Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
KINCAID
Tana Manor is four stories tall with another two levels sunk underground, built from a pink and orange hued sandstone that turns blood red in the early winter sunset.
Rolls of razor wire top the six-foot-high wrought iron security fence, adding to its natural menace.
I press in the code and wait for the gates to unlock, mind filling with thoughts of Francesca while I wait. She’s probably home by now, too, skin scented from my shirt with the mud and grass and sweat from the game.
She’ll reek of me like I’ve marked her as territory.
I park in the underground garage before punching in another passcode and swipe a card to release the heavy door.
The manor has enough rooms to house twenty students but, family aside, there’s only two in residence.
Tyson who occupies the attic rooms—a computing genius my uncle considers his greatest asset, and whose talents the rest of us sorely abuse—and Onyx who lurks down in the sub-basement. With a photographic memory and an ear for accents and cadence, he’s a chameleon who can go undercover on a few minutes briefing.
Even if he weren’t such a pretty boy, his sociopathic charms alone would get him a long way. They certainly get him laid pretty much twenty-four seven.
And yeah, if it’s possible to fuck and sleep at the same time, Onyx is your man.
As if to prove my point, a girl strolls out of the internal elevator with legs for days, a swing in her hips that says she knows exactly how to work her assets. She gives a start, her expression transforming into interest as she glances from head to toe, arching an eyebrow when she meets my gaze.
I ignore her, leaping up the stairs two or three at a time. I always choose the stairs because small spaces freak me out, especially when rooming with a cousin who often plays sadistic pranks for his own amusement.
Four staircases later, I knock on Tyson’s door. “It’s King here. You in?”
He yells back, “If I keep my mouth shut, will you go away or are you asking so you can break into my room and steal my stuff?”
I push open the door when the lock releases. “Bit late to find out. Could you research a student?”
Tyson gives me the side-eye. “You could run a search yourself,” he observes with a dry smile, logging into the Westlake student portal. “What do you really need?”
And although I came to him specifically for the magic he can wrangle from any electronic source, the words don’t come easily. “A way to track someone online. Access their phone to see her messages and stuff.”
“ Her messages.” Tyson’s smile expands, and he relaxes farther back in his chair, one leg bent so his ankle rests on the other. “Am I billing this back to Lance or is this a private venture?”
“Private.”
He stares at me while I keep my face as blank as possible. Finally, he sighs, crossing his hands over his midriff and shaking his head. “C’mon man. You gotta give me more than that or I’m not doing squat.”
“She’s just a girl.”
“Mm.” He tilts his head, eyes crinkling with amusement. “I wasn’t aware you liked any.”
“What’d you mean?” My frown grows deeper. “I’m always with a girl.”
“You fuck them. You’re not with them. Ezra is the opposite.” He wriggles his shoulders like he’s settling in for a comfy chat. “When’s the last time you saw a girl more than once?”
“I wasn’t aware you took such a keen interest in my social life.”
“Because you’re the world’s most incurious man.” The grin he uses to accompany the words take away any potential sting. “You should be in the dictionary under the phrase ‘blindly follows orders.’”
“Phrases aren’t how dictionaries work and the word you’re searching for is soldier.”
A foot soldier in my uncle’s army is how I think of it. Or how he wants me to think of myself. Uncle Lance is very good at putting people into boxes before they can test others to see how they fit.
If I had my choice, I’d promote myself to lieutenant at least. Anything to stop being placed on assignments with Ezra. There isn’t a task my egregious cousin can’t enshittify beyond repair.
“Can you do it or not?”
“Irritable as well. She must’ve got under your skin. What’s her name?”
“Francesca.” He rolls his eyes. “Fine. Francesca Qualley.” I rub my neck, the room feeling uncomfortably hot. “She had a run-in with Alice—”
Tyson’s feet hit the ground, and he leans forward, shoving his palm in front of my face. “Wait, wait, wait. You’re talking about the ginger whore on Ezra’s video?” He must read something on my face because he laughs, relaxing into his chair again, fingers steepled under his chin like a Bond villain. “Oh, this is good.”
“She’s not a whore ,” I snap. “And she sure as fuck didn’t enjoy it.”
“Apologies for the mislabelling,” he says with another eyeroll so expansive he’ll soon be in danger of them falling out.
“Can you just run the software and tell me the cost?”
“For you? Zero. All I need is another few snippets of gossip—”
“Which you’re not getting. How’d you like it if I dissected your love life?”
“You’re in love?” He claps a hand to his heart. “Man, that was quick. Or have you been secretly pining after her forever and it was seeing your cousin’s dick in her mouth that led you to make your move?”
I have him out of the chair and slammed against the wall in less than a second, my arm pinning him by the throat high enough his feet dangle above the floor.
Through gritted teeth, I say, “How about you show a bit of goddamned respect?”
“Hey! I respect the hell out of whores. Who’s got time to date?”
I shove my face into his. “Stop calling her that. Use her name or I will fucking hurt you for real.”
He pulls a wounded face but when I keep my grip firm, he sighs. “Fine. She’s a nun. Would you like me to clone Sister Francesca’s entire profile, so you can see the pious websites and apps she looks at for her daily inspiration?”
The smirk stays in place, but I slowly let him down to the ground.
Out of everyone in the household, he’s the hardest for me to read because everything gets filtered through differing layers of jocularity. Onyx reveals more of his true self, and the nature of his work means he’s always playing a role.
After a few seconds of faux coughing and spluttering, Tyson gets to work, and I pace the room while his face is lit by the blue glow of his many screens.
There’s a pair of handcuffs by the bed, man sized, and I stare at them for a full minute. Not because I give a shit what his sexuality is, but because I don’t think they’re for his—according to him—paid sexual partners.
I think the cuffs are for him.
The cock cage to the side doesn’t bear thinking about.
“Get the fuck away from my bed or I’ll start to get the wrong idea,” he calls out, not turning from his work for a moment. “Are you able to get hold of her mobile phone? Because then I can streamline a lot of this shit more effectively.”
“Maybe.”
He spins to face me. “Try a yes or no.”
“Could I give her a phone with everything already loaded?”
“Sure. That’ll be way easier.” I expect buying it to be a task for tomorrow, but he pulls out a drawer crammed full of new smartphones. “Take your pick.”
I select one with a turquoise case to match her eyes. “Can you grab me her student schedule while you’re at it?”
“I can do an entire workup on the little lady, but the full dossier costs double.”
“Double times zero?” He nods. “Knock yourself out.”
When I take my seat again, his shoulders hunch. “You don’t need to supervise, you know. If you won’t feed me gossip about the new love of your life, you can fuck off and I’ll bring it all to you when I’m done.”
My inner control freak would vastly prefer to stay but it’s not like I know what any of the code scrolling up his screen means or does. I clap him on the shoulder before making my way downstairs to the kitchen.
Onyx sits at the table, a large slab of oak that can sit eight, eating from a bowl that contains about three parts milk to one part cereal. His pitch-black hair falls over his face, the sharp gaze of his pale blue eyes peeking from the shadows like ice crystals.
“Tyson says you’ve got a girl.”
“The fuck?” I throw myself into the chair opposite, legs splayed in front of me and shove a hand through my hair. “How did he even—”
Onyx twists his phone screen around to me. Tyson added a still from Ezra’s video to the message as an identifier and my hands squeeze into tight fists.
“Says she’s a nun.”
“She’s a senior at Westlake.” I snatch the phone and delete the message, groaning as I see he’s sent it to Ezra as well.
Onyx pushes away his bowl and stands, stretching out his spine until the vertebrae pop. I take his bowl to the dishwasher because he’s unaware dishes don’t wash themselves and reminding him is a shortcut to frustration.
We do have a housekeeper, Sibil, but she spends more time out on the back patio, smoking and taking sneaky sips from a hipflask, than she does cleaning. A deficiency we overlook because she cooks the most divine food known to man and, even better in our line of work, knows how to keep her mouth shut.
A trait Tyson could stand to learn.
But I forgive him when, five minutes after I head to my room, Tyson brings me the modified phone, and a dossier on Francesca Qualley.
Perfect.
I kick off my shoes and climb on top of my large bed. Everything on it is custom made to fit my height, the mattress and bedding both extending a foot longer than normal.
Along with my car, a pristine Bentley Bentayga pimped out with cricket-ball leather upholstery and a wood and leather steering wheel, it’s my only extravagance.
I never thought of myself as the sort of man who’d welcome a family, a wife and kids, not even as a daydream. Tyson’s right that I’ve mostly treated girls like they’re single-use entertainment. But a few minutes in Francesca’s company and I’m changing my mind. It might be nice to have someone to welcome me home at the end of a gruelling assignment or cheering from the stands during a tough game. A person to talk to who isn’t my competition, or a psychopath with training to enhance the worst aspects of their personality.
I scroll through the information Tyson provided, a smile spreading wide at the thought of Francesca greeting me when I return home after a long day spent working for my uncle.
She doesn’t seem to like me, but I don’t mind. It would still be nice.
Even if she’s cuffed there, against her will, eyes blazing in protest.