My patience snapped. I snatched her hand up by its thin, bony wrist and shoved it away. “I’m fine,” I hissed back. “Just keep your hands to yourself. Order another drink or something and leave me be.”
Trisha, my brain finally spat her name out. Not that it was important. She had been sent to my door by my boss, and no one turned down something—orsomeone—sent by Andrea Caruso. Not if they ever wanted to set foot in Chicago again. Sometimes, throwing his name around was helpful in my line of work. It had gotten me out of a few sticky situations while hacking into a competitor’s network he had sicced me on. But other times, like having to deal with annoying dates named Trisha, were the downsides of his association.
“Ugh,” Trisha moaned, leaning back and tucking her arms beneath her substantial bust. She was obviously trying too hard to drag my eyes from the screen of my laptop. “I’mbored! I thought a black market auction would be more, I don’t know, exciting! Daddy said Andrea owed him a favor, and this is what I get?God, those girls don’t even look healthy! Who wants to spend money on a scrawny chick covered in bruises and cuts?”
I gritted my teeth and tuned out the rest of Trisha’s annoying tirade. Andrea had put us in a private box with a handful of his personal guests, so I didn’t have to worry about her loud complaints disturbing the other buyers. But she was quickly escalating my rage to the point I considered throwing her off the balcony and claiming an accident.
Leaning closer to her shoulder, I still kept my voice low with a sharp edge of warning to send my message that she was walking a fine line. “I’d shut my fucking mouth if I were you. It could just as easily be you on that stage at the next auction if Daddy dearest doesn’t get his shit together. Your invitation was awarning.”
She had to be some kind of prey shifter. That sickly-sour smell of fear blasted from her as her lips clamped shut and eyes widened to show their whites. Trisha’s shoulder quivered slightly under my cold stare, and she sniffled lightly. I wasn’t a particularly dominant animal myself. Foxes were not known for their intimidation factor. But I more than made up for my shortcomings by putting my money where my mouth was when it came to threats, which was more than anyone could say about Trisha Mayfield and her father, Richard.
Fucking pathetic.
“Yes, sir,” she finally stuttered. Her entire disposition shifted as she practically curled in on herself.
Ambient noise around us broke the uncomfortable silence, but I ignored her twitching in favor of watching the transfers coming through to Andrea’s multiple offshore accounts. My programrequired wire information before participants could bid to ensure no one got away with not paying in full by the end of the night.
Without prompting, a blank window popped up on my screen like an open chat room.
Cyber_fox: What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?
I looked around discreetly, trying to glance at the screens in my area to find who could have dragged me into this private chat. The redhead on my other side was chattering on, a glass of whiskey swishing in his hand as he gestured animatedly with the man next to him. His laptop wasn’t even open.
Fine, I guess I'll bite.
User_0452: What do you mean? This chat room or this auction?
Cyber_fox: Both
It was a bluff. It had to be. Cyber_Fox was not just a name on the internet. The hacker was infamous for hitting black market auctions and terrorizing the dark web for the past ten years. Some chat rooms dedicated to tracking their online presence had speculated that it couldn’t be just one person. The username had to be some kind of organization that specialized in siphoning off money. They were the reason mobs like the Lupi Selvaggi invested in hackers like me for preemptive measures. Everyone knew Cyber Fox, as if they were an online version of the boogeyman. And now someone was using their name to fuck with me. Should I treat them as a threat, or lock them out of the system and move on?
This night was really going to shit.
I designed this system myself only a week ago, so there was no way someone had already hacked it on opening night of the auction. This chat features was not available to the bidders. It was meant to be a secure line of communication between myself and Andrea only. Whoever thought fucking with me was a cuteidea was about to be horribly mistaken. My fingers tapped furiously on my private laptop, not taking part in the auction myself but monitoring the bids from inside the program. Several black windows popped up on the screen, and I began typing in commands in each window to run scans and countermeasures.
As my software protection was falling into place, Trisha went back to acting like the brainless bimbo she aspired to be. “Whatcha doin’?” She leaned in close enough to press the side of her overly-augmented breast against me, which was uncomfortably stiff with oddly no give to it. “Uh, is your computer okay?”
Cyber_fox: Your date has some riveting conversation. Next time you come to an auction, you should take me for a spin,Bloodh0und.
Okay, not a bluff. This person possibly has access to my microphone and camera. And my dead username, Bloodh0und, from when I freelanced as a hacker. But nothing was showing on my scan programs that someone had infiltrated it. I wasn’t going to give this asshole the satisfaction of a reaction, though.
(Cyber_fox changed User_0452’s name to Cute_puppy)
Cyber_fox: There. I fixed your username.
“And that concludes the live product portion of tonight’s auction,” the master of ceremonies’ voice carried through the underground auditorium on the audio system. “We will have a ten-minute intermission before continuing with fine art.”
The dings of the pop-up windows showing on all one hundred laptops filled the space, along with the low murmurs of representatives on phones provided by my boss, relaying the information to whomever they were here for. No paper trail. No pictures—I had disabled the cameras on the burner phones given to each bidder, and everyone was searched before entering for weapons or any other devices. Everything was moving like a well-oiled machine, so I could sit back and watch.
Except for this one rusty cog, which was majorly pissing me off.
Cute_puppy: Stop fucking with me. I will find you, and it will be nasty when I do.
Cyber_fox: Mmmm, promises promises. Until next time, puppy.
The tracking window I had open went absolutely haywire, code bursting all over too fast for my eyes to track. Then the screen went black.
Shit.
