If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought today was my birthday.
Frank DeNiro, the slimy weasel I barely tolerated for that prick Andrea Caruso, finally stumbled his way into my trap. The giddiness I felt at seeing his computer’s IP address and operating system information flicker across my screen was almost indescribable. This must be what children feel the first time they go to Disney World or something. To find him lurking around on Prey To Play wasn’t much of a surprise in itself, but to see he was visitingmystreaming page in particular was just the cherry on top. After the shit he pulled a few weeks ago, it was only a matter of time before I got to him.
“Got you, motherfucker.” I shut the laptop and slid it off the desk into a backpack before bustling around my condo, collecting the basics like a flashlight and my favorite knife to bring along.
My agreement with Lupi Selvaggi was tenuous at best. Andrea and Elio were pretty fucking tight fifteen years ago, until Elio screwed him over on a joint auction they co-hosted that left Andrea with a smaller cut of the profits. I was still deep in the hacking world, and Andrea had secretly hired me to drain off Elio’s funds. It wasn’t secret enough, however, and Elio found out I was the hired hacker. He went to my dad and threatened war, and it all went to the shitter after that resulting in my servitude.
I had my suspicions that Andrea sold me out for some kind of favor from Elio. However, I had no proof at the time. When I came to America under a fake identity and set up the Red Riot in Vegas, Andrea tried to assert his dominance from Chicago and was subsequently smacked the fuck down when I tore up one of his other black market auctions. I’m sure he had an inkling of who I was—despite my low opinion of his morals, Andrea wasn’t a total idiot—and tried to extend an olive branch by offering DeNiro Technologies to set up headquarters in my domain and get a cut of his profits. I was cool with it up until now. WhenFrank blatantly kidnapped some women protected by Red Riot and shipped them off to Chicago for one of Andrea’s sleazy sales, all bets were off.
Frank DeNiro was an idiot at the best of times, so finding him in my cam session membership was just the cherry on top of the shit sundae I was preparing to shove in Andrea’s face. It was less than easy to get into his hard drive and find all sorts of incriminating evidence of the raunchiest child pornography I'd ever seen. What Iwasn’texpecting were the codes to access DeNiro Technologies’ data warehouses, saved in his personal computer, like it was the safest place in the world to put sensitive information with that pitiful excuse for a firewall. There was just enough proof for me to hang him with, saved on the two thumb drives now sitting innocently at the edge of my desk, along with a third one holding a particularly nasty trojan I made to upload to his home computer. If things went sideways and I needed leverage, I’d use the kill codes as a bartering chip to get out.
Andrea thought he was being so fucking clever, sending his own little hacker to try to flush me out. Whatever his angle was, I hope he got bent. Even though Grant Black looked and smelled like a treat…
“Nope, nope, nooo,” I chastised myself. “Deal with Frank first, then worry about the snack.”
My phone buzzed the custom vibration pattern I chose for Taylor. He got so pissy when he found out that his ringtone was The Imperial March. Not that I had my phone off of silent very often. Ringing phones were the bane of my existence.
“Hallo!” I answered in a singsong voice on my earpiece. “How’s my favorite brother?”
“More like only known brother.” Wow, he was grumpy tonight. “What are you up to?” The loud crinkle of paper told me he was likely eating dinner, probably a burger at one of the onlythree places in all of Vegas he ate out at. And he always ordered burgers. Heathen.
I wandered back into my office and flopped into the chair, spinning it around a few times. A demented smile began to stretch my lips. “What, you got a bad feeling? You think I’m getting into trouble tonight or something?”
He grumbled with his mouth half-full. “I always have a bad feeling when it comes to you.”
“Fair enough. So, what are you calling for?”
“Just wanted to make sure you’re where you said you’d be. Keeping a security detail on you is a real bitch, you know that?”
“Yup,” I chirped. On my next spin around, I stopped the chair to face my monitors and wiggled the mouse to keep the screens from going back to sleep. “Is that all? I’m a little busy tonight.”
“I’m sure you are.” Taylor sounded particularly put out. “Am I gonna have to clean up after you?”
“Most definitely.”
Taylor sighed, like he was a worn-out parent of an unruly child. “I know I can’t tell you to stay home, but can you at least take someone with you? I’m still looking into who called the hit on Masked Merrow. So far, all these assholes have kept their lips pretty tight about it.”
“You have someone in mind?” I reached high above my head and arched my back, stretching before pushing myself up from the chair. My fingers plucked the phone up from where it lay on my computer desk, and I brought it with me to my bedroom. The earpiece range doesn’t reach across my condo; otherwise, I’d probably lose my phone way faster while talking hands-free.
More crinkling came through the line, like Taylor was balling up his wrapper. “Yeah, pulling up to the club now. Caught someone runnin’ his mouth this morning about the Twisted Sixes moving something into their warehouses a few days ago. One of our rats tipped me off.”
“Feckin’ J.J.,” I laughed, but it was a stiff sound. “Always trying to bite off more than he can chew. Just like his feckin' dad. I’d put money on him being part of the arms deal that went pear-shaped, too. Alright,” a huff left my mouth as I tried to pull on some very compressing black leggings. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Talk to you later, T.”
“Hey.” His voice was soft, catching me off guard just before I hit the end call button. “I love you, sis. You know if something ever happened to you…” Taylor cleared his throat. I couldn’t help but smirk at his obvious discomfort. He’s always had big feelings when it comes to family. “I have your back, Lore.”
“I know you do. Love you too, T.”
Frank’s security was a fucking joke. Like, for real. Who even uses an actual security office at the gate anymore? This guy treated his house like he was still a mobster in the eighties. The idiot manning it didn’t even have the sliding door locked, so it was laughable how easily I snuck in and bashed his head in with my bestie, a tire iron. He was literally guarding a button to open the gate. No code. No fingerprint authorization. Just a clipboard with names and a big red button on the desk. There was a camera, but the angle was pointed directly at the gate and was in a static position. It was a joke to cut the power to it from the security booth. I could loop the footage and replace it later.
The guy legit peed his pants when he saw my mask pop up in the window’s reflection from over his shoulder, the pink lights making me look like some kind of manic pixie demon. He didn’t get much of a chance to scream before I snapped his fucking neck, like cracking open a bottle.
“What a loser,” I laughed out loud. Whistling an upbeat tune, I meandered over to the small motor box to the side of theiron gate. The backpack I brought along didn’t have much, but I procured a small tool kit from it and pulled out the flathead to open up the box. With the other hand, I flipped the switch on the side of my mask near my right ear to switch to night vision mode and turn the pink backlights off. The gate’s opening mechanism was a simple system, with only a couple of wires winding from the small motor that ran the chain to pull the gate to the side. A couple of snips with a wire cutter and the engine was dead. “Seriously, this is a damn joke.”
Now, whoever came to visit by surprise would have to climb over the fence like me. Not that it was a super tall fence; I was able to slip my foot through the bars to boost myself up on the motorbikes to grip the top and pull myself up and over. I was half shocked to not find guard dogs running after me when my feet landed on the grass. With how old-school Frank was, it was a bit disappointing, actually.
As much as I wanted to kick the front door the fuck down, instead, I made my way around the left side of the sprawling mansion in a wide arc. Frank had cameras on the front and back doors, along with one in his office. But along the side, there were plenty of windows that could potentially be opened. I didn’t picture him as paranoid enough to make sure each one of them on his ground floor was locked.
I found something even better, though. A motherfucking exterior entrance to a basement. Who even thought it was a good idea to have a basement inVegas? That was the most impractical addition to a building in the desert I could imagine. And it was locked with a thick chain wound through the two handles and a padlock. “You’ve got to be feckin’ kidding me.”
