“You figure out another fucking way to get to the top.”
In the collapse of my mental state, I chuckle. “… You got a helicopter?”
“I have access to one.” She teases with a wink and smile. “We can fly over and drop you into the epicenter.”
“If I’m dropping into the core, you better load me with explosives and launch rockets on my feet.”
I get up off the ground, pick her up, and carry her to the bathroom counter. With a razor blade, we pick the glass from one another.
“You certainly know how to make a girl mad.”
“It’s a specialty.” Blinking up, I skim the tip of my tongue over her hands. “I did extensive training.”
Out of the blue, she mutters, “Kaci loved you. Iris loved you. And I am in love with you.”
“I know,” I acknowledge, crouching between her legs and checking her calves…for glass, y’all. Glass. With my eyes on the same level as her sex, I try and avoid the sweet scent and damp curls in our healing dance, but she spreads her legs over my back and eases to the edge.
“Lick my pussy, Sal.” I give a heavy breath and flick my tongue between her folds. Her hand drops to my neck, pulling my soothing tongue closer into her core. “Oh, God…yes! Lick me!” I’m diving head first into a darkened abyss with Jaid. There is no end to us. “Give me your fingers,” she cries out, wantonly. I sink two in deep as my lips and tongue savor her ripened nub. She’s dripping over my hand, trickling down my wrist, and about to come when I hear the front door slam.
In a black hoodie and my well-used red Boston sexhat, Deacon shoves open the bathroom door with a thud. I spot his rugged boots, the ripped jeans, and the dangerous mug with those sad blue eyes. “This is the motherfucking problem.”
“Cruz.”
“Raniero.”
Now that we’ve gotten introductions out of the way.
My jaw uncontrollably pops with a seething rage as his words slice to the bone. He is the one who can dismantle my spirit with a snap of his fingers. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“You’ve got my whole crew down here doing shit for you,” he arrogantly alleges, moving in. And he’s not wrong. “I figured I should make an appearance and find out if you are at all interested in ever finding Iris.”
Standing, I step closer, bucking in our alpha war. “What the fuck are you on about?”
With a mischievously deceptive snarl, he breathes against my lip, threatening to kiss me. With the lightest rough tone, he seductively whispers, “The Spider is out of the lair.”
My fury dissipates into a glorious tenderness as Deacon hand delivers the equivalent of roses and chocolates to garner my attention. His version is a dozen cars, a beautiful cake with delicate, colorful icing, and the mother lode of envy with one sly grin.
Sometimes, my vain, slightly flamboyant center internally emerges as I yearn to scream out—“Yes! I will let you make love to me on a bed of petals with candles flickering all around us! Just take me to The Spider! Sacrifice me!”
But instead, I confirm his present by merely muttering two words, “Atticus Huit.”
Stroking his blonde scruff, he snarls with a crooked grin. “… So, you wanna meet him?”
III
Fight to Break Free
Part II of 2017
29
Down Came the Spider
We fly to Atlanta to meet with The Spider, Atticus Huit, the creator of Entropy and cognitive architecture experiment—CAE. Not because he has anything to do with Morpheus, but because he lives in Savannah. Reading the text message on Deacon’s phone, I memorize his rules for the meeting.
Only Priscilla Grace and Sal Raniero. No electronics of any kind. I reserve the right to have my men strip and cavity search if necessary. When I declare the meeting is adjourned, Ms. Grace and Mr. Raniero are to leave the premises immediately, and they may not contact me at any point in the future.
With a hope of doing things better, I ask Morpheus for help. Deacon will stay at his spread in Buckhead, set up camp, and await our return. He loans an SUV to Jaid and I as we make the drive to the coast.
Driving fast, Jaid downs her coffee like water when I say, “I’m sorry.”
“For?”
“Being an idiot.”
She glances over to the passenger seat, where I’m lounging like a punk with my bare foot on the dash. “You are not an idiot. We’re all lost and waiting to be found.”
Clenching my fists, I bravely ask, “Do you think we’ll find her?”
“We’re damn sure going to try,” she says, setting her cup in the holder. “I think we will at least find…remains. She didn’t just vanish. There is DNA evidence pointing our way through the forest, and just because we cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. We just need to find it.”
I drop my head as we analyze. The problem is it hurts. I’m torn between the worlds—the black ops agent and the man in devoted, hopeless love—and this is why Dom never wanted me on the case. I am too close. The science of the criminal psychology bleeds into the feelings of devastation and loss, and vice versa. “If we don’t, will you run away with me?”
A smattering of a grin perks up her cheeks. “Yes. How much longer are you going to let my sister keep believing that you are marrying her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you have a time limit on yourself?” she asks, understanding how cases can persist on for years. “I mean this cannot go on forever.”
“As long as I have a thread.”
Accepting my answer, she nods. “Don’t get lost in the labyrinth of the trees.”
“I already am.”
The beach house offers a remarkable view of the water, but the structure has suffered through the ravages of storms. It is ironic how the creator lingers near the eye of the hurricane—like an iris—the membrane responsible for how much light gets through.
I’m not sure what I expected, but this isn’t it. I figured a spider would reside in a dark, dreary dungeon, and he would be menacing with Einstein hair and a Hitler stare to melt souls with his putrid venom.
Atticus Huit is a middle-aged, good looking man with ruffled brown hair and light green eyes. He looks like a college professor.
Mathematics or philosophy.
Despite his warning to Deacon, I spot no men surrounding his property. No overly eager security guard snapping a latex glove on his hand to shove a dry finger up my asshole.
“I want to thank you both for coming,” he welcomes as we sit in his dining room. The entire house is decorated like his grandmother lived here, which means one of two things. She either did, or he’s gay.
I cannot stop building the profiles; they exist as natural as breathing. A quick glance to the top of the curio behind him confirms both suspicions. One picture, with an older woman, resembles him. Another with a man taken at a restaurant on a lush, floral vacation. They are smiling and sitting way too close together to be anything other than lovers.
I know.
“What do you see?” he asks, noting my inquisitive nature. “Tell me.” His expression sparks with glee, like make me proud, Sal, v2.0.
“This is your grandmother’s house. Your lover…” I look him straight in the eye as I venture a guess, “Died.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
His soft smile exhibits a fondness for the game. “The house belonged to his grandmother. They are both gone now. His grandmother died of natural causes and left the house to him. He died in 2011.” I jerk my head as we play cat and mouse. “Yes, when Kaci passed.”
“How?”
“Colon cancer. Sudden. Brutal. Quick. He had less than three months from diagnosis to death.” Without a sound, Jaid sits, taking it all in, as he turns to her and asks, “What do you see?”
She gives a reluctant pause but joins in the match. “A broken man.”
“… Why?” He scrutinizes.
“Your own mor
tality,” she boldly answers. “Whether now or later, you have a desire to clear your conscience, we all do. Make amends. That is why you brought your v1.0 and v2.0 to the table, isn’t it, Mr. Huit?”
“Please, call me Atticus.” He darts his eyes in a distinct line from Jaid to me. “Is she right?”
“Probably.”
“I’ve been told I have early onset dementia,” he informs, matter-of-factly as he clasps his hands together. “If we’re going to have this discussion, it should be now. Ask away and I will do my best to provide answers. If I don’t know the answer, I will tell you. If I cannot answer, I will say pass and you will accept that. Do we agree?”
We both reply, “Yes.”
“What made you select the original eight?” Jaid begins as he pours three glasses of iced tea with lemon and mint. “What were the markers of decision?”
“We chose the original eight based on various reasons. It’s hard to quantify. There was no one set reason for each of them. They all had a magic about their personality.”
Jaid interrupts, “What was mine?”
“Your ability to analyze and recognize alternate solutions in dynamic equations.”
“You mean, like I’m doing now?”
He smiles. “Exactly.”
“Why did you implement a v2.0?”
“We improved and thought we could do better.”
Paying close attention, I ask, "Why not just upgrade the eight?”
He takes a long drink of his tea and blots his mouth with the napkin. “The more we observed the eight, the more we realized how many issues they had with regard to their age. At the time, upgrading them would have been far more time intensive than to just start from fresh.”
With contempt, Jaid – not so tactfully – prods, “And how long did it take to fuck up our brains?”
He snickers at her insinuation. “We could implement v1.0 in approximately 96 hours, from start to finish.”
“Was v2.0 faster?”
“No,” I mutter, already knowing. “It took six weeks.”
“Two to break the spirit, two to implement the infrastructure, and another two in recovery. V2.0’s were a very expensive endeavor.”
“… Plural?”
He nods.
“How many are there?”
“Two.”
My temperature rises. “Who?”
“Pass.”
Pounding my fist on the table, I forcefully demand, “Who?”
“Sal,” Jaid gently says, setting her hand on my arm. She has some nerve asking about the corruption of her brain, and yet I don’t get to have my question answered. “Let it go.”
“I deserve to know.”
“Actually, you don’t,” Atticus says with a peculiar, evil smirk. There it is. The man I have been waiting to see. “You have no rights here, Mr. Raniero.”
“I do,” I calmly reply. “I’m walking around with your hardware in my brain.”
He lifts his hand flat and teeters it back and forth. “More like software. There was only one v1.0 with hardware.”
“Who?” Jaid quizzes. “Tell me it isn’t me.”
“No,” I mutter, disdainfully. “Iris.”
Atticus chuckles with a gleam in his eye. “How do you know?”
Maintaining my ground, I interject, “Because you built v2.0 to protect your precious hardware.”
“I built you to protect; the other is meant to eliminate.”
“The triggers …”
“Pre-programmed with standard techniques,” he states without a care or regard to how he has manipulated our lives. “The triggers have nothing to do with her hardware.”
“But Kaci figured out how to override them,” I argue, knowing her notes better than anyone. “She knew how to change the access.”
With a steady gaze, he excuses, “Kacilyn Hope was a poor choice.”
“Or the best one ever,” I cockily remark, realizing he never anticipated the side effects of her chemically altered state. “Without her actions, I may have not been necessary.”
“Kaci knew the psychological atlas better than most, but she wasn’t a wizard hacking into a chip. She isn’t a God.”
“And neither are you,” I reply, snarling at his disparaging references to my wife. “But you certainly like playing one.”
His nervousness exacerbates as he briskly rubs his hands together. Trying to keep her composure, Jaid asks, “What was the goal?”
“The goal was to make killers out of you, Ms. Grace. Through technological advancements, the CAE harbored the belief we could control you.”
With a sarcastic, singular giggle, she mocks, “… Like remote control cars?”
“Master manipulators.” His tongue runs along the edge of his lip. “We wanted to have the power.”
“And do you?” she rebukes with growing agitation. “Did your experiment on eight teenagers work, Mr. Huit?”
“Not exactly.”
Sitting back, I cross my arms. “But it did with v2.0. You nailed it, but you never once considered the long-term complications—the psychological impairment, the addiction, and the sleepless nights—that would forever inhabit my mind. These things took up residence. They weren’t passersby, stopping for a night, but permanent inhabitants set to attack me at will. I can be a killer, but it comes with a cost.”
“And that is why you were our last round.”
“No,” I reply with a snarl. “You ran out of funding. Laying new cognitive grids takes serious coin and you didn’t have it.”
Randomly, Jaid asks, “How did it work?”
“Thought reform, coercive control, hypnosis.”
“Brainwashing,” I add, glancing away. “Cult-like malignancy.”
“Distortion of the mind was in the breaking of v2.0, those first two weeks,” he excuses, rapidly blinking. He retaliates with a desperation. “We were on the cutting edge!”
Gazing at the tattoos on my forearms, I mumble, “Chemically induced impairment, where images were then routinely flashed and displayed for hours upon end to learn the new pattern.”
He straightens his back with a frightened expression. “You can’t remember that.”
Prowling with a unfazed stare, I growl, “I remember everything, Spider.”
With my photographic memory in play, he twiddles with his fingers as I’ve made him uneasy. Pity. “If you’ll excuse me, I need a break.”
From beneath my hoodie, I pull the gun and warn, “Sit the fuck down.”
Jaid’s eyes open wide as she shifts her gaze between The Spider and his v2.0 protector gone haywire.
“Mr. Raniero, this will be the end of our conversation.”
With a relentless resolve, I cock the gun. “Is it? Cause I don’t think it is, Atty boy. In fact, unless I get the answers I came here for, it may just be the end of you. Where is the hardware in Iris?”
“You will never get it out without killing her,” he subtlety informs. “As of two weeks ago, Ms. Nakamura’s hardware and software were performing exactly to plan.”
I stand and step closer. “… What did you say?”
His lip trembles. “Two weeks ago…”
“Where the FUCK is she?”
“She is being kept in a hidden location until all threat has passed.”
“The threat will never pass!”
Turning away, I peer at Jaid and know the innocence we’ve lost because of all the things this man has done, for the sake of his science experiment. I briskly pivot back and fire a single shot above the curio. Her foot nudges my leg as she tries to calm me.
Atticus uncontrollably shakes as he skittishly says, “You need to reboot.”
I give a devilish grin. “Rebooting does no good. Very few things stop the constant sting of code. But you already know that, don’t you?”
With his hacker stimulated, he puts the fear aside. “What breaks the chain?”
“Don’t you fucking wish you knew.”
“Enlighten me, Sal.”
&nb
sp; “Pain ceases the program.”
Jaid gawks with bewilderment; she didn’t know or she didn’t realize I knew. His eyelids lower to slits as he inquires, “What kind of pain?”
“Any.” Growing bored with his analysis of me, I sneer, “I’m going to ask questions one more time before the next bullet hits you. Who is the other v2.0?”
“He was a young man, three years older than you, went by the name of Diablo.”
I don’t react, knowing Immortal wasn’t just a beast. They birthed a behemoth monster out of Diablo Cruz. “Where is Iris?”
“Where do you feel she is?”
“I’m not playing your stupid games anymore, Atticus! Where is Iris Nakamura?”
“Exactly where you think, Sal. Now, give me my wish,” he taunts, waiting for me to pull the trigger. “Make the Spider proud.”
The door busts open as the tactical team led by Lotus loss prevention expert, Moses Hollister, arrives. They’re on him in seconds. “Hey, white boy!” Moses winks.
“Nice timing.” I grin.
“No!” Atticus disapproves. “You can’t do this!”
“I can do many things, including putting your ass someplace not so nice.” Swaggering to the door, I holster the gun and pat Moses on the shoulder. “Thanks, man. You’re so good at guarding my ass.”
“Anytime,” Moses says as they cuff The Spider.
“You can’t do this!” Atticus cries. “Please!”
With a menacingly dreadful grin, I snicker, “I’m the v2.0 gone awry, don’t you remember? Diablo is set out to eliminate, but I’m pure fucking evil. Just call me the exterminator.”
“She is in grave danger if you pull her out into the world, Lucas!” He bargains, losing his stronghold before he splats to the floor. “Iris was never supposed to return to her roots. They’ll train and use her against you. She already knows your weakness.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know,” I hiss, tightening my fists and walking away. “And Atty, I’ll see you in hell.”
“You’ll never find her before Diablo!”
I twist around one final time. “You wanna make a bet on that motherfucka?”
Every Minute I Love You (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 3) Page 24
