The Debt Collector (Season Two)

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  It gives me a feeling of being slimed, but it has to be done.

  Seth’s whispered conversation leaves Moloch with all smiles for me. Which means Seth is also playing this cool: watching me like a hawk, but stepping back and letting me bring myself down. Moloch gestures me over to the couch, so I hold my head high and stride over to take a seat.

  He beams. “Now that we have that bit of business out of the way, I believe it’s time we return to Los Angeles.”

  That perks my attention. “I thought this was your main base of operations.” I gesture to the opulent Art Deco interior of his hideaway.

  “This?” He tosses a hand as if it’s nothing. “This is one of many weigh stations we have, convenient for when we need to do business in the capitol. Which, I’ll grant you, is quite often, but no… Los Angeles is where we usually conduct our business.”

  “Which is?” I ask. “After last night, I’d really like to understand more about how all this works.”

  I can’t help but glance at Seth. His scowl is back. Which brings a smile to my face. Game on, asshole.

  “Well,” Moloch says, “I’m very much encouraged by your curiosity, Wraith. I had a feeling you might be, shall we say, convinced on the merits of our little party in Ishtar’s room. But I’m afraid I still need a bit more reassurance that you’re willing to do the kinds of things that will be required of you, should you join us on a more permanent basis.”

  I work to keep some enthusiasm in my voice. “Such as?”

  Moloch seems pleased by my eagerness, but with that laconic British attitude, it’s hard to be sure. “I have an acquisition I would like Sterling Cybernetics to make.”

  My throat closes up. I have to clear it to speak. “Exactly what are we talking here?” But I’m sure I already know—something in life energy tech.

  “There is a small company working on some innovative life energy storage technologies,” he says. Unlike Seth, the glimmer in Moloch’s eyes seems to be all for the tech potential, not for the price he’s making me pay in soiling my father’s company. “They have some fantastic ideas, but unfortunately, neither the funding nor the technical expertise to bring them to fruition. I’d like to see Sterling bring the entire operation in-house to help them see those ideas through to their fullest potential.”

  “So you want me to simply acquire this… wait.” I stumble as his words finally hit me. “Did you say storage?” The neurons in my brain light up in both alarm and an electrical storm of wonder. This is a concept I haven’t even heard was in play—and I thought I had been keeping on top of all the research.

  Moloch grins. “It is quite exciting, isn’t it? Think of it, Wraith… it is an essential key to everything the future holds for us.”

  I’m struggling to keep my mouth shut. Because I am thinking about it, and what my mind is telling me is that it would change everything. If you didn’t have to move life energy from person to person via debt collectors… if there was a storage medium that could hold it in between, like a life energy battery… it would decouple and mechanize the entire process. It’s a whole new level of cold, mechanical efficiency.

  Just what Gehenna needs to expand all of it.

  “It’s… intriguing, to be sure.” My heart is pounding. The horrors that this could unleash… I can’t even let my mind go there right now or all of it will show on my face.

  “Quite intriguing,” Moloch agrees. “The question is whether you can persuade Sterling to make the acquisition.”

  I try to control my breathing, but it feels like I can’t get any oxygen. “It might take a little time—”

  “I’m afraid time isn’t something you have, Wraith.” Moloch’s voice is suddenly cool. “Unless, of course, you can accomplish this small task I am asking of you. Then you will have all the time in the world to do a great many things.”

  This is it… the big test he’s waiting for me to fail.

  “On the other hand,” he says, “if it’s not something you can manage, we have other ways of achieving the same effect.”

  So it’s happening one way or the other. And I don’t doubt it: if Moloch can make this technology work, he will. It’s too important to his cause.

  “I’m sure I can do it,” I say quickly. “By the time we get to LA, I’ll have a strategy worked out to make it happen.” That is actually the entirety of my plan: figure something out before we get to LA, just not exactly the way I implied to Moloch.

  “Excellent.” He’s all smiles again. “I do so hope you mean that, Wraith. And if you manage this small acquisition, then I promise you’ll get that one thing that you wanted. That is, if you still do desire it?”

  I frown, thrown for a moment. My head is buried in mergers and acquisitions and how much lying I will have to do to Wyatt, as well as whether I can even go through with this in the first place. Not to mention how I’m going to stop Gehenna’s terror plot from rolling out at the same time.

  I give up and just ask. “That thing I wanted?”

  “Why, to catch your father’s murderer, of course,” Moloch says. “You do still want that, don’t you?”

  I blink. I do. Very much. And I want Moloch and Seth to go down with him. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  “Then I suggest you acquire a change of clothes,” Moloch says with no small amount of satisfaction. “We’ll leave for LA as soon as you’re ready.”

  I never thought I would willingly stand next to a debt collector in the lobby of Sterling Cybernetics, much less conspire with one to corrupt my father’s company. But that’s just the latest on the list of things Gehenna is forcing upon me. Each test is progressively more wrenching, designed to push me further, carefully crafted to see where I’ll break.

  Moloch is as clever as he is bent on his vision of debt collectors reaping the world for their own immortality. He would gladly see me broken if I can’t be turned, while Seth would rather see me die than do either one. Zachariel is the only one who seems to care whether I survive—except I can’t trust him either. I’m certain he knows about Gehenna’s plot against Lifetime, but he has yet to say anything about it. And stopping that is the main thing driving me now. Because Seth is right about one thing: I’m not the kind of person who can live with letting thousands of people die.

  “If I’m going to pull this off, you need to stay here,” I say under my breath to Zachariel. I’m back in red corporate attire for my return home. Zachaeriel’s trim black suit and red tie appear tailored to fit, as if the board room would be native territory for him. I’m convinced more than ever that Zachariel is as much a chameleon as I am, taking whatever attitude or appearance suits his purpose at the moment. And at this moment, I know Moloch has tasked him with not letting me out of his sight. He said as much before dropping us off near Sterling and disappearing into the city. Seth and Ishtar stayed behind in Sacramento.

  “Tell them I’m your new assistant,” he says with a flat voice. The humor has been absent from it since our encounter with the slashers at the underground party.

  “I already have an assistant,” I say, “and everyone knows who he is.”

  “Then I’m your undercover security.” A twinkle comes back to his eye. “I promise to hover over you and protect you with my life.”

  I grit my teeth and glance around the lobby. The security guard hasn’t given us much notice yet, since we’re barely inside the door and haven’t made a move to approach the weapons scanners. It’s mid-afternoon, and there’s enough traffic that we don’t stand out. Yet.

  “This is going to be a delicate negotiation as it is,” I say. “Having muscle along isn’t going to make it any easier.” The truth is I need a little time alone to contact Jax and get her help with the plot against Lifetime. At a minimum, I can alert her to it, and she can take it from there. But I’d really like to find a way out of Gehenna’s tight-as-a-noose control.

  Zachariel lets out a sigh. “You know I’m just going to track you if you make a run for it.”

  “What? Did you sla
sh my palm screen?” I say this like I’m offended, not fishing for information. I’ve been afraid to use my screen for fear of exactly that.

  “Yes,” he says, like this is obvious. “More importantly, I’m not the only one with access.”

  My throat closes up for moment. Not because Moloch might be tracking me too, but because Zachariel has that look again, the one I’ve seen before: soft, concerned, like he’s trying to watch out for me. I want to trust him. I need someone who can help me or at least have my back. I just can’t be sure he’s not playing me… or worse, that he’s Moloch’s Good Cop while Seth happily plays Bad Cop.

  It’s the kind of psychological bullshit Moloch would do just for fun.

  I place my hand on Zachariel’s arm—no skin-to-skin contact, just a small gesture that I hope will recall some of the ardent make out sessions we’ve had over the last three days. It works: he has a tight expression, like he wants to give me what I want, but he can’t see a way to do it.

  “Look,” I say, softly, so the two nearby tech employees won’t hear. “I want the man who killed my father. I want to make him pay. And the only way I can do that is to give Moloch what he wants. I can make this work, but I’ve been off the radar for three days. Things have to be in an uproar in the exec suite. I’m going to have to explain myself while making this completely out-of-character deal happen—so having a hulking unknown person hovering over me is not going to make that easier. In fact, the board might start to question if I’m being unduly influenced. Considering that I am, in fact, very unduly influenced, that’s not the impression we want to give. Correct?”

  “Okay, fine,” he says, but he doesn’t look happy about it. “Just don’t put me in a position where I have to come after you, Alexandra. I really don’t want to see the fallout from that.” I think he means it, which just makes my throat tighten again.

  I want to ask him if he knows about Lifetime.

  I want to ask if I can trust him.

  Instead, I say, “It may take me more than a few minutes to close this deal. Don’t panic if I’m not down in ten.”

  “You’ve got thirty,” he says, swiping open his palm screen. “And I’m going to be tracking you the whole time. Don’t push it, because I will come up and find you.”

  “Fair enough.” I turn and stride toward the security check-in before he can change his mind. My heart rate picks up, and not just because I’m dreading this visit to the 100th floor—this is the first time I’ve been out of direct observation of Moloch and his cult followers in three days.

  I need to make every minute count.

  I pull up my credentials on my palm screen as I approach the weapons scanners. Johnson, the security guard who mans the lobby entrance, has been working for my father since the beginning. He’s seen me grow up here.

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Sterling,” he says with a polite nod. If he’s surprised to see me, he doesn’t let it show. Although I’m sure Wyatt has kept my absence under wraps, and the board wouldn’t say a thing until their closed-door attempts to oust me were successful. I’m hoping that means word of my arrival won’t precede me to the exec suite.

  “Good afternoon,” I say, then swipe my credentials through the scanner. When it clears, he gestures me through the security arch. As I step through, I quickly tap up the file on Jax I prepared during the flight to LA. I pause next to Johnson. “I have a friend coming to visit. I’d like you to give her the highest security clearance, including the lab.”

  He doesn’t say anything, just offers his palm. I press mine and resist the urge to look back to see what Zachariel makes of this little interaction.

  “Call me if you have any questions,” I say, then turn quickly away. I don’t hear Zachariel charging across the lobby to retrieve me, but it’s not until I reach the elevator that I breathe again.

  The elevator makes five stops on the way to the 100th floor. I anxiously eye the occupants’ screens, embedded and otherwise. I need a way to contact Jax, and I might have to commandeer someone else’s phone to do it. I’m the last one to get off, and the exec suites are quiet. I manage to weave past the cubicles without catching anyone’s obvious notice. The door to the CEO’s office is closed, but that works for me: whatever Daniels is doing behind closed doors is something I want to interrupt.

  I punch the button without so much as a knock, and the door slides open. Sterling Incorporated’s sixty-something CEO is hunched over his palm screen, tapping madly. He swings an angry look up at my intrusion, but when he sees my face, he looks as startled as if I caught him downloading porn.

  I smile broadly. “Surprise.”

  I tap the button to slide the door shut behind me. He scrambles to lock down his palm screen, but he really needn’t bother. Whatever he’s conspiring to do with the board—probably buying up scattered Sterling shares so they can get rid of me as majority shareholder—I’m about to make all of it a lot less attractive.

  But first things first.

  “Ms. Sterling—”

  I cut him off by striding fast toward him. His eyes grow wide as I round the corner of his mammoth desk. He pushes back in his chair, like he thinks I might physically attack him.

  I wish.

  I stop just before careening into him. My knees nearly touch his as I loom over him in my corporate heels. I’ve only got a few seconds before the surprise wears off.

  “I need a screen.” My tone is demanding and confrontational. “Preferably a hand-held.”

  He shrinks even farther back into his chair. “A screen?” His gaze flits to my palm.

  “Mine’s broken.” I glare at him. “Don’t tell me you don’t have a spare, Daniels. Maybe that one you’ve been using for illegal trades?”

  “I don’t know what you’re—”

  I lean forward and slap my palms on the arms of his chair. His face contorts like he thinks I’m genuinely crazy. “A screen. Now, Daniels. Don’t force me use your palm.”

  “Okay, all right.” He holds up a hand for me to back off.

  I do.

  He digs a screen out of a drawer in his desk. Thankfully, it’s small enough that it might fit in my suit pocket. I ignore Daniels’s incredulous look and tap in Jax’s number followed by my carefully constructed message.

  Wraith. New phone. Need help. Meet Sterling lab 10 min. Clock ticking.

  Hopefully, Jax will simply drop what she’s doing and come… and not hold my complete radio silence since we last spoke against me. I don’t know if it’s even possible for her to get here in time, but the lab has biometric security—if Johnson puts her credentials through, she’ll have access and Zachariel won’t. It will at least slow him down. I can’t escape Gehenna, but I can buy a little time to stop their plot against Lifetime. Once that’s done, I’ll have fallen neatly into Seth’s trap, and at that point, I’m dead anyway. At least I’ll go with a clean conscience, having done everything I could to save people’s lives, Lifetime, and Sterling. After I’m gone, Wyatt can carry on the fight without me. Jax might even be able to help. She has a few slashing skills of her own—that’s how she found my targets in the first place.

  Once I’m done messaging Jax, I transfer a couple of legal documents I prepared earlier from my palm screen to the hand-held, then authenticate them with my Sterling exec code. My father’s private attorney should accept them as legitimate. He’s the one who handled the transfer of assets from my father’s accounts to mine in the first place. He should be able to easily hand them off to Wyatt after I’m dead.

  By the time I look up, Daniels has recovered from his shock. His calculating stare means he’s clicking through everything he knows, trying to formulate a new model of Alexandra Morgan Sterling that fits the available data: raging righteousness at the board meeting, torpedoing her father’s bill in Sacramento, going off the grid for three days, now storming back into his office.

  He has to think I have mental issues, if not a complete breakdown in the works.

  I wave the screen at him, then slip i
t into my suit pocket. “I’ll be keeping this, thanks. And I need you to tender an offer for me, Daniels.” My tone is professional again, not the foaming lunatic who just busted into his office demanding a screen.

  The shock is back, and it loosens his face so that he simply blinks at me.

  I snap my fingers in front of him. “Pay attention, Daniels.”

  That makes him angry, which will also work for my purposes. “Have you lost your mind, Alexa? Because I don’t care if your father was the founder of this company, you can’t just barge in here, demanding whatever you like. Where have you been for the last three days? And while I’m at it, what the hell happened in Sacramento?”

  He rises up from his chair as he speaks, finally going on the offensive. I don’t back up, just wait until he’s done.

  Then I ignore it all. “Akulife, Incorporated.”

  He squints at me. “What?”

  “Akulife is the company I want Sterling to acquire.”

  “Akulife? They… they deal in life energy technologies.” He’s shaking his head, like he really does think I’ve lost my mind.

  “They’re a startup that’s developing life energy batteries, to be precise. And I need you to put together an offer. I’ll pay in Sterling shares. Structure the deal so that we bring their technology in-house. I want the lab all over it, deconstructing it, figuring out how it works, how to enhance it, the full R&D push. Put it all in the offer. Plain as day. Do you understand?”

  He’s blinking again. Then he narrows his eyes. He may not fully understand what’s going on, but he knows I want something from him. Which means he’ll want something in return. “Why don’t you tender the offer yourself?”