“Ah, yes. Stella. I met her. At least it’s fine pussy.” Kurtz laughed, and my rage deepened into a crimson-tinted cloud. “You know Harper. He’s so blinded by hubris he thinks he can handle anything and that no one would dare betray him. I would’ve loved to see his face when he found out about Axel.”
Kage snorted. “That fucker was getting on my nerves. Always trying to kiss ass and one-up me. Thank fuck we made him the fall guy and Harper fell for it. One less problem on my plate.”
I’d suspected Axel might not have been responsible for Magda’s theft when I discovered another leak months ago.
The confirmation elicited a rare twinge of regret, but I couldn’t change the past, so there was no use agonizing over what happened.
The best thing I could do was exact proper justice on the real traitor.
“Yes, well, that had to be done. Too bad we never figured out what was so special about that hideous painting. Went through all that trouble to get it only to have to sell it before Harper traced it back to us,” Kurtz grumbled.
“That’s one thing he never told anyone, not even me.” Kage shrugged. “If I find out, I’ll let you know.”
“You do that.” Kurtz’s smile was not unlike that of a shark grinning at prey. “In the meantime…” He retrieved a briefcase from the trunk of his car. “Your second half of the cut for the Scylla information. Cash only, as requested.”
A briefcase? Really?
I couldn’t decide what pissed me off more—Kurtz’s face, Kage’s betrayal, or the fact that they were acting like villains in a bad TV cop drama.
“You must really hate him to fuck him over like this,” Kurtz said as Kage counted the cash. “Thought you and Harper were brothers in arms till you reached out a couple of years ago.”
“We were,” Kage said coldly. He snapped the briefcase closed. “Things change. No one wants to live in another’s shadow forever.”
“Ambition. Love to see it.” Kurtz clapped him on the shoulder. Kage grimaced, but the Sentinel CEO didn’t seem to notice. “You know, when you first contacted us, I thought you were setting me up, but you’ve proven to be a useful ally. I’ve been dying to see Harper taken down a peg or two for years.” He got in his car and winked. “Nice doing business with you, as always.”
Kurtz drove off.
I would deal with him later. Now that I’d confirmed Sentinel was behind the Scylla knockoff, I knew they were also the ones who’d supplied the device to Stella’s stalker. That fact alone earned them more than a little system crash.
Kage tossed the briefcase in his trunk and walked around to the driver’s seat while I got out of my car, my footsteps silent against the soft earth.
“Whatever he paid you, it wasn’t enough.” My casual observation bounced off the twisted metal heaps surrounding us.
I stopped a few feet from where he’d parked.
To his credit, Kage only froze for two seconds before he recovered.
He straightened and faced me, his mouth relaxing into an easy smile. “Christian. What are you doing here?”
Despite his casual tone, I saw the emotions play out in his eyes.
Surprise. Panic. Fear.
“I had some free time. Decided to check in on my best employee.” My smile matched his.
His eye twitched at the word employee.
We stared at each other, the air taut with the scents of rusted iron and brewing violence.
Now that we were face to face, I allowed my emotions free reign for the first time since I saw Kurtz’s email.
Kage was my oldest employee. My right-hand man.
Once upon a time, he’d saved my life, and he was one of the few people I’d trusted.
His betrayal twisted around my insides like barbed wire and squeezed out drops of blood.
One drop for every meal we’d shared, every conversation we’d had, every problem we’d tackled together and every tough situation we’d pulled each other through.
The crimson pool filled my stomach with acid and ate away at my armor until grief and another twinge of regret over what I had to do peeked through.
I eased a breath through my lungs.
The armor rebuilt itself and trapped my floating emotions back in their cage.
Five seconds. That was the longest I allowed sentimentality to stay.
“What was it?” I broke the silence. “You wanted a higher salary? More recognition? A fucking thrill because you’re so goddamned bored?”
Kage dropped the playing dumb act.
“It’s not about the money. It’s about you.” Resentment leaked into his words. “If it weren’t for me, the company wouldn’t be where it is today. I’m the one who runs the day-to-day operations while you jet set around the world with your fucking private plane and fancy hotels. Yours is the name on the door. You’re the one everyone fawns over. You’re the CEO, and I’m a fucking employee. I’m not your partner. I’m just a soldier in your command. Every time I go somewhere, people only ask me about you. I’m sick of it.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. I was almost disappointed the reason for his betrayal was so pedestrian. Envy and resentment were as mundane as I used to think love was.
But that was the thing about humans. Their most basic emotions were the most dangerous.
“More recognition, then,” I said mildly. “Enough that you would run to our biggest competitor and fuck over your friend and what you said you helped build. You could’ve talked to me, but you fucking didn’t. That doesn’t make you a hero, Kage. That makes you a goddamn coward.”
Kage had helped me in the company’s infancy, and he played an integral role in the company’s operations. I’d compensated him extremely well for both those things over the years.
However, Harper Security flourished not because of its operations but my contacts and the cyber arm I’d built. Kage had little interest in networking and even less knowledge of cyber development. His reasoning was flawed.
The only thing he was right about was my distraction. I would’ve caught onto him sooner had it not been for Stella.
I’d had a tiny inkling since the Deacon and Beatrix accounts, which he worked closely on, but I’d brushed it off in lieu of more important matters.
“At least Sentinel appreciates what I’m doing for them, and I got to see you brought down a notch. It’s been fun playing spy. Sabotaging you from the inside and you didn’t even know it because you were so caught up with your fucking girlfriend while I kept the company running.” Kage’s smile iced over. “You haven’t treated me like a friend in a long time, Christian. You treat me like a dumb lackey you can just order around. Like you wouldn’t be lying dead with a bullet in your head if I hadn’t saved your ass.”
The memory flickered in front of my eyes.
Colombia, ten years ago. Things got messy with an arms dealer and I’d found myself in the middle of a shootout.
I still remembered the sweltering heat, the rapid-fire gunshots peppered with shouts, and the force of Kage yanking me out of the way milliseconds before a bullet pierced the back of my head.
He’d been guarding a corrupt local businessman, and we’d shot our way out of an impossible situation.
Now here we were, a decade later, on the brink of another shootout.