Page 96 of Start A War (Saint View Psychos)

She shrugged. “Axel thought they would. It’s sexy. It adds to the mystery. I mean, it’s not like they really conceal anyone’s identity, but you can kind of pretend for a minute, can’t you? It gives people a sense of bravery they might not otherwise have when they don’t have anything to hide behind. And the whole aim of our game is to get people dropping those inhibitions so they spend more money, have more sex, and keep coming back, right?”

I understood completely. I already wanted to be wearing one at the next party. Even though I’d be working, not participating, there was a safety in being a little anonymous. “There’s so many here. We should definitely start using them again.”

“Agreed.” Then a smile spread across her face. “Axel fucked up the initial order. He meant to order a thousand. But then ten thousand arrived. The company wouldn’t take them back because they were personalized. He was so cranky. I’d bet there’s tons more boxes of them out back somewhere.”

I smiled at the imagined image of my brother standing helplessly by as box after box of sex club masks were unloaded off a truck.

I turned back to the box. “How many do you think we’ll need for Friday?”

She shrugged. “Anywhere from three to six hundred? It depends on the night really.”

I eyed the box critically. “I’m going to count how many is in this open box so we can be prepared. And think up some sort of display for them so everyone can take one as they enter.”

“Have fun. I’ve got more drinks to deal with, so I’ll leave you to it.”

“Thanks.”

When she left, I squinted at the box critically. Design and aesthetics were not really my thing, but I wanted it to look nice. And handing them out of a brown cardboard box was not going to fly. I dumped them out onto Nash’s desk, thinking again how much I needed an office of my own. Nash was going to kill me when he saw the mess I was making.

The masks tumbled out, a piece of paper fluttering after them. I picked it up, turning it over to see the writing, and then laughed. It was the invoice from the company who’d made the masks. “That definitely says ten thousand in the quantity section, Axel. Not 1000. You really should have checked your order before you hit send.”

My heart gave a little squeeze, realizing this was as close as I’d ever get to talking to my brother again. I was about to put the paper back into the box when Axel’s email address caught my eye.

The police had seized all of Axel’s possessions from the club in the days after his death. His house was still locked up as a murder scene under investigation, until whenever the gang task force got around to Axel’s case, so I hadn’t been able to get in there yet to search through any of his things.

But this email address was web based. I hadn’t thought much about it until now, because it’s not like he would have just been sending emails back and forth with drug dealers.

But he clearly did have an email he used.

I glanced out of the doorway, but Nash was still nowhere to be seen. Shoving aside the masks, I uncovered Nash’s laptop but was halted at the sign-in page. I didn’t know his password.

I pulled out my phone instead, bringing up the email website’s login page. I hesitated for a second, because trying to break into someone’s email didn’t sit well with me. But neither did the notion that Nash might not be what he seemed. And maybe Axel’s emails would hold some sort of clue as to what had been going on in his life.

I desperately wanted to know.

So I pushed aside the part of me screaming that this wasn’t morally right.

Neither was selling drugs or running a sex club, but those lines had already been crossed. Might as well jump a few more.

“Okay, username or email. That one is easy.” I copied out the email address from the top of the invoice and then sat back, staring at the password field.

The cursor blinked at me accusingly.

“If I were Axel, what password would I choose? Maybe something to do with football.” I knew he’d played in school for Saint View High, so I plugged in their team name, plus a couple of variations. They all came back with a red “Incorrect password or username” message.

“Okay, fine. Not football. What about Psychos…”

That was a no-go too.

“What’s the password, Axel?” I drummed my fingers on the desktop.

It jogged a memory loose in my head.

“You need to say the magic password to get those candies.”

“Sandwiches!”

With trembling fingers, I typed it in.

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