“Get fucked.”
Another laugh. “So, can you fix the laptop?”
I so badly wanted to say yes, for this whole episode to be over, but I couldn’t. No one had managed to crack Slowhand yet, not even me.
“Honestly, I’d have a better chance of finding Dark Descent’s secret lair than decrypting this hard drive any time soon.”
“Is that a joke?”
“Of course it’s a fucking joke.”
“Well, sometimes it’s hard to tell with you. You don’t have much of a sense of humour.”
“That’s rich, coming from a woman who sows misery wherever she goes.”
“If you’re going to be like that, I won’t offer to help. Doesn’t Slowhand have a time limit?”
Yeah, it did, and now I tried to block out Nolan’s movements and calculate the timeline. One week to pay—because Dark Descent claimed to be a benevolent blackmailer who understood that not everyone had ten thousand bucks sitting around. Then the first copy of the video got posted. They’d upload it to a new site each day until the ransom was handed over.
A couple of days for Nolan to tell Brax about the issue.
Four days for Jez to find me.
Another day to get here.
More than likely, the video was out there already.
Fuck.
“Guess I have to start playing whack-a-mole.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to pay up?”
Was I tempted to pay the ransom? To make it all go away? Ten thousand bucks was nothing to me, but I had principles, and I didn’t negotiate with bottom feeders. It was like feeding the trolls—it only made them stronger. Plus the victims were marked as easy targets, and their details got sold to other scammers, over and over again.
“Yes, it would be easier,” I said, and it was Jez’s turn to sigh. Most regular human people would put the ransom on a credit card and try to forget the whole thing, but Jez wasn’t most people, and there was some debate over whether she was even human. No, she was exceptional, and that’s why we were besties, even if she was an annoying bitch at times. “But Dark Descent needs to be taught a lesson.”
“Fine. If you find me an address, I’ll get your encryption key. Damn, is Nolan still going?”
Yes. Yes, he was. At least his face was in shadow, and only his flickery little smile was visible. Why were men so obsessed with getting off all the time? And why did they need to watch nearly naked women while they did it? I sure hoped he’d sanitised the chair afterward. And the desk. And the keyboard. He gave a long, drawn-out groan, and white goo splattered onto his chest. Gross.
“You want another coffee?” he asked from the doorway.
I yelped and jumped halfway out of my seat, intending to slam the lid of the laptop and hang up my call with Jez. But what I actually did was knock the laptop onto the floor and juggle the phone once, twice, three times, before I sent it skidding across the desk. The screen went dark.
But the laptop? The laptop might have had many flaws, but flimsiness unfortunately wasn’t one of them. The video played on, now with sound coming through the speakers rather than my headphones, and we both stared in horror.
“What the fuck?” Nolan whispered.
Wasn’t that my line?
I threw up my hands. “This is why men shouldn’t jack off to porn on the internet. They end up downloading malware, and then the malware turns on their webcam, encrypts their data, and locks their device. And then they call their old friend Alexa to come and fix the problem, and shit like this”—I gestured wildly at the laptop—“begins playing at inopportune moments.”
Nolan shoved a bundle of books off a spare chair and slumped into it.
“Kill me now,” he muttered.
“You want me to do that before or after I wash my eyes out with bleach?”
