sharp as his screens filled with new data. "But we keep running into each other digitally. Usually on opposite sides of whatever clusterfuck the bratva's cooking up." His fingers danced across keys in a blur. "Though I have to admit, she's got style. Watch this..."

He typed out a quick message in what looked like Cyrillic, then hit enter. The response was more Cyrillic text accompanied by a GIF of a small animated ghost giving the middle finger.

"Cute." Xavier's laugh held genuine amusement as he cracked his knuckles. "Game on, girl."

The digital sparring match unfolding across Xavier's screens was like watching a chess game played with nuclear codes. Every probe met with a countermeasure, every breach attempt turned back with elegant precision. Xavier's fingers never stopped moving, but his lips curved into a smile as new messages appeared in rapid succession.

"She's good," Xavier said, more to himself than us. "Using the security team's own protocols against them. Making them chase shadows while she..." He trailed off, something shifting in his expression. "Oh shit."

"What?" I moved closer to the monitors, though the scrolling code meant nothing to me. Two decades of tactical training hadn't prepared me for this kind of warfare.

"She's not trying to breach the main security system." Xavier's voice held a mix of admiration and concern. "She's accessing the guard rotation schedules. Cross-referencing them with..." His hands flew across three keyboards simultaneously. "Fuck. She's mapping the blind spots. Creating windows."

I leaned closer to the monitors. That didn’t sound like someone planning to steal art or data. They were looking for holes in human surveillance and gaps in physical security coverage. The kind of intel you'd need to move people, not objects.

"For an extraction," I said, the pieces clicking into place. "They're mapping paths to move bodies through the building without being seen. Someone's planning to get people out during the party."

"Makes sense." Xavier didn't look away from his screens. "Maximum chaos, minimum witnesses. Everyone focused on the beautiful people while a team slips in through the staff entrance. Could be a rival collector, could be family, could even be another assassin who caught the same contract."

"Or Viktor," I said quietly. The words made Xander's shoulders tense where he stood by the window. When he turned to meet my eyes, I saw my own suspicions reflected there. Viktor's surveillance photos, his barely contained rage at the dinner… Maybe the old bastard's paternal instincts weren't completely dead after all.

Another message popped up, this one accompanied by what looked like a tiny animated bear drinking vodka. "She's good. But she's not as good as me."

His fingers blurred across keys as he typed out a response in Cyrillic. The answering message came almost instantly, followed by a stream of code that made Xavier actually laugh out loud.

"Oh, you want to play?" He cracked his knuckles, grinning like a predator who'd just spotted prey. "Let's play."

I crossed to where Xander still stood by the window, drawn by the tension I could read in their posture. My hands found their hips automatically, needing the contact to ground us both as I processed the new complications.

"Three different players moving at once," Xander murmured, leaning back against me slightly. "All with their own agendas. This just got a lot more complicated."

"Then we adapt," I said quietly, keeping my voice low enough that Xavier couldn't hear. "Use the chaos to our advantage. Get to Misha before anyone else can move."

Behind us, Xavier made a triumphant sound. "Got you, you beautiful genius." His screens filled with new data, windows popping up faster than I could track. "She let me catch her. Wanted me to see what she's planning."

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