Chapter 8 In the Den
In the Den
Grant
“Reports have come in regarding the sudden and tragic death of the son of financial tycoon Don Sumpton, who was found dead in his bedroom early this morning. Police cannot provide details at this time. Gabe Sumpton was recently accepted to Harvard University, where he planned to attend this coming fall as a business major—”
I hardly slept the past two nights after watching Vixen’s cam session, jolting awake several times from disturbing nightmares starring the camgirl with torturous instruments disguised as sex toys, and hoped a change of scenery would help my horrid mood.
So here I found myself at La Petite Macaron, eating a bagel smeared with hazelnut spread and reading reports about dead people.
My eyes narrowed on the screen, focusing more intently on it than I had before, as I drained the rest of my sad, weak coffee.
I tucked myself into the far corner of the shop where no one could sit behind me, and I could keep everyone in the coffee shop in my line of sight.
Several tabs sat open in my browser, including the local news and LVPD police records.
Gabe’s name populated quickly in the search engine, and I absently clicked around to look into his socials and some articles written about his antics in the city.
It didn’t take long to realize that the guy was a playboy and trust fund baby who was frequently getting charged with DUIs and speeding tickets, and had even wrapped expensive cars around a number of things.
Not totally uncommon to encounter similar sons of people I worked with in organized crime.
In all, beyond being an obnoxious ass, he didn’t seem to be a prime candidate for assassination.
Unless he got involved in some shady shit, which I wouldn’t find from a simple Google search or news report.
It didn’t feel worth hunting around the dark web for hits on this guy.
Judging by how prominent a figure his father was, it was safe to assume he kept a leash on his son when it came to dabbling in the illegal activities that would have him end up on a hit board.
As I sipped my fourth coffee of the day, I spent a few minutes browsing the usual boards that monitored known hacker activity.
It was an unspoken rule that we didn’t rat out our own, but sometimes posts popped up that admired a particular heist or some suspicious activity; in certain industries, patterns of known hackers became more obvious.
.. Like Cyber_Fox hitting trafficking auctions.
Their handiwork popped up on a few boards speculating who the target was, or what they did with the money.
There wasn’t much in the way of money siphoning, but one chat in particular was very focused on activity in Vegas.
User_error_0104: Anyone else notice an uptick in rich people dying in LV?
Velcroboi_222: They ain’t just rich people.
Velcroboi_222: Check this article out
The user had posted a screenshot of the article covering what I’d just overhead on the news.
No one was dumb enough to post or click on links.
Spread across the top in bold letters, the picture said, ‘Real Estate Tycoon’s Son Found Dead in Bedroom, Police Suspect Foul Play.
’ The first couple of sentences verified it was indeed about a Gabe Sumpton, age twenty, and a former student at Harvard University.
Catlady_4_: I’d seen that guy around. He was on a site called Prey To Play. Dumbass would post full nudes in the livestream chats.
User_error_0104: Sounds like a douche.
Catlady_4_: Ya. My friend mods for some of the camgirls. He said the guy was a fucking lecher. Pretty bad if you get a rep like that on a fuckin’ cam site, yk?
I scrolled to earlier posts in this thread.
Most of the users appeared to follow popular cam streamers, and the Prey To Play website showed up in several conversations.
Judging from the chat room itself, it didn’t seem to have connections to the dark web, but I couldn’t be sure.
So, how were supposed bad players in the Prey To Play streams ending up dead?
This was becoming a rabbit hole deeper than I expected…
and I wasn’t sure I wanted to follow it to the bottom.
But the memory of that one pained noise from the camgirl I was watching punched me in the chest, making it throb with guilt and misplaced protectiveness for her.
It could have been the sight of all the terrible comments aimed at her that provoked me.
No… that couldn’t be entirely true, either.
I had my fair share of horrible things I’d said to women in similar lines of work.
Whatever wiring got twisted in my brain while watching Vixen’s stream last night, I was now wholly invested in finding out more about her for my own reasons.
Scrolling back to the bottom, I skimmed through some other comments from users on the board until I got to the bottom.
Catlady_4_: There’s a rumor that Prey To Play is tied in with some mob, and that’s why they’ve been able to stay live for so long. Idk, but I’ve never seen anyone talk about hacking into the site to see who’s involved on the back end. Kinda creepy that guy was on the site and ended up dead, tho.
Velcroboi_222: I say good riddance to that asshole, Sumpton. Talk shit get hit.
I opened a new tab on the browser and typed in the victim’s father's name, barely getting to the second letter of his last name before search suggestions showed up. Article after article ran down the page, every news station in Nevada seeming to cover the supposed foul play. Clicking through the first five hardly gave me more information than I’d already gleaned, all telling of a young man destined for greatness, whose life was cut too short.
Don Sumpton was indeed a popular real estate investor in Vegas, and his son Gabe appeared alongside him in several pictures from charity events and press releases on grand openings.
Both were classically good-looking with dirty blond hair—Gabe’s longer and curling around his ears—and matching blue eyes.
I could hardly imagine a young man like that lurking on porn sites and making lewd comments just by looking at him.
Surely he was able to get laid with little effort.
It was becoming clearer that I’d need to find my way into the back end of Prey To Play.
The same instinct that’d kept me alive all these years screamed that there was some connection between the cam site and Gabe Sumpton, and by association the Red Riot, since his family was embedded in the Las Vegas economy.
There was no way the mob wasn’t involved in his father’s business in some way.
They wouldn’t let this Don Sumpton make as much money as he did without demanding a cut of it.
I was going to hack into Prey To Play, and hope I didn’t end up like Gabe.
I wasn’t sure what progress I’d make visiting the Masked Marrow again.
It had been almost three days since I left my contact information with the club’s supposed boss, hoping he would actually pass it along to set a meeting with the Red Riot leader.
Admittedly, I didn’t know much about the person, even with my extensive research, and Andrea was less than helpful by withholding whatever he knew.
It was almost like he wanted me to fail.
That thought left a bitter aftertaste in my mouth.
All I could gather from my research about the Red Riot's elusive leader was a rather gritty and gory reputation when it came to protecting sex workers. No gender, no physical description, and no indication of whether they were part of the shifter community. I had to assume they were, given the relation to Andrea’s part of the black market that specifically catered to the shifter world’s underbelly.
We were recognized as our own legal entities in almost every country in the world, an impressive feat given that it's only been about ten years since the discovery of our existence, but there were still some gray areas and loopholes when it came to proper identification and legalization. Most governments were trying to figure out how to govern us, given the previous hierarchy falling to more predator-like shifters taking leadership roles in whatever community the shifters lived in. I could assume, given their control of the Las Vegas shifter population, that this mafioso was among the top tier of the food chain with the likes of Andrea and his wolf kin. That limited the options to another wolf, bear, or possibly fox, although the last was the least common in North America. That’s how I ended up fostered by a wolf pack myself.
There were no other known fox shifters that could take me in after my parents died.
I didn’t like not knowing who I was dealing with. It put me on the back foot. The lack of progress was frustrating to say the least. And being frustrated was a feeling I was unfamiliar with as far as mob business went.
The bouncer was different tonight, and it didn’t seem like my name was on a blacklist as he eyed the license I handed over.
I decided to keep to my real name while trying to get in with the Riot.
If they found out I was lying, there was an even slimmer chance they’d let me speak to their boss.
The burly man gave it a cursory glance to match the picture to my face before handing it back and nodding to the door, already reaching for the next person’s card as I entered.