“Look, assholes, I’m knocking out of courtesy. I’ve already broken in and neither of you were wearing clothes.”
And that made Hunter sit up, the covers twisted around his knees in the face of the syrupy Chicago heat that was blasting through the windows he hadn’t yet dimmed.
He and Grace had been plastered together with come and sweat, and damn him for going two more times the night before.
He’d been in charge of his body since middle school and Pop Warner football, and this was the first time in his life he’d felt like all his bones had given up and melted away.
“We’re on our way,” he said rustily. “Give us a sec!” Then he turned to Grace. “Go get in the shower and put on your sweats,” he muttered. “I’ll let him in.”
Grace mumbled into his chest, and Hunter was at a loss, before Josh said—through the door—“I don’t care if I’ve seen you naked before. It’s never been voluntary. Now move it! I brought coffee and donuts and—”
Hunter didn’t even see Grace move, but he was wearing underwear and unlocking the door to Josh and Chuck almost before Hunter could pull on his boxers.
Still groggy, Hunter hit the dimmer on the window and the switch that controlled the three fans in the vaulted ceiling. Grace grabbed the box of donuts and helped Josh to the table while Hunter slid on his T-shirt and, thank goodness, the air began to move.
“Sorry,” he rasped. “Late night.”
Grace gave Josh a supremely satisfied look, nodding emphatically.
“Well done,” Josh said grimly to Hunter. “He’s all yours. We’ll draw up a contract later, and you’ll have to keep him forever. But first, we’ve got a job to do.”
“I thought we had a few?”
When the briefing had ended the night before—right before Grace had finally answered his phone, damn him—they’d been in a place of wait and see.
Danny was going to talk to his contacts at Interpol to see what Sergei Kadjic’s status was and if they’d want a stake in bringing him down. Josh was going to lay things out for his friend Nick Denning to see if he had enough to bring to the FBI to get Sergei for embezzlement and intellectual property crimes, as well as corruption.
“The problem is,” Danny had mused, “that we have a lot of information being traded and marketed, but only some of it is illegal. Some of it is blackmail, I’m certain, to get politicians in his pocket. Some of it is insider financial trading. Some of it is technology. It’s like each gem has a super bundle carved into it that affects that particular area. So—” He looked at Josh and Hunter. “—that fortress you encountered in Seattle? That belongs to the guy who invented polycomp adhesive. You know what that is?”
Everybody in the room had looked blank except Josh—and Stirling. “It’s a polymer used exclusively inside computer circuit boards to make sure things don’t shake loose.”
“Exactly. Well, Clive Cooper—that guy—has taken his fortune and gone more and more into politics. So it makes sense he’d want to buy that sort of information and then outsource what he doesn’t need.”
“Where would one go about buying this sort of infobomb?” Josh asked, and Hunter heard a low whistle in his own mind. That was exactly the sort of question a mastermind would ask, and it was easily above Hunter’s paygrade.
“There would be some sort of auction,” Danny mused. “Either in person or online. Considering how much of this information is probably given over to making things like even the dark web unsafe, I’d be inclined to think it’s an in-person sort of thing….” He hmmd. “Stirling, I think you and me have some work to do tonight. Are you up for it?”
Stirling had brightened, and he, Danny, Felix, and Julia had all settled in for a big research session that probably involved more than one untraceable IP address and several forays onto the dark web. Hunter had gone driving after that, while Josh narrowed down neighborhoods where Grace’s phone wasn’t and cursed himself for not having the software installed that would help them track it when it had been turned off.
Josh nodded now, but Chuck—who’d been to Hunter’s place before—was the one who spoke. “Hunter, man, I’m making more coffee. Any objection?”
Hunter smiled tiredly. He and Chuck were both muscle—and guy Friday, if one was needed—and they’d bonded a bit on the last job. One of the best things about Chuck was that he had his priorities straight. Coffee first, briefing next. Donuts first, personal stuff next. He’d been up-front and absolutely unapologetic about wanting to hang with Josh’s crew because he liked having coworkers and didn’t want to go it alone, and Hunter could really appreciate that. Chuck’s last crew chief had double-crossed him—and the rest of the gang—mid bank robbery. Chuck had managed to escape with all the cash—and had set up bank accounts for the surviving members of the crew, making sure they knew the money was available when they got out of prison. But he had promised himself, in no uncertain terms, that he would never, ever, work with guys who put the job before the crew again.
In his own words, he didn’t want to shoot anybody, get shot himself, or walk away with blood on his hands. Just no.
Hunter was okay with a little blood—knuckles got bruised in a good fight—but for the most part, after seeing what was left of Ron Pinter and Paulie, he was on Chuck’s side of the equation.
The crew first, because he was only ever working again with people he trusted.
He’d never been so inextricably bound to his crew before, not even in the military. Maybe it was because he was dealing with people whose entire identity was about avoiding violence, but somehow, being their protector meant more to him now.
“Big pot,” Hunter said now on a yawn. “And Josh, if you can wait until I shower, I’d be much obliged.”
“Yeah, no problem,” he said. “Grace, you go first.”
Grace—who looked at least as tired as Hunter—smiled benignly and wandered off toward the shower, grabbing the discarded sweats on his way.
“Those yours?” Josh asked, sprawling into one of Hunter’s kitchen chairs. Josh himself was slightly built and maybe as tall as Grace. Whomever his biological father had been, he’d given Josh his coloring, but Josh had kept his mother’s build. That didn’t keep him from taking as much space as Chuck when he wanted to.
And right now, he apparently wanted to.
“Yup,” Hunter said.
Josh looked at him directly. “Good. Don’t expect to get them back.”
Hunter gave a grim smile. “You weren’t joking about the contract, were you?”
“Look,” Josh said on an exhale, “you make him happy right now. He trusts you. We trust you. So I’m just putting it out there that we have expectations, and I know you won’t disappoint us.”
Behind him, Chuck let out a snort that sounded purely involuntary. “Oh my God. He sounds like a daddy! It’s terrifying.”
Hunter grinned at him, knowing that a lot of Chuck’s good-ole-boy attitude was for show. If he hadn’t been wiping spit off his face, Hunter would have suspected he’d been trying to break the tension.