Chapter 24
The GPS took me to a nondescript building next to a sandwich shop and a dog groomer. I pulled into a parking spot under a tree near the back of the lot and killed the engine. The place looked empty, but the sign on the door said Elite Gaming.
“Are you sure you want to infiltrate their offices in the middle of the day?” I asked one last time.
Taryn stared at the beige office building with her brow furrowed. “I’m going to need a distraction.”
Andrew popped up behind us. “I am great at being a distraction.”
His enthusiasm made me cut off my knee-jerk refusal. “What is your actual plan, Taryn?”
She tore her gaze away to grin at me. “We all go in together. I ask to use the bathroom. You guys make a nuisance of yourselves. I check their office for files with my name on them. Then we all leave together like nothing happened.”
I let my head fall to the steering wheel. “What could go wrong?”
The click of the door opening warned me we were done talking. Taryn handed Sunny off to Andrew when he got free of the car, and I locked up behind us. Our ragtag group meandered through the mostly empty parking lot with Andrew asking if we could get sandwiches after.
I said maybe because I wasn’t convinced there would be an after. They’d probably laugh us out of their office.
Taryn didn’t hesitate when she got to the door. She opened it and strode right in as if she belonged there. Just like she’d promised. The rest of us followed her like the minions we were.
The air inside was too warm, as if they weren’t familiar with Texas weather and still had their heater on.
There wasn’t much inside the office. A black leather couch with white rips along the edges sat opposite a desk with a single guy behind it.
Between them, a door stood open leading to a short hallway with two other entrances branching off from it.
Papers covered the desk in haphazard stacks, almost hitting the collar of the guy’s black polo shirt. Elite Gaming was stitched on the left chest in bright green, but I couldn’t see a personal name anywhere. Weirdly, there was no indication this was the temp headquarters for Valor Legion either.
“Excuse me,” Taryn began, but the guy held up a hand while he typed with the other.
We waited almost a full minute before he sat back and looked at us. “How did you get in?”
I frowned. “We came in the front door.”
He barely spared me a glance before he leaned forward to yell down the hallway. “Terry, didn’t you lock the door?”
“No. Ryan said we’re required to keep it unlocked during business hours.”
Not-Terry rolled his eyes. “Do you need something?”
Taryn stepped forward and tapped the flyer teetering on the edge of the desk. “I’m interested in getting more information about the Citadel tournament coming up.”
He sighed heavily. “All the information is available on our website.”
“What about for sponsors?” Taryn asked.
“We’re all full up. Anything else?” Not-Terry said with thinly veiled impatience.
“I need to use the restroom,” she blurted out. “We have a long drive home.”
“There’s a bathroom next door,” the guy said, dismissing us to glare at his computer screen.
Taryn and I shared a glance. This wasn’t going to work. I wasn’t even sure this place was associated with Valor at all.
Suddenly, a crash came from behind his desk as several stacks of papers toppled to the floor along with a mug of something dark and a framed picture. Andrew, quick as a snake, reached out and pushed another stack onto the floor when Not-Terry turned away cursing.
“Terry, get out here,” he shouted.
Sunny waddled out from behind the desk with a black cord in her bill, stopping just short of the doorway.
It looked like a power cord for a computer plugged into an extension cord, and I suddenly had a clear idea of how this guy’s desk had imploded.
Another guy in a polo shirt came rushing from the back, and I waved Taryn on. She wasn’t going to get another chance.
The other guy—hopefully Terry—circled the desk, barely sparing us a glance, and Taryn disappeared into the hallway.
“What the hell, David? I told you we needed to file this crap,” Terry whined.
“Shut up and help me,” David/Not-Terry said from under the desk.
Andrew piped up. “We can help!”
I nodded and started gathering handfuls of random papers, purposefully mixing stacks together before setting them on the edge of the desk. Andrew crawled around on his hands and knees collecting trash from the industrial carpet and generally getting in the way.
Sunny waggled her tail and came toward me, looking mighty pleased with herself. Terry and David were ignoring us for the moment, and somehow, neither of them had noticed the duck with the cord in her mouth.
I grabbed the cord and carefully extracted it.
If I yanked too hard, Sunny would think we were playing and hold on tighter.
Once it was free, I tossed it between the black couch and the wall.
Sunny came over and nipped my shin, letting me know she was unhappy I’d taken her prize, but at least she stayed quiet.
I nudged Andrew with my foot the next time he circled toward me and jerked my head toward Sunny.
“Back to the truck,” I said quietly, trying to get them both out of here before the two guys finished gathering their papers.
Andrew nodded and scrambled to Sunny. He snatched her from her spot near my feet, making her squawk before he made it out the door. Both guys popped their heads up at the noise.
“What the hell—”
I bumped the stack of papers I’d put on the desk with my hip, knocking the whole thing onto the floor again. “Oh man, sorry about that. I’ll just grab these.”
David sighed, and Terry scowled. “Who are you?”
“Noobs who want to sponsor the tournament.” David explained, reaching over and wadding the tournament flyer into a ball, before tossing it at me. “We’re all full up. Maybe next time.”
“Too bad,” Taryn said from behind me. “Guess we should go then. Good luck with… whatever this is.” She nodded toward the door, and I dropped the papers I’d picked up a second time.
I didn’t say anything, just held the door open for her and followed her out. Once in the sunshine, I let out a huge breath.
“Did you get anything?” I asked her as we made our way across the parking lot toward the kid and the duck sitting next to my truck.
She grinned. “First, I told you Sunny would be clutch. Second, I think so. The papers are stuffed in my pants, so we’ll have to wait until we get home for me to show them to you.”
I unlocked the truck and everyone climbed in. “Seat belts,” I reminded them.
My hands shook as I set them on the wheel. During the chaos, I’d been calm, like when I hit the zone during a game. Now, though, the adrenaline was catching up to me. Taryn wrapped her arms around Sunny, and I started our trek home.
Andrew regaled Taryn with the story of his distraction heroics, then fell asleep slumped in the backseat. Sunny snored away in Taryn’s lap, and I understood their fatigue. Spy shit was exhausting.
Once I was sure Andrew was all the way out, I glanced at Taryn’s profile as she stared at the trees out the window. “Can you give me the short version?”
“I think they’re cheating,” she said, then went back to her thoughts.
I frowned. “Okay, I know I said the short version, but I need a little more than that.”
She turned to face me, careful not to wake the duck. “They had files on all the competitors, along with a spreadsheet of their information… including our final placements in the tournament.”
“Like who’s playing who?” I was having trouble understanding the cheating part.
“No. Like who is going to get first place—not me, by the way.” She patted my arm at my scowl.
“I didn’t get it either at first, but then I found a file labeled as the final map and the first place player’s name was on it.
I think they’re going to give the map to him ahead of time. They might have already done it.”
“Why?”
“Did you know you can bet on anything nowadays? They’ve been hyping me up as some returning champion, but they picked a mid-level player to be their winner.
Double prizes. They win big on the bet, and they can lowball me when I don’t perform as expected.
” She was silent a long moment. “I was listed as a publicity asset.”
“Assholes,” I muttered. “I’m sorry.”
“I knew their interest felt weird, but even with all this, I kind of hoped I was wrong. I love my job, but having one of the top teams in the country looking at me… it was—” She sighed. “It was wishful thinking.”
My heart ached for her—for the despair in her tone and the way she was trying to accept the betrayal of their interest. I wanted to turn the car around and beat the shit out of those two morons in the office.
One of the things bothering me finally made its way to the front of my mind. “If this was a Valor Legion office, why were they wearing Elite Gaming polos?”
“Because Valor owns Elite Gaming, but not overtly. Some kind of shelter corporation. Another little tidbit I found. They’re paying themselves to run the competition, and I’ll bet the IRS would love a look at their taxes.”
The scheme sounded like something my dad would cook up. It was how he’d done so well at his organization. Skirting the law here, breaking it when no one was looking. One of the reasons I went into finance was to make sure I could fuck him over as much as possible with the information I had on him.
Still, it had taken me years to find the crumbs I had. Taryn was in and out.
“You found all that in less than ten minutes?” I asked her, not because I didn’t believe her, but because I was fucking impressed.
She shrugged. “I’m good with computers. Also, they had it all together in the same folder, which was open on the desktop. Stupid. I printed out the spreadsheet, the betting record, and a PDF of the map. I couldn’t get anything about the corporations though. Too dense.”
Taryn sounded forlorn, haunted. I glanced her way, but she’d gone back to staring at the blurry wall of trees.
“These assholes are not representative of the gaming world at large. You know that, right? Vice warned you they were up to something.”
“Yes, he did,” she said shortly. “And he was only on my stream because Valor thought we’d be at each other’s throats.”
“Something else you found?”
“No, something we worked out earlier. He had a history with another female gamer—one who makes the rest of us look bad. They thought he’d take it out on me since he was uninvited from the tournament. Valor was working hard to discredit me, but they misjudged Vice.”
“They misjudged you too,” I told her. “Taryn, listen to me. You have hundreds of thousands of fans across your channels. Hundreds of thousands. Those people don’t think of you as a publicity asset.
They watch for you. Your skill and knowledge, but also your humor and your kindness.
Don’t let Valor diminish what you built. ”
Taryn blinked a couple of times and sniffled. “Wow, hot shot. When you decide to talk, you really nail it.”
“Bet.” I was seething with the need to make Valor pay, but what could I do? I was a hockey player with a questionable draft team. The most I could offer was supporting Taryn with my full chest.
She reached over to tentatively link our fingers. “I’m glad you came with me. This would have been hard by myself.”
I grunted, squeezing her hand. “Any time. Now, what are you going to do with your newfound knowledge?”
Taryn met my eyes, fiery with determination. “Destroy them.”
“That’s my girl.”