“I like a resourceful young man.” Rainbow takes a turnip out of her bag and hands us each two of them.
Granny Mavis slaps my ass.
“Love a real man. Gonna take my ass straight to the strip club.”
“I expect those buffalo here within the week,” Faulkner says, warning me. “Or you’re next, fucko.”
Isaac’sstill huffing when he follows me into the Soundview Hotel. It’s Fitz’s hotel, and he’s got a back door into his Wi-Fi big enough for me to squeeze through.
In the hotel bar, Nathan’s waiting there with Jenna’s father. Devin has that plaster smile on, arm outstretched to take my hand.
Nathan flinches when he sees me.
I hold up a hand. “I think we can act like rational men.”
“I seem to have taken his sloppy seconds when it comes to your daughter,” I tell Devin conversationally.
“Aurora?” Devin’s confused, then it dawns on him. “Jenna? You’re dating her? Well…” He recovers quickly.
“I assume she told you?” I can’t help but twist the knife. “She tells me you two are very close.”
“Yes,” he lies, “very much so. We had dinner last night. It’s hard to see her because she’s so busy, you know.”
“I’d like to change that. One day soon, you’re going to receive a visit from me…” I let the potential threat linger.
Devin visibly swallows.
“And I’m going to ask you for your permission to marry her.”
“What a lovely, fantastic piece of news.” Beads of sweat form at his temples.
“There’s the little matter of my reputation, of course.” I lean back in my chair. “People think I’m a violent psychopath.”
“Ha ha!” Devin laughs, tense.
“I’d like to show you what my intern put together for how we might interface between our two organizations. Synergy.” I repeat the word Jenna used yesterday when she tearfully recounted her conversation with her dad.
“Love to hear it.”
I hand him the USB device. He plugs it into his computer, and it gives a blinking “Virus Detected” message.
He tells the computer to ignore it and to install the onboard program so that he can view the presentation I’m trying to show him.
Idiot.
The greed glows in the man’s eyes as I start mentioning the nine-figure amounts I want to contribute to the HopeWorks foundation.
Since he’s on the hotel’s Wi-Fi, Isaac is able to access HopeWorks’s company server and start mirroring the data.
“Let’s have lunch, gentlemen, shall we?”
Three hours later,Isaac signals that he has everything copied.
Devin is drunk and happy when he and Nathan leave the Soundview.
Now Isaac and I are sitting in Fitz’s office, combing through the data, looking for anything incriminating. Hawthorne and Whitman are there, too, because I promised them I’d go to Harrogate with them in a few weeks.
Sure, I could pay Hudson Wynter’s company to do this, but fuck them in particular.
