And guess which IT guy didn’t even think about how easy EDR black boxes are to hack, especially the outdated kind they fit on boats like his.
Oops.
But I guess he feels safe. Because when I slipped up on the blind side of his enormous dick-waving yacht in a silent, fast-moving single-person motorboat, speeding across the Puget Sound just off the shore from a Seattle beach...
He had his lights up, making himself a beacon on the dark water, music playing loud enough to be heard for miles around.
Apparently, stupid buys a lot of gross overconfidence that leads to funny things like hiding in plain sight. Or maybe it’s just that Timmy’s captain went AWOL and decided he’d had enough of getting paid to hide a wanted fugitive.
Sure, these boats are so automated they practically maneuver themselves. But the ocean proper is a big, scary place for a man with zero experience on ships outside his pleasure cruises. Tim Rook decided to play it safe by staying close enough to still see civilization.
Make that safe-ish.
With no other boats in sight on the horizon and the shoreline a good twenty miles away, he didn’t have to worry about the nosy neighbors.
He did have to worry about me.
And as drunk as he was on the expensive champagne he’d apparently been mainlining since sunset, I didn’t even have to try to lay him out on his ass.
He’s a large man. Stocky, thick beer belly, barrel chest. A lazy, drunken bear.
I think the boat actually shakes when I slice the flat edge of my palm against his neck, striking a crucial nerve through layers of muscle and fat. It sends him toppling over with his eyes wide and his tongue lolling in confusion, red and wet and messy.
He starts to struggle up.
I never give him a fighting chance.
He just flops there on the floor of his luxury built-in personal movie theater cabin, thick whimpers in the back of his throat, his ankles kicking loudly against the seats on both sides of the aisle.
It’s a sad, pathetic sight that normally might give me a flicker of amusement, but today?
I’ve got no time and even less chill for his agony.
Snarling, I pin him in place with the four-inch stiletto heel of my black Louboutins.
Right over the hollow of his throat.
One hard stomp, and I puncture his windpipe and drive clean through to the floor.
What can I say? I like being efficient in my threats.
And this one doesn’t need a word.
Rook goes deathly still, his breath wheezing. His jowly cheeks go cherry-red, and he stares up at me with bulging eyes in a washed-out shade of shallow blue.
“I-is...is this...fuck!” He makes a choked sound.
Narrowing my eyes, I let my heel up just a tad.
“Spit it out, you little idiot,” I say.
“Is...is th-this some kind of uh...dominatrix thing?”
Bad, bad choice of words.
I almost spear my heel through his throat right then and there.
Shame I need him.
So I press down a little harder, enough for a satisfying ulp! sound before easing up a little.
“You know damned well who I am,” I bite off—and surreptitiously shake my hand out behind my back, from where I struck him. That bruised a little. Not that I’d let him notice. “And you know exactly what I can do to you, Rook.”
He splutters, sweat beading on his upper lip. “Jesus, fuck, I don’t know anything! I swear I don’t know anything about...anything!”
“And I wish I didn’t find that so easy to believe.” I hold in a sigh.
I also wish I was enjoying this more as I bend over and drill my gaze down into his eyes.
Any other day, I would’ve taken delight in making this man slobber and whimper at my feet, but some things are more important than a finely honed taste for sadism.
“Tell me, what do you think I’m here for?” I ask, very clearly and very precisely.
Because something grating pricks at my intuition.
Sometimes it’s better not to do the heavy lifting.
Sometimes you just need to give people enough rope to hang themselves.
Or ask just the right questions to let them talk themselves into a hole and give away far more than they ever intended.
“D-Durham!” he spits out instantly as my shift in weight puts that scary spike just a little deeper into soft, tender flesh. “You want to know where Durham is! I mean...don’t you?”
His voice goes small. I let one eyebrow go up.
On the long list of boring, desperate, pleading nonsense I expected, this is more interesting.
My lips thin. I look at him for several long seconds while he goes pale, eyes darting wildly side to side as he realizes something fun.
He just fucked up.
Hardcore.
“Hmmm. Curious choice of words. Last I checked, Leland Durham was locked up for life in a Supermax prison. Booked on so many charges he won’t wriggle out of them before the next millennium ends,” I say slowly.
That’s what I last saw on the news. You’d have to be living in a cave the last few months to miss Galentron’s dirty laundry hitting you in the face constantly. Every grown-up news rag and Sunday TV interview has barely touched anything else for months.
The evidence unleashed by the Bell sisters with Leo’s big, scarred helping hand, plus a little magic from yours truly, opened up a real can of worms, as the kids like to say.
The icing on the scandal cake was the grand CEO of Galentron himself going down on conspiracy and terrorism charges. Justice finally served for once in this fucked up system we live in.
Or so I thought.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s being wrong.
And Rook’s eyeballs can’t bulge enough as he watches my calm, hell-frozen-over stare become hotter-than-hell’s-furnace psycho bitch mad.
“I...” His voice is just a murmur I don’t even have to silence.
“No. I am very, very interested in what you mean by where he is.”
Rook swallows. With the way I have his chin trapped, it moves like a wattle. “I, uh...I don’t...I didn’t realize he’d been sentenced. That’s all. I didn’t know he was already in jai—URP!”
Imbecile.
This time, I make sure it hurts.
I stomp down just hard enough to make him gag. If I’m not careful, I’ll render him unable to talk with an impromptu field tracheotomy, but I jab that stiletto in just enough for a nice bruise and a groaning heave of his chest.
I need to calm the hell down.
Fortunately, I keep something special around for these tricky cases. My little talisman that always keeps me focused. I reach into my pocket and feel the familiar crinkle of a thin wrapper.
“Like I said,” I purr, silky-sweet, pulling out a smile just for him and showing every last one of my teeth, then pinching the ball of sweet pink candy between my teeth. “You know who I am. And you know what I can do to you. That also means you know I hate liars.”
Except myself, of course. There’s an important distinction.
I know how to lie my little heart out with charm.
Plus, I always have a good reason.
Any good femme fatale does, especially when she’s trapped behind enemy lines with a slob who just said too much.
Then again, I think Rook might just be more afraid of Durham than he is of me. The poor boy actually stays silent save for his snuffling, whining breaths. His eyes snap around the room, looking for a miracle, an escape.