Page 31 of One Step After Another

For now, that was how it had to be.

It was only while Penny walked the hallway that led to Dare’s office when she had another thought. Or maybe an epiphany.

Cree brought up Luca—and everything else regarding the man—because he was trying to find out if she wanted him to be part of what came after. All because of what? After years of chasing her, Luca had finally caught up? She didn’t know what to do with that at all.

She also didn’t know if Cree was wrong.

That bothered her more.

• • •

THE LAST PERSON SHEexpected to see when she walked through the open door of Dare’s office was the man standing with his back facing her on the other side of the dominating glass and metal desk. The laptop in front of him glowed to say he was going over something, but she wasn’t close enough to discern what. One of the top hackers for The League, Marcel, was kind of a legend around the compound in a lot of ways.

A notorious loner.

Easily provoked.

Dangerous with a laptop.

Specifically, the laptop in front of him that he never went anywhere without it being firmly in his hand like an extension of his own body. Supposedly, there wasn’t a system the man couldn’t breach. As the stories went, he had found himself under the protection of The League after draining the offshore bank accounts of several major criminal figureheads across many organizations. The bounty on his life had been the highest ever known.

And yet, there he stood.

Still alive and well.

“We have a plan,” Dare snapped, not even noticing Penny just beyond the doorway as he spoke to the infamous hacker. “One we’re seeing out one step at a time, Marcel, but if we continue these little side trips and indulging her with them, then we’re missing valuable chances to infiltrate the lives of The Elite when we need to the most and when we can make the most impact on the organization.”

“What’s happened?”

Marcel’s shoulders stiffened at Penny’s question. Dare, on the other hand, barely even graced her with his attention.

“I said I wanted to be gone by the time she—”

“Yeah, yeah,” her handler muttered with a flick of his hand in the hacker’s direction. “We all know you hate having to even speak to something with a beating heart that doesn’t sign your paychecks.”

“I asked a question,” Penny said.

She didn’t care about their bullshit. That was something they could handle on their own time when she wasn’t in the room.

Dare didn’t respond.

Or maybe Marcel spoke up before he could, saying to her without ever turning around, “In the process of doing a secondary dive into the Smithenson laptop, I came across an upcoming transaction between him and a wealthy businessman from Florida who makes frequent trips into New York and surrounding states for work-related things. Actually, I found messages between him and a known skin trafficker who works on the dark web for most transactions. He was apparently working on something more permanent than his usual monthly fixes, but the only proof was the fact he was working with the other man. That man was handling all the details.”

That made her hesitate.

Only for a moment.

“Which means you found the details of the upcoming ... whatever, how?” she asked.

Marcel finally turned, leaning his back and hands against Dare’s desk while he eyed her with a cold stare. “How else, Penny? I traced back the messages, found where they were coming from, hacked into the accounts, and went from there. Shit you don’t understand, so let’s not waste time going too deep into it.”

Fine.

“What kind of transaction?”

She already knew the answer. There was only one thing they would bring to her attention in this case. She still wanted to hear one of them say it.

“A sale,” Dare admitted.