“I find myself not giving a fuck about what happens to you, to be fair,” Grudge says.
“What else do you know about Chase?” I ask.
Mika wipes his nose on the back of his sleeve. “You can’t trust him. When I heard about the fire at the address I’d given him, I messaged him, asking if the person he was chasing had died. Or if he knew who set the fire. He told me my work was done, my usefulness expired, and that I shouldn’t contact him again. Am I at risk?”
Wraith chuckles. “Five men break into your house, and you’re askingusif you’re safe?”
“Are you the cartel after them?”
“Show us the messages,” I say. Not only do I want to see them, but I also want to know what equipment out of this computer spare parts store I need to take with us.
“Please, just leave me alone and?—”
The click of Atom’s weapon replaces the need for words as Mika quickly sits back in his chair and spins to face his monitors.
With a few clicks, I see the messages, everything exactly how Mika said it happened. I can hear the panic in Mika’s messages after the fire, when he thinks the person he was helping stay safe is now possibly dead because of his actions.
I feel sick for Wren when I see Chase is also using their deadname half the time.
“We’re taking all this,” I say.
Mika recoils. “You can’t. This is my livelihood.”
“We can,” Grudge says. “We’re taking the laptop, and the tower, and your fucking phone. You can either help us make it fast and clean, or you can make it messy for everyone.”
I see a pile of antistatic sleeves and throw some stacked drives into them. Atom unplugs the tower.
“Stop. Please,” Mika yells. “You take all that, I’m dead.”
“Look at it this way,” Wraith says. “Without all this shit, you’re harder to find. If we could find you, they could too.”
Smoke grins. “Technically, we just did you a favor. Making it easier for you to ghost. You’re now nothing but a rumor in a hoodie.”
A red-blue bloom appears on the wall through the basement window.
“Cops,” Grudge says. “We need to get out of here.”
“There’s no siren, though,” I say. “Might just be a community drive by.”
I hold my breath. Wraith scours the basement for an out. “Those windows are too small to get through.”
Smoke jogs to the top of the stairs, then comes back down. “Quick. We can get out the back.”
I look around. “But the rest of the equipment…”
Grudge pulls his gun out and puts it to Mika’s skull. “Give us everything worth taking. You fuck it up, you don’t give us everything, I’ll come back and put a bullet through your fucking skull.”
Mika panics and throws a couple more drives our way. Then, Grudge shoves his hand into the guy’s pocket and takes his phone.
“Hey, I still owe money on that phone.”
“Tough shit,” Grudge says.
We make our way up the steps to the hallway. Atom carries the big tower beneath his arm. I carry the bag of drives. Wraith has two laptops. Grudge has the phone, two memory sticks, and a Faraday bag with unknown contents.
The back door is still pushed open a little, and we step outside before hurrying to the rear of the property, where we hop the fence into the neighbor’s yard. There’s much passing of equipment as we each make the leap.
But something makes me look back.
