“Very tough,” he says, cupping my face. “And very brave, but don’t you ever put yourself in danger to try to protect me ever again. Don’t even fucking think about it. Do you hear me?”
I nod, “I promise.”
It’s an easy promise to make. I don’t plan on getting tangled up with these kinds of people ever again. If Plato wants to keep hacking, he’ll be doing it solo. This is one hobby I’m happy to leave behind. Hell, I gave up cross-stitching after stabbing myself in the finger one too many times, and finger stabbing is way less painful than imagining the people you love being violently murdered by drug lords.
“Good,” he says, taking my hand before nodding toward the street. “Want to go watch? Safely? From behind the side of the building?”
“Yes, please,” I say, following eagerly as he creeps to the edge of the alley. He grabs my backpack from the ground, holding on to it as we both peek out in the direction of the coffee shop as the cop cars swarm.
At first, I’m concerned—does the FBI know that the NOPD is in bed with Dex and Gio?—but then I see the “state police” label on the cars and relax a little. Surely, Peter’s given the FBI the lowdown. He didn’t know about the honeypot trap in Dex’s system, but he knew Dex and Gio were crooked and had cops on their payroll.
Still, I can’t resist asking, “Peter told the FBI that the city cops can’t be trusted, right?”
Dean nods, his gaze fixed on the street as men in SWAT gear swarm into the building. “He did. And gave them all the evidence you and Plato found. He said there were still holes in the investigation, and that he wished you two had given him more time before you kept poking around, but…”
I wince and smile guiltily. “Sorry. We were impatient.” I lift two hands in the air in the universal sign for “I have nowthoroughly slowed by roll” and assure him, “But that’s over. I am no longer impatient. I’m just grateful and relieved and shooketh and…things like that.”
He shakes his head, muttering, “Shooketh, that’s a cute way of putting it.”
I’m about to assure him that I’m not being glib, I just don’t know quite how to handle everything I’m feeling right now, when the men start shouting inside the coffee shop. I brace myself for the sound of gunfire and people screaming and running in terror, but it doesn’t come.
Instead, just a minute later, Gio is led out in cuffs, his head hanging low as the men on either side of him lead him to the closest state police car.
He looks smaller than I remember from the party. Still strong, but also awkward in too-tight bleached jeans that haven’t been in fashion in either of our lifetimes, and a five o’clock shadow on his shaved head that shows exactly where the male pattern baldness has fully set in. He looks like somebody’s disappointing brother-in-law getting hauled out of a casino for puking on the roulette table.
And then there’s a loud popping sound from our right.
Dean and I both swivel in time to see the gym’s double doors slamming into the walls outside as more agents emerge with an entire posse of men in cuffs.
Dex is hauled out first, and he isnotsmall. He’s even bigger than he looked in pictures, wide through the chest and thick through the neck, like a bulldog on steroids.
Though I know he’s on something a lot scarier than steroids.
There’s not a ton of information on V9 online yet—it’s too new, too niche—but what Plato and I found was seriously chilling. Long-term use doesn’t just damage the body and deplete calcium from bone; it shrinks parts of the brain vital to empathy, memory, and identity. It turns already callous meninto sociopaths or worse. The subreddit we stumbled upon in our research nicknamed it the Serial Killer drug, and as Dex and two other big, scary men I haven’t seen before are walked past our hiding spot, I can see why.
There’s something in their faces…
Or a lack of something, I guess, is a better way of putting it.
There’s nothing human in their eyes, their expressions, the set of their jaws. They don’t look troubled by the fact that they’re being arrested. They just look…flat. And mean. And dangerous.
They probably would have killed me, I realize.
Even if I’d told them about the dead man’s switch.
I shrink closer to Dean, stomach heaving as they pass by, deeply grateful they haven’t seen us. Not that it matters, I guess. They obviously know exactly what I look like.
“They’re going into custody, and they aren’t coming out again,” Dean whispers, as if reading my mind. “And that’s it, the entire operation. They apparently kept it small, so they wouldn’t have to split the profits more than four ways.”
“What about the crooked cops?” I ask, my voice wobblier than it was before as the “this is all too surreal to be believed” haze begins to fade. Suddenly, this all feels way too real, and I am deeply unprepared for how much my stomach hates it.
“I don’t know,” Dean says. “I’m sure it will take more time to deal with that, but I don’t see why they’d come after you. Not without someone around to make it worth their while. And we don’t even know if Dex and his people told the cops about the hack yet. That’s something the FBI will have to figure out when they’re questioning them, I guess.” He turns fully to me. “Speaking of, they’re going to want to talk to you and Plato, too, obviously. But Peter said he’d try to?—”
Dean’s phone buzzes in his jacket pocket. He fetches his cell, flashing the screen my way as he says, “Speaking of Peter…” Heanswers with a warm, “Hi, Peter. How are you? I’ve got Clover here with me. Everything okay on your end?”
He pauses, and I hear Plato’s dad’s voice on the other end of the line, though I can’t make out what he’s saying.
But it must be good news because Dean’s shoulders sink farther from his ears as he says, “Great. Good. Well, you two get home safe, and we’ll wait to hear from you tomorrow. And thank you, Peter. I seriously can’t thank you enough for this, but I hope you’ll at least take me up on those season tickets.” He smiles at something Peter says, then nods. “Okay. Talk soon.”
