Chapter 1 #2
She climbs to her feet with a wince that tells me she’s bruised on more than her face. Then she gives me a blinding smile, and for just a moment, I’m eight and she’s six, and I’ve just handed her the bright yellow bag of M&Ms I swiped from the corner drugstore.
I point across the street. She knows the drill. She looks both ways before crossing the old streetcar tracks that carve the middle of the road.
Back in the Jaguar, I finally trigger the control that opens the front gate. The iron grill slides back smoothly. I stop the car so it blocks the sidewalk, guarding the entrance until the gate settles back in place.
I value my privacy. A lot.
Nutmeg shakes her head as I turn into the street, gliding to an easy stop in front of her. She takes every chance she gets to tell me I’m paranoid. But she grew up in the same family I did. She should know I’m not paranoid enough.
It’s less than a mile to the Four Seasons, but most intersections through Georgetown’s tree-lined streets are controlled by four-way stop signs. That gives me cover to pretend I’m concentrating on the road, when I’m actually sizing up my sister’s current status.
Good news: No jitters, no diluted pupils, no visible track marks—she probably isn’t using.
The dye job on her hair hasn’t grown out and she doesn’t stink—she’s had access to a shower sometime in the last few days.
She doesn’t immediately go for the protein bars I keep in the glove compartment—she’s had food too.
Bad news: That bruise on her face. Whatever’s going on beneath the sweatshirt, on her right side where she’s favoring her ribs. Her fingernails are chewed to the quick, which always happens when she’s nervous. And worst of all—she came to me for help.
It’s been thirteen months—no, fourteen—since she last washed up outside my Georgetown home with a broken arm, a nasty limp, and something just shattered inside her.
She promised she was ready to give up the life, to major in business at college somewhere, to finally go legit.
But she stormed down the street when I refused to give her money, even though I promised to pay tuition directly to any university she chose.
I’ve taken enough client meetings at the Four Seasons that the valets know me. I tip extra to keep the Jaguar waiting near the door. I won’t be long.
The hostess recognizes me at the restaurant as well. “Welcome back, Mr. Wolf,” she says, automatically taking us to a table in the far corner, where we can’t be overheard. She doesn’t give a hint of noticing Nutmeg’s hair, her face, her filthy, over-size clothes.
I wait until Nut’s halfway through her Truffle Grove Scramble before I begin our usual fight. “Let me give you a phone.”
“Don’t need one,” she says, around a mouthful of sourdough toast.
“You have to be able to reach me in an emergency.”
“If I need, you, I can wait outside your gate,” she says, which sounds completely reasonable because it’s working well today.
“Take the phone. You’ll have the internet in your pocket.”
She smirks over her third cup of coffee. “If I take a phone, you’ll have the internet in my pocket. Tell the truth. You could track me anywhere in the world, couldn’t you?”
I shrug, because we both know my ability to hack computer systems. “I worry about you, Nutmeg.”
“Don’t.”
It’s easy for her to say the word, but that doesn’t erase the last twenty-seven years. I’m her big brother. I’m supposed to protect her. I should have been there when Shannon died, when Nut ended up on the street at only fifteen.
Instead, I was locked inside a juvenile detention center. Prison, for a minor.
I give up on getting her a phone. This time.
Between her bites of scrambled eggs and mushrooms, we talk about little things. I tell her I bought a new Jackson Pollock. She wrinkles her nose and says, “I could have made one for you—a couple gallons of white and gray house paint and a canvas to drip on. I’d only charge you twenty-five k.”
She’s so specific that I wonder if she’s been selling fake paintings again, but I don’t trust her to tell me the truth if I ask.
So we move on to the weather, and the cherry blossoms that are nearing peak bloom, and a Japanese horror movie she says I’d love.
I haven’t watched horror movies since before I went away.
When she’s finished her breakfast and I’ve paid the bill, I place both palms on the snow-white tablecloth. It’s time to negotiate details. “Two nights,” I say.
“A week.”
“Three. And you can order all the room service you want.”
“I need a car. I have a job interview.”
I shake my head. The kind of jobs Nutmeg takes don’t require interviews. “Three nights. Room service. And five hundred to spend in the spa.”
“I need clothes.”
“I’ll have Nilsson send over some things.”
“I can’t go around looking like I’m competing for the Finnish Biathlon Olympic team.”
“Swedish. And Nilsson has better taste than both of us combined.”
She wrinkles her nose. A calculator flashes behind her eyes as she measures how much more she can get out of me.
“I’m late for an important meeting,” I warn her. “Take it or leave it.”
She throws herself back in her chair like she’s still six years old, and something squeezes my heart hard enough to cut off my breath. She fiddles with her used silverware, working the knife between the tines of her fork. But eventually she says, “Fine. I’ll take it.”
“And a phone.”
She meets my gaze directly. “Force a phone on me, and I’ll sell it by midnight.”
She will, too.
Reluctantly, I hold up both hands. “Okay. No phone.”
She gives me a solemn nod.
“But you’ll check in once a month. Call me on my phone.” I’ve kept the same number since I got out of prison. I don’t use it for business, but I’ve made sure Nut has it memorized.
“If I remember,” she says.
“Once a month.” I tap my black American Express card against the table, reminding her of all she has hanging on the hook.
She sighs like an exasperated teenager. “Yeah. Fine. You win. I’ll call once a month.”
I take her to the front desk then, and I arrange for her room. I keep an account here for clients, and the hotel is used to my sometimes-odd requests. The woman behind the counter doesn’t bat an eye when I lay down the restrictions on Nutmeg’s spending.
When I hug my sister, my heart gets another workout because she squeezes a lot tighter than I do. I’m halfway to Dulles before I call Nilsson and tell him to send over a couple of weeks’ worth of clothes. And I’m halfway to Boston before I check messages on my business phone.
A text came in while I was offline.
Kasimir062917
Suspend all operations
Effective immediately
Scowling, I break out a burner to call Kasimir. I’ve been running computer security for his dark web businesses for almost seven years.
“Have you been hacked?” I ask, because that’s more professional than what the fuck?
“Lone Wolf’s services will no longer be needed.” His Russian accent is thick, which means he’s angry.
“Lone Wolf is the only thing standing between you and—”
“I am broke,” he interrupts. Before I can return the favor, he adds, “Cleaned out. I cannot afford your Lone Wolf.”
This is Red Cap’s fault. The fuckers hit Kasimir last month. The Russian clicked first and called later. We’ve been fighting a difficult, expensive rearguard action for five weeks.
“You can’t afford to let me go,” I warn Kasimir.
“I cannot afford to keep you. You should have kept Red Cap out.”
“I—”
He terminates the call.
That thirty-second exchange just cost me twelve million dollars—Kasimir’s annual fees. Kasimir’s account isn’t the difference between my eating this month and not. My net worth is well north of a billion dollars. But money matters. Money is the way I measure my success.
Money is everything.
And the Red Cap Raiders have cost me too much. It’s time to track them down. To destroy them. To prove that I’m the best in the world at what I do.