Page 79 of Pack of Crooks
“Yeah, I can make arrangements. Is everything okay?”
I nod. “It will be.” If she says yes. I can’t focus too hard on the possibility of her saying no. There’s no world I want to live in without her being ours. The subway approaches her stop. I take a mint and descenting wipe out of my pocket. “I wasn’t supposed to touch you,” I tell her with a wry grin. “Sometimes I can’t control myself.”
She bites her lip, takes the mint and wipe. “I like your scent,” she says with a frown.
Pleasure dances down my spine. “You still have the lotion I sent?”
She nods, a blush crawling up her cheek. My dick hardens. I thought she might like my present. Too bad she can’t wear it to work so she could smell like mine all day long. We can’t give Tristan a reason to suspect something is up, though.
“Wear the lotion to the hub, and I promise to mark you again.”
The subway begins to approach her stop. I stand, but she catches my wrist. Glancing down at her, I lift an eyebrow in question.
“You didn’t give me your four truths.”
I grin. “Guess that means you’ll have to see me again.” Anything to keep her coming back for more.
She narrows her eyes, but there’s a small smile twitching at the edges of her lips. I force myself to step away before I do something that would jeopardize our entire operation.
“Catcha later, sunshine.”
She arrives for the meeting early, but she’s not the first one here. Bubblepop and Roscoe are already working. I watch her for a moment on the security feed as she breezes through the room like a beam of sunshine and dressed for seduction. Her top is high-collared, sleeveless, and my new favorite shade of green, and that skirt. The material isn’t perfectly symmetrical, overlapping so that the material peaks and reveals flashes of thigh. The metal chains that swoop from her side to the front of her hip are a pointless accessory, but my fingers curl into fists as I imagine using them to reel her in.
Kill had warned her about coming to the hub dressed like this, but he’s not here.
I guess that means I’m in charge of punishment. Locking the computer and rising, I stride toward the door that separates me from my omega. Every muscle in my body strains for her and I haven’t even scented her yet. Thank fuck no one else is here. I want her all to myself before I share her with my pack mates.
The office slides open. Everyone turns toward me, but the bunny mask turns last. Like she knows she’s broken a rule and wants to be defiant.
Everyone wears a mask in the hub. We vet everyone who comes to work for us, but there’s no telling who’s been compromised, and if someone is going to work with the feds, they don’t need to know what we look like. Right now, though, I hate that I can’t see her face or fully make out the challenge that’s no doubt shimmering in her eyes.
The possibilities of how the night could end rush through my mind. A feral smile rips across my face, but my purge mask hides it. Good thing too. I don’t need the others talking, though after I’m done with her, they’ll more than know exactly what it is I want from Hazel.
Forcing my attention away from her, I take the time to look at the team of hackers for the same amount of time, so the suspended silence feels deliberate instead of favored toward one person. Bubblepop’s Scream mask is the last before I dole out tonight’s instructions.
Last time, we managed to infiltrate the Wi-Fi of Kain Industries’ oldest acquisition. Tanked the stocks. Ruined the company. Tonight, we make our next move. Owned by the second largest shareholder, McArthur Security claims to be the best VPN and antivirus software, but what it doesn’t tell its customers is that McArthur has a background program that steals identities.
It doesn’t take a genius to guess what happens next.
The very company that claims to protect people is the one that’s putting their livelihood at risk.
That’s how it goes though. The bad disguise themselves as good, playing dress up in suits and sipping expensive scotch when they’d rather have the blood of their victims. With these people, underneath all that money and glam is a predator.
“Tonight, we will monitor and review. We’ve laid the groundwork to take this company down, but I want to know how Vance McArthur takes his coffee, how many times he takes a shit, his blood pressure.” I pause and take a breath. “I want everything you can find on him, because when we’re done, there’s no room for him to reinvent himself. He’s dead.”
For real or figuratively, it doesn’t matter much to me.
Bubblepop cracks her knuckles. “Let me at him, coach.”
Brotherly affection fills my chest for the woman who found me after she lost everything thanks to Kain Industries. She and a team of her closest friends created a streaming platform that had the power to revolutionize how people listened to music, but Tristan’s investors came in, as they always do, and bought her brain child in a multi-million dollar deal and swiftly killed it.
How does one keep the market share of consumers?
By eliminating any alternatives.
Bubblepop has been impatiently waiting to get back at the company who destroyed her legacy.
“Remember, this is death by a thousand cuts, not death by a knife to the jugular.”
