Mr. CEO(76)

“Something that'll keep food in your belly, and maybe put some newer pants on your skinny ass,” Darcy says with a chuckle. “Totally legit, too. I built the system myself, and now the clients want to see if Coup De Grace can crack it.”

I arch an eyebrow. “You built it?”

“I built it. Hardware too, not that I'm telling you what I used. System's up right now with dummy data files. You get in there and leave behind your signature, you get ten grand.”

“And if I don't?” I ask. With Darcy's projects and offers, there's always a catch.

“I get twenty, and you get twenty percent, so I clear sixteen and you clear four. Difference of six grand for you.”

I chuckle and look up at the sky, then at the cathedral. The clouds are getting heavier, so I suspect by the time I get back to the loft, it'll be raining. Good, I need a reason to stay indoors now. “Fine. You know it's not going be that hard though, Darcy. You taught me everything you know.”

“Almost, Kat. Remember, you hack great, but I'm a great hacker.”

“We'll see. You giving me a deadline?”

Darcy nods. “One week. Just enough time for you to get the first bit out to Domino, then prep the next little needle for Peter. One last thing though... have you thought about the collateral damage? Andrea's even more innocent of this than Jackson. You could hurt the girl.”

I nod. “I've thought about it ever since we heard the rumors. But if she doesn't know, then she deserves to know. Besides, judging by everything I've researched on her... she's grown into one tough woman. I remember her as a little girl, she was tough then, too. You know she's the only one of us all that actually went to college? She's working on her MBA right now, and she's still only twenty.”

“Sounds like you admire her.”

I shrug. “I'm driven, not blinded. Not all the DeLaCoeurs are scum.”

“Yeah well, while you're being not blinded, keep your eyes especially open. Jeff heard that the Black Man is looking for you.”

I can't help it, but I shiver. Nathan Black is not someone I want on my tail, but I knew he and I might have to throw down at some point when I started this. “I figured. I know it must burn your ass that he's known as the Black Man.”

Darcy chuckles and shrugs. “Can't help it, it is his last name. Seriously, that's one badass son of a bitch, you keep yourself safe. He might even be able to take you in a fight.”

I nod and adjust my sunglasses. “He might. But bushido is realized in the presence of death.”

“Goddamn samurai.”





Chapter 6





Jackson





A week. I've been holed up in the mansion for a week, and it's driving me up a f*cking wall. There's only so many laps I can swim in the pool, so many workouts I can do in the gym in the garage, so many movies I can watch before I go apeshit.

Not that Pops cares. He's instructed the staff, and Nathan in particular, not to let me off the property, regardless of how I want to go about it. I'm not even allowed to walk out of here if I were feeling up to it. Mike won't even talk to me any longer. When I went to Pops to ask him about it, he just reiterated that Mike is no longer to answer to me, and works for only Pops now. Fucking ass.

So I find myself in the one room of the mansion I rarely visit, the library. Image is important to my family, so even though nobody other than Andrea's even ever actually been to college, we still have an impressive-looking library. The library contains mostly books bound in leather, but there are still some regular hardcovers and even some paperbacks. I start looking at the titles, idly wondering if anyone's actually taken them off the shelves and read them, or if the maid just comes by twice a week to dust them.

“You should try The Count of Monte Cristo. It's about someone seeking revenge for being wronged,” someone says behind me, and I turn to see Andrea sitting in one of the leather lounge chairs. Either she came in nearly silently, or maybe I'm just more distracted than I thought. Probably a bit of both, since she's capable of sneaking around like a ninja when she wants. She's dressed in her normal daytime clothes. For Andrea that means she's wearing her take on a power suit, wearing hip-hugging pants with a matching vest and blouse, plus four-inch heels. When you see the whole thing paired with her long, black hair cascading down her back, it gives her a really severe appearance. Andi's finishing up her MBA and probably can already take down a lot of young executives in the brains department. “It seems appropriate for what's going on in your life,” she remarks casually.

“Our lives,” I retort, moving over to sit down next to her. I'm wearing a tank top and shorts. When you see our outfits side by side, I look even more casual by comparison, but it's not like I need to get dressed up just to sit around the house. Hell, the staff should just consider themselves lucky I even took a shower before my workout today. “She embarrassed the whole family.”

Andrea scowls, making her look older than her twenty years. I've pointed that out to her before, but it just makes her scowl more when I do. “No, she embarrassed you. She pissed off Peter and put herself in danger as a result. But she hasn't done anything to me.”

“Whatever. If she takes down this family, which is what it seems like she wants to do, you can say sayonara to your gravy train, too.”