Page 118 of Lethal Obsession

“Don’t worry.” He waves a hand airily. “Lance Ryder hired several stand-ins and is having a marvelous time flying around the world on our money photographing them all. Last time I checked the Darkside, you’d been sighted in Buenos Aires, on Richard Branson’s private island, and at the mansion of some model in Costa Rica.”

“Good to know I’m having fun.”

“Oh, you’re partying hard, motherfucker, believe me.” He pours another shot, shaking his head when I cover my own glass. “Pity you can’t live up to the fantasy in real life. Anyway. I didn’t just come here to drink Akvavit and spy on that gorgeous captain of yours.”

“Keep your hands off my crew. Especially Andrew. He’s still scared after the last time you hugged him.”

“It’s your fault.” Lars is entirely unrepentant. “You shouldn’t hire such fuckable boys.” He opens a laptop that looks rugged enough to withstand a Saharan storm and goes through a complex set of biometrics and codes to open the screen.

“That’s some hardware,” I say, eyeing it with interest. “You could just use the secure room.”

“That’s why I’m here.” He gestures to an array of cases behind him, carried up by my crew. “We’re going to need to do a little upgrade of your secure room. I’ve also brought you one of these.” He pats his laptop. “Mickey and I adapted them from the military models Mak snagged for us, then upgraded them with our own personal twists.”

I feel the familiar twinge of envy as he launches into an explanation of the modifications he and Mickey have made. These moments always make me feel like I’m sitting back in the Orlovs’ basement, looking at Lars’s face on the cover of a magazine, taking public credit for a concept I came up with.

It’s not fair, and it makes no sense, since it’s me who forced Lars to be the public face of our association. It’s not like he hasn’t tried, a hundred times, to push me into the limelight. I’ve never wanted it—or rather, never seen how it would benefit us. But the fact that it’s my choice has never helped lessen a certain acid sense of deprivation, which I’m ashamed to admit has only gotten worse since Mickey has been on the scene.

It doesn’t help that Lars and Mickey both tend toward a specialization in hardware, rather than software. Redesigning a military laptop is right in their wheelhouse. I don’t share their fascination with unscrewing things and rewiring them, just as I don’t get off by hacking into systems. It’s the backend design I love, conceiving ideas and creating the space for them to grow.

“Okay,” I cut him short. “I get that you and Mickey have made a GOAT laptop. Now, why don’t you tell me why I need it?”

“Back down on the jealousy, bitch.” Lars gives me one of his unsettlingly perceptive looks. “You want to step up at Andersson, all you have to do is say the word.”

The toughest part about being partners with the one person who knows you inside and out is that you can’t get away with shit.

“Fuck off.” But I force a grin to take the sting out of my words. “Just talk.”

“Hm.” He gives me a mock stern look. “Well, you need the GOAT because not even the combined skills of your friend Renata, that fucker Mak, and my team have been able to find a way through the labyrinth of Hunter’s campaign funding. I’m here because Mak suggested, and I agree, that we need your sick criminal brain, not to mention your intimate familiarity with the bodies in the Miami swamp, to work out who the fuck is at the center of this.”

I’d be lying if I said I don’t feel an almost illicit thrill as he picks up the black case and thumps it down on the bar.

“This is going to take a while,” he says, opening the case and pulling out another laptop. “And I’ve only got forty-eight hours to spare. So strap in, motherfucker. We’ve got work to do.”

The sun is going down, and we’ve moved from the bar to the secure room and back again half a dozen times, when we finally adjourn to the upper deck with a bottle of Graf and the two laptops.

“See what I mean?” Lars paces across the deck, laptop in one hand, fingers of the other moving across the keyboard while he talks. “It’s like chasing a snowflake in a blizzard. As soon as you catch one, it’s gone.”

“No shit.” I’m staring at the screen, my mind whirling. “There’s literally nothing connecting these corporations, companies, and PACs except a sudden, inexplicable desire to write enormous checks to Hunter’s campaign. No discernible pattern or political ideology. It’s like instead of all roads leading to Rome, fucking none of them do.”

“I like my snowflake metaphor better.”

“You would, you Swedish fuck.”

“Let’s go back to that college campus PAC,” Lars says. “The one with a logo that looks like a cock.”

I give him a dry look. “The Compass Initiative? I think the logo is supposed to be a needle pointing north. You know, like a compass.”

“It looks like a cock,” he insists. “Anyway. How the fuck does a college-based political action committee manage to raise this kind of money? It’s been running for less than a year.”

“More importantly, why have they made Hunter’s daughter their poster girl?” I bring up Kristi Hunter’s overly made-up face, bleached teeth, and even more bleached blonde hair. “She seems a strange choice for an initiative that’s pushing faith-based values and traditional gender roles. That white leather ensemble she’s wearing is the complete opposite, a cross between career-driven girlboss and street hooker.”

“Isn’t Kristi Hunter the one who faked buying drugs in your club?”

“She might have faked it on that occasion, but according to the Cardeñas boys, she’s had her nose buried in a bag of candy every weekend since high school. Probably why she could make the deal look convincing for the cameras.”

I watch a video showing Kristi walking onstage, backed by pyrotechnics and rock music, waving at the crowd like a pop star. “Welcome to the Compass Initiative!” she cries into the microphone. “I come to you today in humility—as a lost soul who found her way out of the darkness and is now dedicated to helping you reset your own moral compass.”

“How does she get away with spitting this kind of self-righteous shit in Miami, of all places?” I stare at the screen in bemusement. “The city’s entire reputation revolves around debauchery. Everybody is too busy drinking mojitos in the sun, watching strippers, and gambling in back rooms to give a shit about moral compasses. I should know.” I raise my glass over the top of my screen. “I’ve made a fortune out of taking their money.”