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Danny thought he meant what he said. He thought he would be able to do something about someone like Peacock or those other men from hurting Thomas again.
Thomas leaned forward and kissed Danny’s forehead again. “We need to go tell Kevin and Mark all of this,” he said softly. “It’s going to make our vacation a little more complicated.”
* * *
“Okay, so to summarize what you’ve said,” Mark said, stabbing at a boneless chicken wing. “That restaurant we went to was a front for the local— uh— mafia?”
“Yes and I’m still stuck on the fact that none of you clocked that growing up in the Three Rings,” Thomas said, pulling Mark’s sweater more around himself. He had decided that simply walking out in Danny’s tank top was a better option than taking his sweater off in front of the guys like he had Danny. It had been a terrible plan. No sooner had he walked out without anything covering him, he very much wanted to have it back on. His stammer had come back with a vengeance as he wrapped his arms tighter and tighter around himself, until Mark dropped his own light sweater over Thomas’s shoulders.
“I… have no defense to that,” Mark grimaced. “The reviews were good, the portions were big, and every said it was better and less expensive than everything else.”
Thomas resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Everything Mark just said should have been a giant flag that said “FRONT” on it, but he let it go, taking a drink they had bought from a small convenience store on their way back.
“Kevin found the WiFi and suggested you use it so you could check on your aunts,” Mark continued, glancing at Kevin who had chipmunk cheeks at the moment. “Smaller bites, Kev! God.” He rolled his eyes at Thomas as Kevin managed to swallow and coughed. “But the WiFi was a trap?”
“Yes,” Thomas confirmed.
“How, again, is it a trap,” Danny asked, frowning up from where he was sitting between Thomas’s legs. “I’m still not getting that.”
“There were people waiting for someone to connect to the WiFi using the code,” Thomas explained, running his fingers through Danny’s hair. “The second a new device connected, they use it as a trapdoor to gain access to saved credit cards or bank accounts. They’ll then use that information to take money.”
“But you were able to stop them from doing that to you,” Kevin said after swallowing. “How? I thought you weren’t a hacker.”
“I’m… I’m not a hacker.” Thomas looked away. “But Snake put a program on my phone that will alert me if someone tries to do exactly what they did, and showed me how to push them back out.” He grimaced, knowing what it sounded like. “It’s not hacking. It’s- It’s a defense. I wouldn’t know how to get into anyone’s device, I can just push back against them if they try to get into mine.”
“Dude, no offense,” Kevin said, “but you kind of sound like someone who says they don’t know how to fight but goes to a boxing gym or something.”
Yeah, well, I did that too, Thomas thought thinking of how he claimed to be a pacifist to Peacock. “Okay, I’ll give you that a little bit,” he admitted. “But it’s more like karate than boxing. I’ve got maybe a yellow belt if we’re being really, really generous.”
“Yeah, alright, let’s roll with that,” Mark said. “So if you are a yellow belt, what does that make this Peacock bastard and Snake?”
Thomas hummed, running his fingers through Danny’s hair absently. “From what Snake told me, Peacock is probably a black belt, but Snake would be the old master in the king fu movies that kicks everyone’s ass.”
“If Peacock’s that good, how were you able to push him out with your yellow belt- OW!” Kevin rubbed at his arm where Mark punched him. “That is a fair question!”
Thomas shook his head. “It wasn’t Peacock trying to get into my phone. Most likely, it was one of his apprentices. Definitely wasn’t him who swore when I turned on airplane mode on one of the attacker’s device.”
Kevin snorted. “That’s so cool. Have we told you lately how cool you are?”
“I’m not cool,” Thomas said, smirking as he rolled his eyes.
“Nah, man, you are cool,” Mark disagreed. “But back to the summarizing: They attacked you, you fended them off, you told Kevin to grab us to get out of the restaurant.”
“Correct.”
“But then Peacock sat at your table.” Mark frowned. “Why? What did he want?”
Thomas went quiet, remembering what Seong told him about how he met Peacock. “He didn’t say,” he said finally. “But it wasn’t anything I wanted to be a part of. That man is dangerous. He was already getting angry with me and no one that quick to anger is good news.”
“Yeah, he didn’t look very nice when I grabbed him,” Kevin said, grimacing. “Scared the shit out of me when I heard people moving behind me.”
“It should,” Thomas told him, glaring at him. “I appreciate you stepping in but if those guys decided that you were being rude or whatever, you left yourself open to an attack. We got lucky that the boss didn’t want to make an example or clean up a mess and let us leave.” He sighed. “We should lay low, stay to the tourist areas. The less we see of them, the better.”
“Okay,” Mark said slowly. “That should be easy enough.”
“Very easy,” Danny said confidently, looking up at Thomas with a smile as he kissed Thomas’s palm. “Besides, tomorrow is the music festival. We’ll be fine.”
“Sure,” Thomas said, smiling as his stomach twisted with anxiety. “Just as long as we’re careful and stay together.”
