Total D*ck(55)

One side of his lip quirked up. “Will you at least stay behind me, scrapper? I’m the one with the gun after all.”

“I will.” I opened the door and stepped out, the air faintly tinged with oil, but warmer than outside.

I closed my door softly and Kennedy did the same. As I was walking around the front of the car to him, the freight elevator clicked on and the car descended. Kennedy held out his free hand. I took it, and he pulled the gate back and we got on. Gun at the ready, he stood ahead of me.

“Here goes nothing.” He hit the button for the second floor and we began to rise.

Once we passed the ceiling of the first level, the second level appeared an inch at a time. It was wide open, modern, and well lit. The ceiling was high, pipes and ventilation glinting silver in the tasteful lights strewn about the space. A kitchen with a long narrow island sat to the left, and straight ahead was a seating area with a wall of monitors.

The elevator came to an abrupt stop. Kennedy gingerly opened the gate and stepped out, but put a hand out to his side, cautioning me to stay put. I ignored it and crept along behind him.

“Guys.” Carey’s disembodied voice. “If you could put the gun down, I’d come out. But I pretty much almost pissed myself and dived behind the island.”

“Are you safe? Has anyone been here?”

“This place is off the grid, all power from generators, nothing registered in my name. I have a state-of-the-art security system. No one’s getting in here unless they’re invited. Trust me.” A hand with familiar silver rings on the middle fingers shot up from behind the island and waved.

Kennedy dropped his pistol hand to his side and clicked the safety on. “Okay, I’m not going to accidentally pop you. You can come out.”

Carey pulled himself up and leaned over on the island. “What’s happened? Why did you call? And what’s with the gun?”

Safe. My knees wobbled and the room blurred in my vision.

“Whoa.” Kennedy wrapped his arm around my waist.

“Is she okay?” Carey perked up.

“Get her some water.” Kennedy walked me over to a sofa and sat me down.

The room still wavered in my vision as if I were viewing everything through heat rising from pavement.

Carey brought me a cold bottle of water and sat on my other side. Kennedy twisted the top off for me, and I took a drink. Closing my eyes, I let the cold shock my senses.

“What the fuck happened?” Carey grabbed a throw blanket and laid it across my back.

I kept sipping my water as Kennedy retold the entire affair, but left out the parts that hurt like ice shards lodging in my heart. What happened to Faye and Clinton and his men?

“This is more fucked up than I thought.” Carey rested his elbows on his knees and hung his head. “And not just because of what happened to you. I dug through the rest of the data on Fluffy’s drive. Nothing major, just details of how he broke in. But”—he canted his head so I could see his eyes—“I found out more from my contacts.”

“What?” Kennedy put his arm around my shoulders and took the water from my frigid hands.

“I know who ordered the break-in.”

“Who?” Kennedy and I said in unison.

“Rhone.”





Chapter Sixteen


Kennedy

“What?” Scarlett shook her head slowly. “That can’t be right.”

Carey leaned back into the couch and lolled his head back on the cushion. “I didn’t believe it at first, either. But I tracked down some other former associates—ones who weren’t as stand-up as Fluffy—and they confirmed it. Rhone paid Discord to hack its own system. Eric set up the server and the access so the breach could take place.”

“Why? Why would they do that?” Scarlett cradled her face in her hands.

I was just as dumbfounded, but I had to keep it together for her.

“Word is that Rhone wanted to sink Greenwood. They thought staging a data breach would be the way to do it.”

“But none of this makes sense,” Scarlett said. “None of it. Why would Rhone hire me to investigate and sue Greenwood? Why would they try to have us killed for doing exactly what they asked for?”

“That’s the worst part.” Carey sighed. Dark circles made half moons under his eyes, and he was wearing the same clothes I’d seen him in last. “I think everything was going according to plan until you hired me and I mentioned to you, in front of Eric and Frank Rhone, that I knew Fluffy.”

“That’s right.” Scarlett pulled the throw blanket around herself more tightly. “We were at their office when you recognized Fluffy’s calling card.”