“I don’t want any trouble.”
“Then tell me what I want to know.”
She let out a sigh, and her mask dropped. “What’s there to tell? You wanna know his favorite positions or something?”
“You ever overhear one of his meetings with Hinokawa-san?”
Her eyes went wide. A bad lair. “No, I never—”
I shifted her forward, then grabbed the gun out of my holster, tracing the barrel along her thigh. “Don’t lie to me.”
She whimpered. “Okay, okay. I guess he’s dead, so what does it matter? They were always talking about…data storage. How much Hinokawa had in the Kitsune den. That’s all they talked about, like a damn business negotiation. Renard wanted more room on their server—wanted them to upgrade their processors. Said the ‘project’ wasn’t moving fast enough.”
“What project?”
“She shook her head. “I don’t know, I swear. They never said—” She was shaking now, but she wasn’t lying.
I pulled her head against my chest and stroked her hair gently. “I believe you. Anything else I should know?”
She didn’t try to pull away, speaking into my chest. “The guy paid a lot extra to go raw—loved it. Actually got two girls here pregnant.”
“Names?” I asked. She gave them to me and I noted them down, but I doubted that would lead anywhere besides a few hush-money payments. Having some C-suite’s illegitimate brat was probably one of the most stable jobs in this city.
I leaned back. Why would Renard need to store data with the Kitsune? He was in charge of the biggest tech infrastructure in the world. Unless he was up to something he didn’t want anyone to have eyes on. More questions than answers—but it was a start.
My eyes drifted to Eon’s holographic form again.
“You know her?” I asked Akiko, motioning to the table. She turned her head back for a moment.
“E? Yeah, a while ago.” She kept grinding on my lap, but I raised my eyebrows. She sighed and slowed her hips. “She was…she was a good one. In this line of work, some people get nasty—think it’s you against everyone else. But E always looked out foreveryone. I was in a bad spot once; an ex was threatening me. I don’t know exactly what she did, but a bunch of his data got leaked, and he’s in jail now. Don’t have to worry about him.”
Of course she fucking did. A cyberrunner with the heart of an angel. “Know where she’s at now?”
She shook her head. “Nah, E was always on the move—never stayed in one place, not after she got out of here. The only place you could ever find her consistently was on the Net. And no, I don’t have her updated contact there either.”
I leaned back against the chair, letting out a sigh. So much for that.
Akiko leaned up against me, her hips grinding against my half-hard cock and her nipples pressed into my chest as she whispered in my ear, “Hey, I may not be her, but I’m not too bad. Come on, I rarely get good-looking guys like you. We could have some real fun.” She was smart—knew it was a good idea to have a guy from POM leave remembering her fondly.
I smirked, and my hands went up her thighs. She let out the sweetest little moan. Sometimes I fucking loved my job.
“I don’t know, you seem like an awfully bad girl to me.”
She smirked and ran her hands under my jacket and down to the waist of my pants, and I groaned as she didn’t hesitate to grip my cock with her full strength. I shifted to pull a condom out of my jacket pocket when the flashing lights of the digital projection caught my attention.
Eon moved—almost exactly the way that Akiko did—hips rolling, her eyes half-lidded with pleasure.
I took another hit as Akiko rolled the condom down my cock. Then it was Eon’s hand on me, her sweet pussy wrapped around me. I wrapped my hand around the base of her throat, just enough to feel how her heartbeat sped up.
Keep running, doll. I can’t wait to catch you.
CHAPTER 22
CY
After leaving Hellfire, I’d had an idea. Eon had no known address, but she’d been arrested in this area of Magenta. Maybe someone around here knew her.
Maddox had hated the idea, called it “ridiculously analog,” but I never let his negative attitude stop me.
