Page 16 of Kings & Chaos

Finally, I reached another door, this one reinforced steel. The entire wall was steel, like a steel box dropped inside the warehouse, and this time, the door buzzed by itself.

They knew I was here. No one entered this building without someone knowing they were here.

I stepped inside a windowless, high-ceilinged room with computers extending to the back wall where rows of servers hummed quietly, their lights blinking like a warning.

Only three of the workstations were being used, and I headed for the guy in the back, his leather cut emblazoned with the Blackwell Blades’ logo, a pair of daggers forming an X over a blood-drenched skull.

“Wait,” he said before I even reached him.

His workstation was different from the rest, not one computer but several, the monitors different sizes alongside laptop running code. His fingers flew over the keyboard in front of him, but I made a point of standing back and not looking.

Most of the time I wanted to know everything that went on in Blackwell Falls, but this was an exception.

The less I knew about what went on in this building, the better. I was used to dealing with the Feds. I’d been taught how to navigate an arrest by the fucking Feds while I ate my Cap’n Crunch and watched cartoons.

Homeland Security was a whole different animal.

The man in front of me stopped typing and turned in his swivel chair to face me. I never got over the sheer size of the guy. He was like a linebacker who’d powered a few too many kegs of beer, his nearly bald head enormous and gleaming.

“Wish I had a camera crew,” he said in a deep raspy voice. “Must be something big if I’m getting a visit from the fucking king.”

I reached out to clasp his hand. “Aloha. Thanks for seeing me.”

It hadn’t been a given. Aloha’s loyalty was to the Blades, and while the Blades and Kings had plenty of business together, ours was an uneasy alliance.

The beautiful bald woman who sat next to him continued to type like she was alone in the room, even though she wasn’t wearing earbuds to block out my conversation with Aloha.

Fucking hackers man. They lived in a world of their own.

“What can I do for you?” Aloha asked. “And what will you do for me?”

That’s how it worked in Blackwell Falls. Nothing came easy, and nothing was free.

“Need a deep dive on someone,” I said. “I’ll cut two payments off the loan.”

The year before, we’d loaned the Blades a hefty sum after one of their arms deals went bad. The money had been nothing — it was the favor that counted.

A favor like this one.

“Four,” Aloha said.

He had me by the balls and he knew it. I could go somewhere else for the information, but it would mean using the Alinari family’s resources, and that wasn’t an option.

“Three,” I said.

He tipped his head, thinking about it, then nodded. “Three’s good.”

“Cool,” I said. “Name of the guy is Zachary Walsh.”

Aloha’s eyebrows lifted. “Dead guy who confessed to killing that girl from Bellepoint?”

“That’s the one.”

“What do you want to know?” he asked.

“Everything. Background, financial information, arrest record, known associates, etcetera.”

A laugh rumbled from Aloha’s chest. “This is some real true crime shit.”

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