“Sure, man. I’ll hook the blonde if you can’t close the deal.”
It’s only been a few minutes, but I’ve pushed her so far out of my mind I don’t connect his words until he jerks his chin in her direction. “Help yourself. She’s all yours.”
“What d’you need?”
I hold out the new phone. “Can you clone this or something? I want to see everything that happens on it, on mine.”
“What network?”
I shrug. “Does that matter?”
He takes the unopened box from my hand and stares like it’s a puzzle. “There’s a program I can load. It’ll activate when it connects to a network.”
The hesitation is obvious. “But?”
“You mean, aside from the ethics?”
“It’s for a good cause, man,” I plead before clocking his expression. “Yeah. Funny.”
“It’ll send a notification. Once that’s clicked, it’ll instal, but if the user dismisses it, then you’re out of luck.”
“The person on the receiving end isn’t exactly tech savvy.”
“Could be a double-edged sword. They might read through every detail.”
I make a show of considering it, but really, there’s no other option. I don’t just want to fuck Lilac; I want to dominate her. Want to crawl inside and wear her like a second skin. Creep into her brain and stare out through her eyes.
“How long?”
“An hour for the programming, then you’ll have to find someone to reapply shrink wrap to the box.” Caylon really is a man after my own heart. He thinks of everything. When I nod, he says, “Leave it with me,” and takes the phone from my hand.
“Hey,” a bouncer calls out, signalling to us from a back room. “Stefan wants to see you.”
“He’s here?” I say under my breath, caught off guard.
Caylon shrugs and slopes towards the man. I stand my ground for a second longer, wishing I’d paced myself. My brain has ridden the buzz of alcohol into a sluggish low.
But when the boss calls, you answer.
Stefan is a hulking shadow of a man. As large as Trent, but everything dark where my boy is light. His eyes could be any colour in the world, and no one could tell you. No one dares look long enough and even if they did, his prominent brow would throw sufficient shade on their efforts to be unrecognisable.
I’m glad I’m on his side. Glad he recognises that, too.
Inside his office, he sits side-on to a large oak desk, staring at a bank of monitors that detail every coming and going in the club. Once we’re through the door, Stefan waits until the bouncer moves away before speaking. “It went well tonight?”
I nod and Caylon answers, “Yes. I’ve already forwarded the files.”
But his question is perfunctory. Judging from the way he scrutinises me, there’s something else on Stefan’s mind.
“Have either of you been in contact with Elaine McClure?”
Caylon’s hand jerks and I take one for the team. “She comes around at least once a week. Why?”
“Is she going to find anything?”
The hard thing with having a boss who spends most of his time in another city is trying to work out how much he knows. He wasn’t here at the time Robbie… disappeared. Stefan barely met the guy and didn’t ask where he got to. For now, I assume he had eyes on everything we did. That’s safest.
“There’s nothing to find.”
