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My jaw tightens up at the realization. Of course. Like every other desperate guy who waltzes into my life, he’s just another hot boy who wants something from me.
Just like all the others.
Well, he’s going to learn really fast who’s boss within these four walls. I’m in control of everything. I have to remind myself of that very important fact. Things will remain under my control as long as I maintain my control, no matter how sexy Trevor is.
The interns never work directly with me—not unless I request it. And so I simply won’t request it. As it’s of utmost importance to enforce an air of absolute professionalism, it’s completely within my power to maintain appropriate workplace behavior, to keep him busy away from me, and to salvage my brand of peace and tranquility I can only find here.
Hell. When I put it that way, it sounds downright easy to keep my peaceful atmosphere.
Another knock at the door. “Mr. Gage?”
“WHAT??” I shout out, exasperated. Then, I blink away my anxiety—shit, I’m jumpy—and run a shaky hand down my tie. I go for a calmer tone. “What is it, Rebekah?”
She slips her head inside. “Urgent memo. Just forwarded it to you from an Irene Kingston,” she tells me, her voice turning into a near-inaudible rasp on the last two words.
I quirk an eyebrow. “From who?”
“She put that it’s very urgent in the subject line. Isn’t she one of your secret clients? Never mind, not my business. Just thought you’d like to know before the meeting,” Rebekah finishes, all in a raspy whisper, before excusing herself, the door shutting as softly as a secret.
After a thought, I push my worries of Trevor to the side and pull out my personal tablet from my briefcase, then tap it to life and log into my private account—the secret part of my business I keep completely off the mainframe network. As I suspected, “Irene Kingston” is really Jazz using a fake name. Jazz is my totally off-the-books partner-in-crime hacker assistant who no one knows exists except me. Since she didn’t text me, I figure something’s up with her phone and it may be somehow compromised. I open a VPN client and connect to her through an encrypted IP tunnel.
Her face pops up on my tablet, but it’s half covered in shadow at the top by a wide-brimmed hat and the bottom by a puffy knit scarf. The only part of her face in focus are her eyes in high-contrast black and white. The way she looks is so comically mysterious that even I sometimes wonder how she doesn’t see herself as a caricature ripped right out of some 90s crime flick about the technological revolution.
“Sound check,” mutters Jazz in her German dialect through the screen—or rather, just her eyes, as I can’t see her mouth.
“Check,” I mutter back. “I have a meeting I’m already late to, Jazz, so give it to me quick.”
“Angelina Marie and her friend Lukas Pulaski split up.”
I squint at her. “Angelina Marie—Wait a second. Melena’s daughter’s boyfriend? The one who received the nude video?”
“Videos. More than one. I suspect he has a computer savvy friend of his own, sadly, because the hold I had on his cellular traffic is broken. I cannot regain control—I am being blocked—but I am still able to watch.” Her words are clipped and cold, made sharper by her thick dialect. “He contacted some John Doe—that is the literal screen name this man goes by—who is more than interested in buying the nude videos. There are two. Lukas is just awaiting payment.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and shake my head. “And you even warned me he’d be a problem. Damn it.”
“I just call the things by what they are, my friend. One of the videos involves chocolate syrup.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“But no leather cuffs? No nipple clamps?” She rolls her eyes. “Boring, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t. Can you block Lukas’s account? Buy us some time?”
“I can block his PayPal and Google Wallet easy,” she confirms, “but I cannot make any guarantees if they do a direct deposit through his bank, though I doubt even he would be so bekloppt.”
I won’t pretend to know what that word means. “Do what you can, Jazz. We can’t let those videos get out. Not one. Forward me Lukas’s information again, keep your eye on him, and tell me at once if those videos ever leave his phone.”
“Already doing so.”
I start rubbing my temple. “And explain to me again why you couldn’t just hack in and delete the videos?”
“Too complicated to explain.”
“You mean you think I’m too dumb to understand.”
“Correct. Are all of your clients such … sexual disasters?” she asks, her eyes pinching half-closed. “Like you?”
I snort. “Me? I’m not a sexual disaster. The hell you mean by that?”
