Chapter 7
KATE
I’m standing in front of the refrigerator, wearing soft black yoga pants and an over-size gray hoodie. Rubbing one bare foot against the other, I try to decide if it’s worth the time, effort, and mess to make scrambled eggs for breakfast.
“Madam.” The voice behind me is as smooth as water over ice, but I jump nearly a mile high.
“Nilsson,” I say, once I can force a single word past the pounding of my heart.
I don’t have to justify being in this kitchen. That’s what I bargained for when I gave up running away, when I decided not to take all my meager possessions and hop a plane for County Donegal. I get this house and everything in it—including Nilsson—whether Cole is at home or not.
And this morning, he’s not, because he had an early-morning business meeting in Delaware.
So I get to make small talk with a Swedish iceberg.
A feckin’ Swedish iceberg who just yesterday proved himself to be as proficient at wielding a semi-automatic rifle as he is at running the average over-privileged billionaire’s household.
“I would be happy to make you breakfast,” Nilsson says. He doesn’t sound happy. He sounds like a robot running pre-launch procedures for a moon shot.
“Not necessary,” I say, grabbing the first thing that remotely resembles a nutritious start to my day. It looks like yogurt, but the container is labeled skyr. This cup is flavored with pure manuka honey.
I pay too much attention to peeling back the foil lid. Scramble in the drawer for a spoon. Consider getting a bowl. I am not at all accustomed to having someone waiting on me.
But Nilsson is still standing by the massive center island when I give up and turn around. “Madam,” he says again. I’m pretty sure this time, he’s acknowledging my refusal of a hot-cooked breakfast.
“Look,” I say, my discomfort making me ornery. “This isn’t working for me.”
“Madam,” he says again, and now his favorite word is a question, just the faintest up-turn at the end.
“That,” I say. “Calling me Madam. My name is Kate. Please use it.”
“Yes…Kate.” He sounds like a snowball is wedged in his throat. “Is there anything else I can get you this morning, Kate?”
He strains saying my name, as if he learned it phonetically from a badly programmed online translator. I start to sigh in exasperation, ready to retreat with my…skyr. But before I can dismiss Nilsson and head down the hall to my office, I remember I do need something else.
I spent two full weeks in this house before Cole and I had our first marital meltdown. Most of that time I felt like a prisoner, like a parcel handed off from my father to my husband. While I was here, I mostly forgot to eat. I certainly didn’t come into the kitchen on my own, not for any meal.
And I didn’t take a single, solitary step toward figuring out how to operate the massive coffee-making machine that fills an entire counter next to the refrigerator.
The stainless-steel hulk has three different nozzles and half a dozen arrays of buttons.
I’m pretty sure it could generate copies of the Rosetta Stone, if I just knew how to use it.
All I want is some caffeine so I can make it through the rest of the morning. Therefore I’m forced to admit to Nilsson, “Yes, please. Some coffee.”
“Certainly…Kate.” I wonder how long it will take for him to melt away the sharp edges he puts around my name. “Would you prefer a single cup? Or a carafe?”
“A carafe, please. Black. No sugar.”
“My pleasure,” Nilsson says with no hint of actual pleasure. But he steps up to the giant machine and, with a fierce efficiency, sets a filter, grinds beans, and positions a sleek steel container to collect the nectar of the gods.
I wonder if there’s a Mr. Coffee locked in a closet somewhere inside this mansion.
If not, I bet one could be delivered within the hour.
I could set it up in my office, along with a plastic tub of pre-ground Maxwell House.
What’s good enough for Da is good enough for me.
And I’ll never have to deal with Nilsson again.
But the scent rising from the newly tamed machine makes my mouth water.
It’s pure coffee, but I catch a whisper of chocolate, a hint of caramel, and a bare suggestion of peat.
I’m willing to bet the coffee Cole buys is some of the best in the world.
It sure isn’t something he swiped off the bottom shelf in a grocery-store aisle.
Maybe, just maybe, I can get used to Nilsson’s arctic presence.
Armed with a metal carafe and a large stoneware mug, I make my way down the hall to my office. My computer is waiting, exactly as I left it when I joined Cole at dinner last night. I type in my password, and then I stare at the screen.
If I were still living in Da’s house, I’d spend my morning crafting a new attack for the Red Cap Raiders.
They’ve been the core of my online life for the past six years.
I built the group, scouting out members in various online forums. I tracked them, tested them, and invited them to join my raiding party in the online game Winter Reckoning.
But Pyotr Tarasov ruined all of that. When I let the bratva brigadier through Cole’s iron gate, I closed the door on my entire life with Red Cap.
I’ve lost the familiar squabbling of our online chats.
The visceral thrill of destroying imaginary wintry creatures.
The financial boost of robbing poorly guarded banks.
I press my fingers into the tattoo etched at the top of my right thigh, a red felt hat, the type Robin Hood wore. It’s outlined in black, with the feather streaming a tail of ones and zeroes. I got it when my team completed our first successful raid.
I don’t need the Raiders. I don’t need anyone.
I lose the next three hours to structuring my first solo raid.
I already have a long list of potential targets, but they were given to Red Cap by MaskedMarauder, by Pyotr Tarasov.
At best, they’re businesses the bratva especially wants to hit.
They might be traps that would drop me into the middle of a federal investigation.
Worst case, they’ll expose me to other organized crime families inclined to answer any invasion with death. I can’t trust even one of the links.
After scrambling on my own for far too many hours, I identify a bank in Malta that is backstopping its accounts with a new cryptocurrency.
I read through their documents three times, trying to understand exactly what they’re doing, but the words keep dissolving into gibberish.
I need someone who has a better understanding of banking systems. That was always the expertise of DarkMoney666, another Red Cap Raider.
Skipping over the financial details for now, I start to structure a hacking tool to penetrate the bank’s crypto scheme.
Every approach I come up with will require a massive surge of computer resources at a handful of crucial points.
I don’t have a server farm. Shaddow always handled that for the Raiders.
More annoyed than ever, I start to consider what data I’m likely to glean from the entire operation.
I may end up with actual money I can channel into my own account.
But the real haul will be the bank customers’ government identification numbers, passport IDs and social security numbers, which can all be sold on the dark web.
I’ll have a table of email addresses and passwords too.
But I’ve never been an expert at navigating the dark web.
I had IceKiller to wade through that swamp.
Red Cap wasn’t perfect. The guys were immature, slagging each other over anything and everything. They were quick to grab the glory for each successful conquest and even faster to shift the blame when things went tits-up. But now I’m lost without them.
Plus, I miss the feeling of belonging. Loneliness feels like a physical weight, burrowing through my breastbone like termites through a building’s joists. My tattoo burns like it’s one day into healing.
I take a slug of cold coffee and hunch my shoulders. My bare office walls look stark instead of professional. My desk—empty except for my computer—seems far too large for the room.
Pushing my luxury chair to the side, I start to pace.
I know the jagged energy sparking across my shoulders—the feeling of being locked in a cage.
It’s how I felt every time Da took my dosh without a single word of thanks.
It’s what Mam triggered whenever she uttered her favorite sentence in the world: “A Lynch woman offers up her pain to the clan.”
I’m in pain, and I’m nowhere near my feckin’ clan. Every word inside my head twists into a feral snarl. Knives start to whisper when I feel like this.
I won’t cut. I made a promise, and I’m keeping to it, even if I can’t beg Cole to help me the way he did yesterday.
God, I miss him. I’d never admit the truth to Cole’s face, but I long for his cold certainty that he knows what’s best for me. His calm composure when I lash out in self-defense. His tiny, satisfied smile every time I prove he was right.
And that’s another piece of the seething anger that ripples beneath my skin: I don’t want to miss my husband. To need him. To be the kind of woman who falls apart because her man is gone for one single, solitary day.
A month ago, if I felt this wild I’d rampage through the house, finding ways to punish Cole for leaving me.
I could rearrange his precious art collection.
Splash bleach over every black garment in his closet.
Take one of the cars from the garage and drive it too fast and too far. Wreak havoc with the Red Cap Raiders.
The Raiders provided escape. Winter Reckoning was a refuge too. Without them, I’m stripped bare.
But they’re gone. And Cole is too, at least until tonight.
So I have to learn to wait. To be patient. To be alone.
Catching a screech of frustration against the back of my throat, I throw myself back in my chair and pull my computer close. I forbid myself to look at the clock in the corner of the display.
I’ll work without the Raiders. I’ll search for new online targets. And maybe —I hate the fact that my brain even whispers this thought—the universe will offer up some wee miracle, and Cole will return home early.