Chapter 7
ALEXA
“Wait, how did you set up my email? I never gave you the password.”
I looked at Nolan over the top of my glasses. Usually, I wore contacts, but my eyes were tired after I spent most of last night chasing Dark Descent around the dark web.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m serious. It should be at least twenty characters.”
“Zinfandelzinfandel123?”
“Don’t use repetition. Let’s go with ‘NolandeLucaisaninsensitivejerk’—capital N, capital L. Do you think you can remember that?”
“Shouldn’t there be some numbers in there?”
“Length is more important.”
“Many women say girth is,” he fired back.
Ugh. “Do you ever think of anything but your dick? Literally anything?”
“I’m sorry. That was inappropriate.”
It was, and this was a side of Nolan I hadn’t seen before. In Blackstone House, he used to treat me like a porcelain doll he was scared of breaking. And if I’d seen his home movie back then, I would have broken. Today, I was oddly proud of staring him down to the point of apology.
“Do better.”
Our gazes locked, and my chest grew tighter, tighter until I struggled to take in a breath.
“Nolan de Luca is an insensitive jerk,” he whispered. “Got it.”
“Good.”
“And I’m also sorry I walked away all those years ago. Not that it wasn’t necessary to avoid crossing a line that should never be crossed, but—”
“Good morning!” Marielle bustled in with two cups in a carry-out tray and a grease-spotted paper bag. Didn’t knock, didn’t ask if this was a bad time, which it absolutely was. “I brought proper coffee and granola bars.”
“Marielle, we’re in the middle of something,” Nolan said through gritted teeth.
“Oh, don’t mind me. I just need to measure the windows. Sorry, I only brought two drinks—I didn’t realise Alexis was still here.”
Alexis? I hadn’t much liked Marielle yesterday, and I liked her even less today.
She reminded me of my mother. It wasn’t only the fact that Mom had been an interior designer, but also because once you’d spent time living with a narcissist—or two, in my case—you got pretty good at spotting them.
And Marielle had the trademark veneer of charm that barely hid the bitchiness lurking beneath.
Blackstone House Alexa would have snapped back with a few choice words and waited for the woman to back away, but I’d spent the intervening years learning. From the girls in the Choir, from my business partner, Janus Monroe, from Chase, from each encounter I had with the world around me.
Then, I’d been good with computers. Now, I was not only the queen of cyberspace but of cunning too.
And fucking with Marielle was about to become my new favourite game.
I forced a giggle. “Forget about it, hun. I promise I won’t take up much more of your time.
I’m just explaining Nolan’s new antivirus software before I leave.
And I really like what you’ve done with the place—do you have a business card?
Or a website? I’m looking at buying a new property soon, and I’d love to get some inspiration. ”
Nolan’s eyes widened slightly because he knew me well enough to be worried by my smile, and from my lips, “hun” was an insult. He gave his head a little shake. A warning, and one I intended to ignore. Fortunately, Marielle had no idea who she was dealing with, so she carried on, oblivious.
“I do have a website, of course.” Not for long. “Let me note down the address for you.”
She helped herself to a pen and paper from Nolan’s desk and handed me the cyber equivalent of ammunition.
“Cloud Nine Interiors?”
She beamed at me. “We design happiness.”
Somehow, I doubted that. I’d rather swan-dive into a nuclear reactor than work on a project with Marielle.
“Do you have a web store as well? I could do with buying more throw pillows.”
Was that a faint groan I detected from Nolan?
Marielle was too busy preening to notice. She seemed to be a woman fuelled by praise, much like my mother, so I knew exactly which buttons to press.
“As it happens, I do. I ship a carefully curated selection of luxury accessories anywhere in the United States.”
Great, that would give me a new hobby.
“Chase always tells me I buy too many frivolous things, but…” I trailed off and shrugged. “A girl needs what a girl needs, right?”
“That is so true.”
Speaking of Chase, he knocked softly on the door. “Our pilot just messaged. He’s five minutes out.”
Phew.
I’d never admit it to Jez, but I didn’t regret the trip.
It had helped me to put one of my past demons to bed.
For years, I’d regretted the way my friendship with Nolan had ended, and while seeing him again had been awkward—I mean super awkward, what with the dick video and all—I’d survived.
Now I didn’t have to lie awake at night wondering what if?
We’d both moved on. He had Marielle and the vineyard; I had Chase and a multibillion-dollar web services company, the largest still in private hands.
Although I found it difficult to get excited about global expansion the way Jay did, I was proud of everything we’d built together.
“Marielle, it was lovely meeting you.” I stood and closed my laptop, then slid the device into its travel case. “Good to see you too, Nolan. Au revoir.”
* * *
I hadn’t been lying about buying property.
Right after I arrived back in Vegas, I headed to my lawyer’s office to finalise the purchase of a ski-in, ski-out chalet in Aspen, Colorado, plus I signed my part of the paperwork for the acquisition of land in Maine that would one day house a new data centre.
The chalet wasn’t a home, and I didn’t even like snow, but it would make a good investment.
Chase did enjoy skiing, so maybe we’d spend a couple of weeks there at some point.
Had I tried settling down in a permanent residence rather than out of a suitcase?
Yes. But every time I stayed in one place too long, I got twitchy, and nowhere I’d tried living so far felt right.
The closest thing I had to a home was in Las Vegas, a suite of five rooms in the basement of Casa del Gato—the Cathouse—also known as the Choir’s base of operations.
One room housed my more sensitive servers, the second was my workroom, and then there was my bedroom with its en-suite.
The last room, I used to store anything that wouldn’t fit into my suitcase.
Chase borrowed a bedroom on the second floor—he preferred having windows.
When Chase took time off to visit friends or family or make his annual pilgrimage to the dojo he trained at in Japan, this was where I stayed, accompanied by Marcel, Dice’s menagerie of snakes, and an excellent security system.
Sin’s dogs lived here as well, but she’d trained them to keep well away from me.
This evening, they watched from the doorway as Chase unloaded the car.
“Echo, ma chérie.” Marcel gripped my arms lightly as he leaned in to kiss me on both cheeks, French-style, even though he’d been born and raised in the USA.
We’d hired him to cook and clean, but he’d claimed the title of “estate manager” and stuck his nose in everywhere. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“I need peace and quiet to plot world domination—same old, same old.”
“Then you’ll have to eat properly—I’m making beef bourguignon for dinner.”
“Great, is Jez here?”
“She was earlier, but she had to pop out.”
“Pop out where?”
“Libya, I believe.”
“Does that mean there’s an extra helping of beef bourguignon going spare?”
“That depends on whether you say ‘please.’”
I rolled my eyes; I couldn’t help it. “Fine. Please can I have extra dinner?”
We played this game every time I stayed here.
Marcel pushed my buttons, and I did the same in return.
Quite literally, on occasion. My latest trick involved hacking the smart TV in his bedroom and changing the volume just a smidgen, enough for him to wonder whether he was losing his mind.
So far, he’d gotten through three “faulty” TVs and had his hearing checked at the hospital, and he still hadn’t worked out what the real problem was: his uppity fucking attitude.
But his beef bourguignon was really, really good, so I more or less put up with him.
“I’m going to take a swim,” Chase announced. “Unless you need me for anything else right now?”
“No, I’m good.”
There were three items on my to-do list, enough to keep me busy this evening.
I had to catch up with Jay ahead of next week’s board meeting, make some alterations to Marielle’s website, and continue tracking Dark Descent.
Plus I’d have to deal with today’s episode of the Nolan show when it popped up, and then there was my ongoing side project—the devil lurking at the back of the red room.
He called himself GutterMuse, and he bragged that he sold access to the best torture porn on the dark web.
Or the worst, if you happened to be one of his victims. So far, I’d spent two years looking for him, and although I’d worked with the FBI to get several of his clients arrested, GutterMuse himself remained stubbornly out of reach.
Hmm, where to start… I opened my custom-built messaging app, but before I could call Jay, a notification popped up.
Nolan
What is this?
Ah, he’d finally spotted the new icon on his phone screen. Took him long enough.
Me
It’s a messaging app.
I mean, wasn’t it obvious?
Nolan
How did it get on my phone?
Me
Your passcode is 1234. You need to change that too.
Nolan
You can’t go around installing stuff on people’s phones.
Me
Actually, I can. And you shouldn’t leave your phone lying around unattended.
Nolan
The phone was IN MY HOUSE.
Me
Exactly. You leave the door unlocked, and you don’t have a single security camera.
Nolan
You remember those boundaries we used to talk about? This is one of them.
Oh yeah, the lectures. They’d mostly come from Grey, but occasionally, Nolan would back him up, or Ruby. Stop hacking the neighbour’s Wi-Fi. No security cameras inside the house. Don’t tell Brax’s girlfriend he’s out when he isn’t, although Ruby never complained about that last fib.
Me
I adjusted my boundaries as I got older.
Nolan
And don’t screw around with Marielle. She means well.
Me
Maybe you should talk to her about boundaries?
Nolan
I’ll tell her to knock next time.
So he thought there would be a next time? Sure, I could transfer the data to his new laptop remotely once I’d retrieved it, but a part of me wanted to head back to Amador County just to annoy Ms. Cushions-R-Us.
Me
Maybe she could try working from home?
Nolan
Alexa…
A notification pinged on one of my laptops. Here we go again… I triple-checked my security settings, clicked through to the porn site, and gave a Nolan-worthy sigh when I saw the video already had over a hundred views.
Me
Your dick just popped up on the internet. Ciao.
Cloud Nine’s website and Jay would both have to wait.
Nolan
I’m deleting the app now.
Me
Good luck with that.