Devil's Rage (Preview) - Faye Pierce

Chapter One

Sara

For once, nothing on my computer could distract me.

Not when right now, my best friend in the entire world, Lia Goldin, was breaking into a cop’s house across the city, fueled by the desperate that her crime could pay for her father’s debt to the Sons of Celt. The Sons were a criminal enterprise that were surprisingly wide-ranging in their pursuits—dabbling in everything from petty theft to white collar crime to enacting medieval-ass blood debts on innocent girls. How Lou Goldin had gotten into bed with them was beyond me, but the man excelled at outdoing his own stupidity. Somehow, he’d managed to convince them to give him an enormous amount of money, and then bailed. The Sons didn’t appreciate that.

Either way, now Lia had to pay—either in cash with interest, or with her life.

I swallowed hard as I pictured her, golden hair tied back, the hood of her heavy sweatshirt up, and the hazel of her eyes stern with focus. Her lithe form, too thin from not eating enough, stealing across a dimly lit street, darting around a small white house, and sneaking into a backyard.

Following her best friend’s instructions to cut the power and break in.

All while, me, her best friend, waited for her call to help her with phase two—breaking into the cop’s laptop in hopes of finding some incriminating evidence that would pay her enough to get her out of trouble with the Sons, who’d demanded a motherless art student pay back Lou Goldin’s stupidly large debt to them.

A mix of adrenaline and tedium kept me pinned to my seat, raging against the circumstances, my heart roaring at how unfair it all was. It shouldn’t be this way, the person I loved best being forced to walk the edge of a shadowed world because of circumstance and suicide.

I knew how unfair the world was. I knew that no matter how smart you were, no matter how well you prepared, the world would break you into pieces the first chance it got.

No, all I could do was sit and stare out my window, watching night fall too fast now that it was almost winter. The cold glitter of Boston filled the skyline, bright, sharp, and distant. My computer monitor, reflected in the thick glass, glowed blank and slightly blue. I could just make out my features, the slight pinch between my eyebrows, the tight press of my lips and the nervous drum of my fingers on the arm of my chair.

My other arm was clamped around knees as I burrowed back further into the chair, layered in sweatshirts and a winter hat, not so much out of cold, but to try and keep the worry from gnawing straight through my skin to my terrified, frantic, and furious heart.

Lia is out there. Alone.

Always alone.

It shouldn’t be this way.

For as long as I could remember, her father had barely been in the picture, which made Lou’s current dumbassery even more infuriating. Usually, when I thought of Lia, it was always her and her mother against the world. Until, last year, when out of nowhere, Marina “Fierce” Fioreno, badass Boston Lady Detective extraordinaire had committed suicide, and Lia’s entire world fell apart. School, money, and now this shit.

God, I hate Lou Goldin.

My fingers seized on the chair, and I was tempted to get on my keyboard, track him down, and somehow get him extradited back to the States. But he’d probably end up in jail, and with Lia’s luck, she’d still be on the hook of those awful, idiotic Boston thugs and their goofy-ass criminal name.

Why can’t she catch a break?

At that moment, my phone rang, and I fumbled for it, nearly falling out of my chair. Heart pounding, I saw the number I told Lia to call me from flashing. My hand was shaking so badly, I almost couldn’t answer, and relief made me almost woozy.

“Holy shit,” I blurted into her ear, too much air wheezing out of my lungs, as though someone were squeezing my ribs.

And Lia, lovely, irrepressible, fearless Lia—laughed her ass off at me.

Shaking my head, a rush of affection and annoyance going through me, I drawled, “Okay, yeah, sure, it’s hilarious. That’s what I get for being normal and worried.”

“Believe me, Sara,” she said, her voice warm and familiar in my ear, though with that haunting echo of strain and sadness always ringing through it, “I almost peed myself a few times.”

“But you’re in?”

“I’m in.”

The next few minutes were a blur as I walked her through next steps, the phone tucked against my shoulder as my fingers flew over the keyboard. Forward momentum kept me calm and focused, and I scoffed when I saw the cop’s cluttered desktop.

“Boomers,” I tried to joke. “Look at that mess.”

“Oh my God, you’re the best,” Lia breathed in my ear, and I suddenly wanted to tell her to stop, to just come home. To just let me pay for her life with my ridiculous tech salary. It would be even more once I graduated from school. But I could do that now, I didn’t have to keep thousands in the bank—I’d stopped looking over my shoulder.

Hell, we could have even more money if I gave up this swanky, super-protected Beacon Hill apartment. I could scale down to a regular luxury apartment instead of this uber-secure one.

“Thank you so much,” Lia was saying. “You got me in.”

“No problem,” I got out. Silence pressed at both ends and even though it was the last thing I wanted to do, I made myself ask, “Should I hang up?”

“Yeah,” Lia said softly. “I have it from here. Thank you.”

“Stop saying that,” I said, more sharply than I meant. “Anytime… Oh and, just in case, good luck.” My throat was tight, and my eyes burned as I looked up at the ceiling. “See you soon, right?”

“Of course,” Lia said softly, as though reassuring me. “See you soon.”

I went to speak but the phone slipped, and the call disconnected. The phone’s screen went black in my hand as I stared at it, picturing Lia hunched at the desk, biting her chapped lips, and staring at the cop’s desktop. Going through those folders, one by one.

What if he comes back early? What if—?

“No,” I said out loud, ignoring how my voice shook. “Lia’s got this. She’ll text me in no time at all, safe and sound at home.”

***

I jerked awake out of an old nightmare, one that I hadn’t experienced in over a year, and pressed a hand to my racing heart. You’re okay, you’re safe, I told myself, as I struggled to sit up and make sense of why I was on top of the covers.

Rubbing at my face, I blinked at the windows, and a hot whine of panic began in the back of my head. Something was wrong. Soft pink and gold light streamed through them, lighting up the room. As though daybreak had arrived—but that wasn’t possible because Lia hadn’t called.

I sat up straighter, shaking my head and patting my cheeks, trying to figure out when I’d gone to bed. My memories from the previous night were fragments of waiting and falling asleep, of aimlessly clicking around on my computer, and then sitting on my bed—just for a second…

I fell asleep. Now the panic in my head filled my entire body, a sense of being crushed on all sides, and I forced myself upright. My body seemed disconnected from my brain, movements jerky and automatic as I went to my desk, fumbling around through papers and notebooks for my phone. It wasn’t there.

Whirling around, I spotted it on the floor, and pounced. The battery was almost dead.

No text or calls.

“Lia, no—no,” I murmured. “Where are you—where are you?”

Tears blurred my vision. I had to be dreaming. The soft light filling my window could not be daybreak. It could not be the next day, with no word from my best friend. Any moment now, I would wake up and she would be okay, and my phone would fully be charged and full of messages.

Only the light got brighter, and the phone battery got weaker.

My entire arm trembled as I dialed Lia’s number.

“We’re sorry,” said the cold, automated feminine-coded voice. “Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please hang up and try again.”

“No,” I said and went to throw my phone, before grabbing my charger and plugging it in. First, I attempted to track down Lia with the apps on my phone, before rushing to my computer, and whirling through every way I knew to track her.

But it was as though her phone had been wiped off the face of the earth.

Like Lia had been wiped off the face of the earth.

Here and then suddenly gone, just like her mother.

A sob shuddered between my gritted teeth. Okay, I had to try a different approach. I knew the name of the cop she’d gone after—Mickey Weiss, and yesterday I’d managed to sneak a peek at what Lia had been tasked to investigate.

The Michaelson family, notorious gangsters that lurked in the shadows of the Northeast.

That name had made my entire body go cold, and as I began to search them, the hits made it go colder. Everything I found told me a grim, bloody story of the previous generation—the brutal and horrific exploits of the “Rhino” and the “Reaper.” But both those men were gone now, and the family was under the control of the Rhino’s son, Tyler, and his cousins. By all accounts, Tyler and his capos were just as bad, if not worse—especially since they knew how to cover their tracks.

A pit formed in my stomach as I remembered the heavy muscle outside that Sons of Celt nightclub, the gangsters in suits with tattoos, guns, and cold purpose in their eyes. They’d pulled up right after Lia had gone in, and I remembered that twist in my gut, the timing too close a call…

They have her, said the pragmatic, blunt voice in the back my head. The Michaelson family has Lia. I put my hands over my face. And I’ll never see her again.

“No,” I growled and shoved away from my desk.

I took a quick, freezing shower, then got dressed, and made myself an espresso. When, I at again at my computer, I was more awake, more determined, and caffeinated. I then sent a quick message to my work, then my professors, apologizing for being out today and possibly tomorrow.

I would not leave this desk—I would not rest until I found my friend Lia.

Chapter Two

Sara

Hours passed, a blur of black windows with white text, blinking cursors, and dead ends, until I closed my eyes and saw meaningless words imprinted on the back of my lids. Occasionally, I’d stopped to drink coffee, snack, and jot down notes. But as the afternoon began to wane, I couldn’t eat or drink or make myself to get up.

Not when I was descending into a familiar, deadly kind of panic—a kind of fear that I’d only felt a few times before and had vowed to never feel again.

Ice-cold terror snarled up my arms as I hit another dead end and a scream of frustration built in my head. What the fuck was this? Why couldn’t I find one single answer? One lead?

Did the Michaelson family employ some kind of tech god? A hacker savant? An MIT student?

My jaw set to the side. I had gotten into Harvard and not MIT, and while I loved my Ivy League school—it had been my first choice—the MIT rejection still burned. But maybe I could use that, pretend the Michaelsons did employ some MIT incel bastard who hated women and was a decent coder but would be crushed under my stiletto.

I snorted. Like Zakary Frole at work. God, that fucking twat. At least calling out of work meant I didn’t have to see him and deal with his inability to take no for an answer.

And as though waiting for my petty grievance to pave the way, my computer chirped at me. Finally, I’d found something. Not what I was looking for, but a start—the Michaelson family’s virtual private storage, buried and locked under layers of protection. At least I had something, maybe a place to look for answers, instead of hunting for a place to even look.

You can do this, Sara Tailor. You are a badass tech whiz. Better than any gangster in Boston.

Getting into this storage, however, was presenting a real challenge. Chewing on my lip, my eyes flicked to my second monitor, where the project was that I was working on for my part-time tech job, a security-focused company called Moxi. They let me hack and chew all around their systems and client systems to find security flaws, and last month they had given us all access to a new, cutting-edge tool called Iris-X, or Iris-Beta, as it was still very much in beta.

We were not, under any circumstances, supposed to use it for anything outside of work until the product was done being developed.

But of course, I looked at Iris-X inside and out, copied it, made improvements, and had not yet deployed it. I called it my Iris-XS, my super sneaker, and excellent additions or not, it was a huge risk. I had no idea if Iris-XS could be detected—or if it even worked.

The alternative, though—brute-forcing my way in or even finding the physical server farm to try and get in that way—could take days. Weeks.

Heart pounding into my fingertips, I opened the Iris-XS application before I could stop myself and wielded it against the layers of security and firewalls around the Michaelson systems, cutting through them like a hot knife through butter. It was almost intoxicatingly easy, and a name flashed by during my furious search.

Hyperion.

That gave me pause in the tangled world of the Michaelson’s internal web that opened up to me. My lips parted as it hit me. No wonder it been so hard to hack into this—this wasn’t a typical virtual machine or series of servers. It was not like anything I’d ever seen. This was a whole world, with twists and turns, crafted by a genius who’d named it Hyperion.

“Holy shit,” I said and sat back, flicking my eyes through what I could see, trying to understand what I was looking at. It would take time to learn this, to fully appreciate this—

No. I need to find Lia.

But my hesitation cost me. Suddenly, I was kicked out of where I’d been within Hyperion, and almost locked out entirely. If my super sneaky Iris-XS tool hadn’t given me the ability to create backdoors and fake accounts, I would have been. But like a little parasite, I couldn’t be so easily removed, and I fled off to a different corner, trying to find a list of likely places they could have taken her.

What if they had hurt Lia? I swallowed as the computer screen seemed to fuzz in front of my eyes. What if they’re hurting her right now?

Hastily, I began to compile a list, addresses that I scribbled down, even as I sensed that whatever—or whoever had kicked me out before was closing in.

Sure enough, right before I was about write down the address for a place out in West Carlisle, I was locked out. A snarl tore out of me, and I slammed my hand down in frustration, then sucked in a sharp breath.

Final warning, ran the message on my screen. Your code might be lovely and your talent prodigious, Iris—but next time I won’t be so nice.

I gaped at the message, wondering how they’d done it—and even more mind-blowing, it acted like an old-school chatroom. I could type back.

Fingers shaking, I wrote out, Go to hell, Mr. Hype. Or should I say, Mr. Michaelson?

Oh, ballsy, came the response. Even though it’s pretty damn cold out today in Boston—you’re playing with fire.

“What?” I whispered.

Suddenly, another window opened, this time with a map. For a split second, it was stagnant, then it zoomed in to the Northeast, tilted over to New York, to the Midwest, and then jumped back Massachusetts.

“Shit. Shit. Shit,” I hissed as my tired, clumsy fingers attempted to stop Mr. Hyperion, to cut him off before he could find me. How was he doing this?

Yeah, I see you.

Now the map showed Boston and its environs. It hopped to Cambridge, to Harvard, and I swore, as it jumped across the river, to Boston University and Commonwealth Ave, and then moved East.

With no other choice, I killed my entire system, and my screen went black.

But not before I saw his final message.

Better run, because I’m gonna find your ass.

***

Daniel

“Dramatic,” I murmured to myself as the trail vanished, the hacker—who’d I’d dubbed Iris, after managing to glean that the program they were using to hack into Hyperion was called Iris-XS—clearly killing their entire system to prevent me from finding them. “But effective.”

Too bad it was too late—I’d narrowed their location down to a fifteen-mile radius within Boston proper. All I’d needed was a fifty-mile radius and I could hunt them down with days. As it was, by tomorrow, I should have a name, an address, blood type, star sign, favorite kind of porn, and all the other interesting vices hidden in plain sight on the internet.

Leaning back in my chair, I thought I’d sensed them panic when the map had jumped to Cambridge, to Harvard Square. I didn’t think they were there, but they must spend time there. Maybe they were even a Harvard alumnus—though how they’d wound up on Hendrix’s payroll was beyond me. Perhaps prodigious Ivy League debt made the prospect of working for a gangster palatable. Blood money could be lucrative.

Pulling up their tracks, I sighed, and began to clean up their trail, trying to lock down the intranet I’d created for the Michaelson crime family. It was meant to be a web to catch any hacker, but this haphazard, clever spy had dodged every trap. Brute force and deft elegance let them get deeper than anyone should’ve been able to. Young but brilliant, was my guess. Perhaps not a graduate—but a student. Someone who took chances, someone who was willing to piss me off.

I blew out a sigh. Not good. Iris clearly had no idea how far in over their head they were. Or worse—did he have some kid on his payroll? It shouldn’t surprise me—there was no depth to which Hendrix would not sink. His family had become weaker since Ty had taken the lead of our family, and the word on the street was that his father would only give him the official role of boss once he managed to defeat Ty.

I drummed my fingers lightly on my keyboard, debating what to do. I wished I’d known how the little spy had gotten into Hyperion in the first place. Gotten in and then managed to stay in, which should not have been possible.

Staring at my computer, my mind whirled through dozens of possible plans, sifting and sorting. The smartest, most prudent thing would be to take down the whole system, and then bring it back, piece by piece, combing it over to make sure it was locked down and safe.

But then I couldn’t be sure that I’d ever find that hacker. At least, not without my full attention, and we had too much shit going on with Hendrix, the informant cop in the hospital, and the beautiful blonde who had my cousin, the Capo, in knots.

No, I had to play the riskier hand and leave Hyperion vulnerable, open a few doors to try and trick Iris into sneaking back in. Then I could trap them somewhere and study their skills at my leisure, while also finding a physical location.

I can’t believe they’re local. How reckless can you be? I shook my head. Part of me, however, was also curious about their skills—I’d never seen shit like that. It was as infuriating as it was impressive.

No matter what the cost, I had to protect my family stuff.

I had to find that little spy.

***

An incessant chiming came from next to my ear and I groaned, wincing as I tried to lift my aching neck, the inside of my mouth tasting like an ash tray, and my glasses crooked on my face. I blinked in confusion at the screens in front of me, then jolted awake in pure panic.

“Cazzo,” I swore in Italian, as my fingers tried to find the keys, stiff and useless from disuse. I’d been looking for the little spy, Iris, for almost twenty-four hours straight, with no luck. I’d kept meaning to take a break and had fallen asleep at my desk instead.

In the meantime, Iris had pounced. My brain seemed to hum as I woke up more, trying to catch them, screens popping up and closing, their quick, darting work making my jaw clench even as admiration unfurled in my chest.

Damn, Iris had balls.

I wish I could get you on our payroll, I thought, then I barked out, “FUCK,” as they almost found Tyler’s address—again. Heart pounding, I didn’t want to admit that I’d only narrowly stopped them. What the hell were they looking for—addresses to rob, to leak to the Feds, or a hit? Was Hendrix going after the Head of the Michaelson family? Didn’t we have enough to deal with?

I rubbed at my face, glancing at my phone, wondering how things were going with the blonde, and then I reached for a cigarette. Then, I paused when a message box appeared.

That was fun, but I think you’re all talk, Mr. Hype.

“No way,” I breathed. Iris had deconstructed my messaging apparatus, copied it, and was now using it to talk to me? “That’s so fucked—but also fucking incredible.”

Maybe I can teach you a thing or two.

A laugh huffed out of me. Maybe. You seem to have a death wish. What are you after?

Information. I raised an eyebrow as they seemed to pause, weighing their options. I don’t suppose mobsters might be bribed…

The word made my heart snarl, the tension in my spine enough to make it snap, and my head too heavy with the memories of the two biggest assholes in the universe, my uncle and my sperm donor. Their sneering faces, their chest-pounding pageantry at being mobsters, and their relentless cruelty.

Go fuck yourself, I typed and sent Iris hurtling through the Hyperion stratosphere.

I couldn’t wait any longer. I’d started to lay traps for Iris, but that wasn’t cutting it. The next hours were a blur of locking down the most vulnerable and important parts of Hyperion, taking breaks to nap, and plotting where Iris might live in Boston.

The next morning, I was out the door by nine, ready to hit every coffee shop and public wi-fi area around the Common. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but I had a feeling Iris was smart enough to keep moving, and staying private in public was their best bet at continuing to hack Hyperion and avoid me finding them.

Dressed like a college kid, I’d opted for a Northeastern University sweatshirt, a Boston Red Sox hat, and my most comfortable pair of jeans. I kept my hat pulled low and glasses on, trying to keep my expression neutral as I entered the Downtown Bean. But still, I saw the curious glances from people, the mix of admiration and nervousness, and my gut twisted.

Fuck off and stop staring.

I knew, deep down, I had not received the suave, stupid-handsome Italian genes that my cousins Ty and Luca had. Instead, I had a weird mix of striking features that made people do a double take, which I fucking hated to no end. Especially since, once they got a good look at me, saw the look in my eyes—they ran for the goddamn hills. Every time.

Sometimes, I might get a wild child of a woman to pursue me for the thrill of danger, but once she got close, once she sensed even a fraction of how broken and fucked in the head I was—she always vanished on me.

Now, I didn’t even bother beyond an occasional one-night stand, but even that had become less and less frequent. Once, I’d thought that maybe there could be at least one person who might be able to match me. Who might at least like me, who might be into the same things I was, and wouldn’t mind sharpening passion and intellect with me.

Probability-wise, on a planet with eight billion people, it seemed arrogant to assume otherwise.

These days, even that probability seemed like a fucking fairy tale.

I glanced out the window, at the busy stream of people crossing from the Theater District into Chinatown, the artsy kids from Emerson College smoking on the corner and laughing, the parents hustling kids with bouncing backpacks, and tourists ambling along.

The best you can do for Ty and the rest of the family is keep your head down, hack, and keep building Hyperion. Don’t get it twisted. You’re the monster on the Michaelson leash.

My computer let out a strange chime and I jolted, nearly upsetting my coffee. A few people looked over as it went off again and I touched my ears. I was wearing headphones. What the fuck?

Miss me? Ran a message across the screen. And it’s cute how you’re using café wi-fi. Great minds—but I prefer a different coffee shop. Also, there are a lot of public wi-fi places in this city, Mr. Hype. You’re out of your depth—and hiding something in West Carlisle.

Shaking my head, I typed, maybe that’s what I want you to think. With a few keystrokes, I made it look like I was in a different café, then a public library, and finally, an Emerson college classroom in the nearby theater. Or maybe I want you to know where I am.

I didn’t want that at all. Pressing back against the wall, I flicked my eyes over the room, but I saw no danger. Still, maybe sitting by the window wasn’t the best decision. Shattered glass and gunshots flashed through my head, and I let out an unsteady breath. I’d been witness to a drive-by once before and I never wanted to see that shit again, much less die that way.

You are pretty damn good, they wrote back, and I thought the tone was one of begrudging respect, which was kind of amusing. MIT?

Hm, well damn. I had indeed taken an accelerated program at MIT, at Ty’s insistence. Yep. Harvard?

They took a moment to respond. Maybe. And I didn’t know mobsters were so touchy about name-calling. I’ll be more sensitive to that, Mr. Hype.

A jolt went through me, a roll of surprise and excitement that had my fingers hovering over the keyboard as I almost typed out what I’d just realized.

You’re a woman, I thought, and a grin spread over my face.

I wanted to keep things interesting, Ms. Iris.

All that came back was a winky face before my computer rebooted and I yelped out, “Fuck.” The entire café went silent as heads swiveled to me and I gave a sheepish salute. “Computer died. Big paper due.”

Shoving upright, I grabbed the computer, and hustled to another café. There, it took me twenty minutes to get the computer working again. When I did, Iris was nowhere to be found, nor could I assess if she’d found anything.

And then my cousin Luca called me to set up a meeting with Boston Bratva.

Chapter Three

Daniel

After the unexpected outing with a bunch of fucking Russians, the bad news that a local Russian mob boss, Ivan Volskov had been offed, most likely by Hendrix, and having to keep Ivan’s nephew Kir and Ty from beating the hell out of each other, I hadn’t had a chance to check on Hyperion or Iris for almost a full day. For safety, I’d taken parts of Hyperion offline before the meeting with the Russians, and was now booting them back up, wondering if Ms. Iris was watching.

Ooh, did I spook you, Mr. Hype? Came the message.

Don’t flatter yourself, I wrote back, even though she had indeed spooked the fuck out of me. Maintenance.

Sure. Mid-week is a perfect time for that. By the way, those traps you laid for me were real cute. Again, offer stands to teach you a few things.

My lips twisted as I fought the urge to laugh. You’re just delaying the inevitable, brat.

I don’t think so, she wrote back. I think you like playing cat and mouse, Mr. Hype. Especially since I’ve piqued your interest by being in possession of a vagina.

At that, I did laugh outright, and Heavy, who was sitting across the room in the Crow’s Nest, the nickname of our building down the Seaport, slowly lifted his head and raised an eyebrow at me. I winked at him.

Of course, she continued. You thought I was a dude—so disappointing.

Is that why you nuked my computer? I wrote back. And I didn’t assume jack shit. If anything, though, I should’ve assumed you were a woman.

Oh, bullshit, she wrote back. But fine, humor me, why?

You’re persistent and adaptable. You think outside the box. You code with as much elegance as you do brute force.

For a moment, there was no response.

And compliments seem to be your weakness, I couldn’t help adding.

Meet me.

I stirred at that, something in my gut twisting, even as my heart beat a little faster.

Come on. I’ll make it easier. Meet me and let’s talk this out. I have money and—

I’ll stop you right there, I wrote, resentment filling me. I’m not “meeting” you, Iris. Fuck, how naïve do you think I am? I have no interest in having a bullet put in my head in a downtown café.

Perhaps I’d been a bit naïve, too, hunting Iris down with such recklessness. I’d thought her young, but maybe that had been an act. Asking me to meet, that shit was bold. A bit of an ingénue feint, too, trying to get me to let down my guard. Seemed Hendrix had sent an absolute pit bull after us.

Or—fuck. Was this a Fed? Waving money around like that? How fucking nauseating. I’d have to jump off the Tobin if I’d been bantering with a goddamn Fed.

Oh my God, that’s so dark, Iris replied. Christ, only a gangster would think that she wrote back. So, what, we go around in circles until you find me? I have a life, hello? Guess it must be nice not having a day job, being all above it as criminals, too good for the rules like the rest of us.

“Oh, Iris,” I said out loud, dazzled and delighted at her biting temper coming through the computer screen. “You just fucked up. You showed your entire ass, girl.”

I have several jobs, smartass, I wrote back. And yes, I like the chase. I also don’t believe for one second that you’d make it easier for me.

Except, I did. But it was too late to try and go that route. Plus, I couldn’t say for certain, but I suddenly suspected that Iris was a civilian, not Mafia. Day job, huh. Delicious. Especially since I was now pretty certain she wasn’t a Fed.

You won’t find me, Iris wrote. If you haven’t found me yet, you won’t, aren’t you smart enough to see that?

She was right. It had been almost four days, and I hadn’t found her. But what she probably had not anticipated was the danger of revealing anything to someone like me.

I, however, am getting lots of juicy information about Hyperion, she wrote, and I fought a grin. “Yeah, Iris, what I’m letting you find,” I said.

And I am persistent, Mr. Hype. Iris’s words were coming fast and furious now. I knew she had to be glaring at her computer somewhere. I will take all your shit down to get what I want. This is my last offer for a mutually beneficial compromise.

I appreciate that, Iris, I wrote back. But I’m not interested in compromise.

“I’m also not the one using company technology on personal time, young lady,” I said out loud.

“You good over there, cuz?” Heavy called. “’Cause you’re kinda freaking me out talkin’ to yourself and grinnin’ and shit. Look possessed.”

I grinned even wider, my demon’s grin, and I heard Heavy curse to himself. I’d ran a cross-search, and within five minutes, had pulled up the website for a company called Moxi. Located in downtown Boston, right in the Financial District, they were a world-wide expert on security technology, famous for employing hackers to test for weaknesses. And there’d been chatter about their propriety, cutting-edge security technology in beta, not even known to the market yet. A technology called Iris-Beta-22.

“Bingo,” I murmured. Louder, I said, “I’m fucking grand, Heavy.” He came over, a nervous hilarity on his face as he hovered, and I grinned wider. “Wanna take a field trip over to the Financial District with me? I’ll get you dinner.”

“Sure,” Heavy said. “Christ, you’re a scary bastard.”

“Thanks,” I said with a chuckle. Then I read the message from Iris, you’re going to regret this.

Nah, I wrote back. But I will see you real soon. And with that, I shut down most of Hyperion, save for one corner where I had Iris trapped. It would take her hours, if not days, to get out of there.

And in the meantime, I now knew where she worked. By the end of the week, Friday at the latest, I’d finally know who she was.

Looks like you’re gonna get that face-to-face after all, Iris, I thought as I stood up and grabbed my jacket. But I think I’m gonna enjoy it a hell of a lot more than you are.