Chapter 2 Fox in the Hen House #2
A brown dog with floppy ears wandered in from the left side of the screen, nose bent to the ground and running circles on the black background as if on the hunt with a scent.
The fox had been hiding behind a tree that popped up in the center, the dog walking in front of it as the fox watched from behind with its tail sticking out the back.
With a note of finality in the cartoonish music, the fox sprang out from the tree and pounced on the dog’s back to knock them both down.
At first, it seemed as if the fox was going to roll the dog playfully with it.
Then, the fox’s mouth bit around the dog’s neck and shook. The immature, pixelated vision of gore as square blocks of blood that appeared beneath the dog’s slumped body was a very loud, very clear message.
My blood was boiling when the screen went blank again, the silence left behind roaring in my ears along with every beat of my heart as I kept my eyes trained on the dead laptop.
If I weren’t so pissed off, I’d be offended at being mocked for my old username like that.
It was a matter of pride. And I’d gladly show whoever this motherfucker was just how devious a fox shifter could be.
Whoever had the balls to fuck with the person in control of every electronic device in three blocks was about to find out what a consequence was.
Bolting from my chair, I straightened my jacket with jerky movements and left my date in the box seat.
It didn’t really matter to me if she thought it was rude.
I stormed out of the door and toward the elevator at the end of the gaudy hall, carpeted with a God-awful red-and-gold pattern and decorated with gilded portraits of haughty people.
Two guards were stationed on either side of the closed doors.
“Sir? Is everything okay?” one asked. I was probably not looking very cool and collected at the moment. Usually, it took a lot to get me worked up. And whoever was fucking with me managed to slam their hands on all my buttons.
I didn’t bother to answer him, but I did shoot a scathing glare his way.
The guard turned to jab the button to call the elevator, likely fearing for his life.
That hacker may have trashed my laptop, but they’d be a fucking idiot to think that was the only computer I had access to.
Like hell was I letting some punk ass with an ego crash the auction bid system without a fight.
The doors had barely slid open before I stormed into the elevator.
My finger jabbed the button for the basement harder than necessary, and I scowled all the way down to the bottom floor.
Instead of cooling off on the ride, my anger was stoked even hotter all the way to the server room.
I was the only one who had the code to the servers, and the locks were set on a two-factor authentication system that incorporated a fingerprint scan and an encrypted code sent to my phone to enter into the keypad.
My boss, Andrea, thought it was ridiculous to have so much security on a, and I quote, ‘bunch of whirring boxes.’ One final Lupi Selvaggi member stood beside the door to the server room, watching us barrel down the hall in confusion.
“Is something going on upstairs?” he pointed to the earpiece resting inside his ear.
“Sounds like some shit is going down backstage. They called for backup.”
Perhaps, following tonight, he will put more credence in my warnings about system security.
He wanted the black market auctions to run smoothly with easy payment methods, but rarely listened when I tried to put more of an investment in the firewall and server protection.
I didn’t want to use an event I was managing as the cautionary tale, however.
In my three years of service to Andrea and the Lupi Selvaggi, this had been the first direct threat to the auctions I dealt with.
I stormed to the row of monitors sprawled across a desk, tucked into the corner of the server room.
The spare laptop hooked up to them kept track of the bidding war still going on upstairs, numbers and anonymous usernames flickering across the screens, giving me a small assurance.
Whoever hacked into my computer didn’t seem to make it into the mainframe.
With jerking movements, I yanked the rolling chair out to fall into, fingers flying across the keyboard to pull up the diagnostic programs before my ass even hit the cushion.
“Everything good, boss?” One of the guards from the elevator had wandered into the server room with me, looking curiously over my shoulder as I worked. That was my biggest pet peeve.
“Fine,” I gritted my teeth in annoyance. “I just—”
There! A blip on the screen, just a flicker, as code sprinted across the black window—a stutter in the quick flow of the program—had me narrowing my eyes through my glasses. That wasn’t a good sign. “Shit!”
One guard lifted a hand to his ear, listening to whoever was reporting to him. “There’s a problem on the auction floor, Grant. The program is frozen, and the online bidding has shut down entirely.”
Fingers arching over the keys, I began my own frantic effort to recover whatever had hijacked the system. It was back and forth, typing in kill codes just as quickly as another command was remotely entered by the fucker trying to take the servers down.
“What the fuck do you mean?” the guard snarled into his radio. “They’re a bunch of girls; what do you mean they got loose? Yeah… with a tire iron?” His one-sided conversation was quickly devolving. “Shoot her in the fucking head, what the fuck is wrong with you? … Hey, Campbell?”
“Go take care of it,” I jerked my head to the door. “I’m armed. Take one of the other guys to the elevator and make sure Andrea gets out.”
The remaining guard stood off to the side and shook his head in disbelief, still listening to the radio chatter. “Who the hell takes on armed security with a fucking tire iron? People are batshit crazy these days.”
“One would argue everyone in the audience is batshit crazy,” I muttered.
With every passing second, I could feel the scowl deepen on my face.
Every command my fingers hammered out on the keyboard was getting blocked by the hostile program.
I couldn’t run any of my installed counters.
“Fuck!” I shoved my hand into my right pocket and ripped out the thumb drive I kept for emergencies.
It was going to wipe out the entire system I built, along with any saved data from tonight’s attendees.
Andrea would have to build the next invitation list from scratch.
He was going to be so pissed.
As if summoned, my phone began to vibrate in my pocket. The encrypted phone I only used for mob business. “Black,” I answered.
“What the actual fuck is going on?” Andrea’s voice was deep and low, like he was trying not to be overheard. “All the laptops are down, along with the sound system and lights, and there’s something going on backstage! How could you fuck up this badly?”
My teeth ground in agitation, and I gave myself two deep breaths to rein in the anger I worked so hard to keep leashed. “I understand there are issues, sir. I’m trying my best to–”
“The auction is already closing down, people are leaving,” he cut me off. “Meet me out front if you don’t want to get your ass left. We’ll discuss your failures when I’m not considering killing you.”
The background noise to Andrea’s call cut off, and without checking if we disconnected, I shoved the phone back in my pocket. With the other hand, I jabbed at the computer keys to finish off the command meant to wipe out the whole auction system. “Fucking ridiculous,” I snarled low to myself.
This was going to be the longest ride home.
“Hi, Felicity.”
Her trademark combination of a sigh-chuckle came through the speakerphone. I had declined the video call as usual. “Don’t sound too excited. I wouldn’t be able to bear it.”
A bitter smile twisted my lips, and I picked up my coffee mug for a long, satisfying sip. My other hand was busy clicking through my emails as part of my normal morning routine. “It’s eight twenty-four in the morning here. You know I’m already working.”
“Yeah, that’s nothing new.”
The sharp edge in her otherwise lilting voice had me grinding my teeth.
As it was, I had to restrain myself from saying what I really wanted to.
I didn’t need another lecture from Reggie about being disrespectful to my foster mom.
Things like ‘I owed them for the ten years they cared for me’, ‘don’t be ungrateful for what we gave up’, etcetera, etcetera.
I’m not quite sure why Felicity even kept up the pretense of keeping in touch.
She got what she wanted with a whopping seven kids, all born after I was out of the house.
Once Reggie gave me over as his replacement in service to the Lupi Selvaggi, she was able to have the huge family she always wanted.
“Is there something you need?” I tried to ask politely.
“Otherwise, I have a lot on my plate I need to take care of. Meetings and whatnot, I’m sure you understand.
” Mainly, making sure I proved myself useful after last night’s spectacle of a failed auction.
I was definitely in the dog house now, and it was fucking cold out here.
I knew it hurt, keeping this distance and coldness toward a woman who considered herself my mother for ten years.
She and Reggie had, according to her own accounts, been good friends with my parents when they had been alive.
I had no evidence otherwise, unless seances could give answers.
My memories of them were fuzzy at best; I had been eight when our compact car slid on a patch of ice in a brutal Washington winter, and sent it crashing into an unmovable red cedar with me in the back seat.
The next time I remembered waking up, I was alone in a hospital with severe head trauma and multiple lacerations.
Memory loss was a natural side effect from those injuries.
And that was the end of Gentry and Denice Romano.
Their will had instructed that I would be taken care of by Reggie and Felicity Black, and with no other living relatives to argue my placement, I joined their semi-transient wolf pack.
Reggie never went into detail how he knew my parents.
From his association with the Lupi Selvaggi at the time, it didn't seem too far of a stretch my parents had their own dark pasts with the ruthless mob. Maybe he was trying to preserve what little memories I had of them that were good and innocent. Maybe my parents made him promise not to tell me anything if they died prematurely. Regardless, it wasn’t until I learned of Reggie’s deal with Andrea that I began to grow suspicious of why my parents left me in their care at all.
But now, at twenty-six and wrapped too tightly in his control, the likelihood of me living to retirement age was slim at best. The past was the past and I couldn't change it, no matter how much I craved a different life.
“… Are you even listening to me?” Felicity sounded well and truly put out. “I swear, it’s like you never want to chat anymore. Can I not check in on you? Is it that much of a chore?”
Honestly, yes. I had to bite my tongue to keep the honest answer silent. “Sorry, I just have a lot going on right now. Can I call you another time when I’m not so busy?”
Not that it would matter much, but I doubted Felicity wanted to know the details of what I did for a living.
She wouldn’t want to hear how I single-handedly ran the bidding system for the largest skin trading auctions in the country.
Felicity and Reggie would rather bury their heads in the sand than admit to themselves that I’d likely end up in a shallow grave by forty.
I’ve made my peace with it—the lucrative pay softened the blow a little—and had no qualms about keeping my foster family at arm’s length for the purpose of simplicity. The less they knew, the better.
“Bye, Felicity.” I wasn’t paying attention to whether or not she was still talking, and cut the call while taking another slow sip of coffee.