by Starla Night
The Sons of Hercules thought she was working for them.
They thought wrong.
And it felt good, so good, to be doing something again. Slaying dragons. Punching bullies. Security-auditing MerMatch.
She crossed the tiny, run-down studio crammed with leaking cardboard and half-opened moving boxes, shouldered a thin stole, and checked her purse for emergency cab fare. Her credit cards were maxed. She stuffed one maxed out card inside her bra to be used in a little theater performance later, and then fished for a real card that still allowed charges. Somewhere… Here? No…
Jab. “Ow!” A plastic edge stabbed her cuticle, ripping the skin and spotting blood. She stuck her finger in her mouth, eyes watering.
She turned the purse upside down and splayed the canceled cards. Didn’t she still have a store credit card from—
A heavy fist hammered on the door. “Bella! I know you’re in there.”
She jumped, tiny cut forgotten. Her landlord.
On her feet in an instant, she cut the music on her cell and eased to the window. The ladder rested against the side of the building beside cans of dried paint that had been abandoned years ago. Were her downstairs neighbors home? The country music was silent.
“Don’t sneak out the back ladder again,” Harv’s rough bark stopped her. “That thing’s older than you are, and the Steves aren’t home.”
Right.
She repacked her purse, checked her appearance one last time, and gave her mirror image a test smile.
Not a million dollars, but a nice flash of teeth and assets. It would have to be enough.
The hammering started again. “I can serve this three-day Demand for Rent whether or not I see you.”
She opened the door and leaned on the jamb. “Good evening, Harv.”
“Bella.” The heavy-weight retired construction-worker-turned-landlord dropped his fist and stepped back, his gaze drinking in her figure.
His hands were empty. No official forms. Whew.
She eased her weight onto her front heel to give her profile more of an hourglass.
His thick, gray-speckled brows rose appreciatively.
Nice to know she still had it. “What’s this about three days?”
“Er, yeah. That.” He gripped the back of his shaggy brown head. “You haven’t paid rent in a few months, and it’s what I have to do, you know…it’s in the rent agreement…”
She channeled a wounded look. “You know I will pay in full.”
Her expression hit the mark. He swallowed. “I know. It’s just, the guys…”
“What about you?” She rested her hand on his rough, construction-scarred forearm. “We’ve been through so much together.”
“Yeah.” He coughed, no longer able to meet her eye. “You were there when my dad went through the chemo. But, uh, the guys are getting antsy, and I didn’t know what to say.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I believe you. It’s just the guys. And, ah, you know, ah… I was just thinking…if you and I went to, uh, dinner sometime, then I could tell the guys I was, uh, taking over the payments. Just for until you’re back on your feet.”
She ought to agree. If she led on terrorists, she should have no problem manipulating an emotionally vulnerable man.
But she did.
A spark of anger flared in her chest.
Harv had started her vending addiction by buying her hundreds of chips and coffees. He’d saved her money and commute by finding her an apartment in his building. He had shared her tears when Jonah had returned to the hospital a third time.
He didn’t deserve the runaround. And she hated herself for doing it.
She’d sworn she would grow up different from her parents. Thanks to them, she knew fifty ways to avoid a summons, fight an eviction, and use people’s kindness against them. The first time she’d snuck out to avoid Harv, she’d died a little inside.
Convincing Harv to write off her debt for two dates where she wasted his time and then let him down easy would solve this problem.
Bella stepped into the hall and kissed his rough cheek. “Harv.”
He flushed tomato red. “So, uh, is that a yes?”
She smoothed away the damp spot. “You’re too nice a guy to get run around by someone like me.”
“Yeah, that’s what the guys say too.”
“I bet they do.”
“Aw, geez. I didn’t mean… Well, you know… You have that fancy, high-class job downtown. We don’t get many of your kind here. That’s why they’re so nervous.”
“Tell them to relax. I’m going to meet with a client right now.”
“Oh.” He looked relieved. “Will he give you the back rent?”
Not in cash. The warriors sought brides, not escorts.
“Absolutely.” She turned away from Harv to lock her door and dropped the key in her purse. “If I nail this contract, I’ll get my bonus and pay you free and clear. And I’ll pay the next six months in advance.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to. Everything will work out.” She strolled to the stairs and waved, leaving the bighearted man in front of her apartment. “You’ll see.”
Were those words for him? Or for her?
She tripped out the door and hit the street. If Harv started an eviction, she’d earned a temporary reprieve.
But it had also cost her time at the subway. Bella checked the hour on her phone. Uh-oh. She ran.
A light drizzle broke, wilting her like a plucked flower. She ducked into the terminal and dealt with the discomfort. The new studio—she still thought of it as new, even though she’d moved in six months ago—was a fraction of the size and convenience of her old two-bedroom. But it was close-ish to the hospital and more affordable. Plus, she didn’t need two bedrooms now.
A sharp pang stole her breath.
She closed her mind to it and pulled out her phone. Bella needed her head in the game. The cell searched for a network. She zoned in on the blank screen.
There were two types of men in the world: those who tolerated lies, and those who needed them.
Most men tolerated lies. Like Harv’s partners. So long as a rent check showed up soon, they’d let her go.
Sensitive dreamers, like Harv, needed to believe the world was nice and people were caring.
She could play either like a maestro.
There was a third type—men who did not tolerate lies—but they were rare and not worth placating.
Bella shoved off that ancient history before it could poison her night. Now her first theater performance began.
At her exit, she ducked into the station restroom.
Thwarting tonight’s flower-stealing mission was simple. All she had to do was not steal the Life Tree blossom—ie, leave the blossom in the tank at MerMatch. But the Sons of Hercules wouldn’t like her to refuse. She’d have to give them a reason.
So, inside the grotty bathroom stall, she took off the Sons of Hercules water-filled necklace and shoved it into a feminine hygene products bag she’d grabbed from her office for just this purpose. She balanced the plastic-lined paper bag atop the stinking, overfilled small metal trash in the cramped stall.
If she didn’t have the necklace, she couldn’t sneak the blossom out or store it. That was the excuse she’d give the Sons of Hercules when they demanded why she’d failed. Hence, into the trash it went.
Bella put her cell phone beside the necklace in the bag and folded the top to seal it closed.
Dumping her cell phone like this created more problems. How sophisticated were the Sons of Hercules? Starr didn’t want Bella carrying an electronics device she hadn’t inspected. If the violent disorganized college students had even a fraction of Starr’s technical skills, Bella’s devices were endangered.
Bella didn’t take any viruses into her son’s hospital room. She wouldn’t take any digital viruses into the MerMatch offices, either.
She left the bag balanced on the trash a
nd exited the stall. A gray hoodie-clad, nondescript woman entered the restroom and pushed past her. They didn’t make eye contact. The woman ducked into the stall Bella had just vacated and locked the door.
Hopefully that woman was Starr’s contact. But if not, who rooted around in a suspiciously used feminine hygene bag?
Bella stopped before the scratched-up mirror, mussed her hair, and “roughed up” her clothes. She put on a frightened expression, perfect for suggesting she’d just been mugged, and exited the restrooms—right into a station attendant.
Uh oh.
She bounced off the attendant and exaggerated a flustered expression—not hard—and then stood indecisively looking after the attendant. Was she being photographed by Sons of Hercules spies inside the station? She had to look mugged but she couldn’t report an actual mugging.
Bella wavered, then made a show of seeking a station clock and acting horrified by the time. She avoided the station attendants and hurried outside.
In real life, Bella would be late to a date in order to get justice against a mugger, especially if her son’s health was on the line, but hopefully the Sons of Hercules would buy her story that she’d been too flustered to make a report.
This all assumed the Sons of Hercules were even watching her and needed to be convinced.
The first time Bella had spied for Starr, they’d worked alone. No fancy equipment, no connections, no experience. No contingency plans. Now, Starr had a lot of everything, including paranoia. Her planning had leveled up exponentially, and even though they faced more numerous and mysterious opponents, Bella felt a lot more secure.
She continued enacting Starr’s plan.
Outside the station, Bella bought a cell phone from a “random guy” on the street hawking cell phones. She pulled the “secret” credit card that had “survived her not-mugging” from her tight bra and swiped it in his reader—because in New York, even the homeless accepted plastic—and ignored the low funds alert. The man shoved a basic, pre-owned cell phone at her and walked off.
She powered the new-to-her phone on as she strode away from the station. Everything had gone perfectly. She hoped. A cute blue star greeted her on the loading screen. She input the pre-arranged password and dialed in to connect to Starr’s network.
Bella hurried through more miserable drizzle the last blocks to the MerMatch office building. The repurposed tenement was only a few blocks from her work, and she almost turned the wrong direction on the pedestrian thoroughfare. Brown concrete and tinted glass rose six floors into the cloudy gray sky; between buildings, the ocean canal was a gray smudge.
Her new phone buzzed. Video recording had started, and it connected to a private network. Bella lifted the screen saver to get the rest of Starr’s devices. She peeled two metal dots embedded beneath the plastic and stuck them to the backs of her ears. Their adhesive had survived being stuck to the phone and with her hair down they should be invisible.
“Oh, hello.” Her half sister, Starr, greeted her with the usual stuffiness. The dots made her words sound like they were inside Bella’s ears. Starr suffered from allergies. “What a gray, dismal day for a break-in.”
“Fall in New York is supposed to be beautiful,” Bella murmured.
“Great. Very clear. Now, drop the phone in your purse and speak again.”
She stowed the phone as instructed. “Oh, well. Maybe next year.”
“Clear as a bell. We are a go.”
Bella tightened her stole around her shoulders and climbed the few steps to the glassed-in lobby. A security officer on the top step nodded at her. Another officer peered out.
Security was tighter than last time.
Her belly twinged with nerves. Butterflies banged into each other.
This was it. The mermen didn’t know it, but they were counting on her. She sucked in a deep breath, straightened, and entered.
She passed her purse through the metal detector. The officer ran a wand over her tight dress. Her earrings buzzed.
Bella smiled. “Titanium.”
The officer narrowed her eyes. “For jewelry?”
“Sure, why not?”
“They should have seen the fishbowl-sized necklace you were trying to smuggle in. My friend picked it up, by the way. As we suspected, he said your phone’s chock-full of spyware.”
Him? Good job, Starr’s contact. Bella had thought he was a woman.
The officer studied the square ingots in Bella’s ears and stepped back, waving her to go ahead.
She shouldered her purse and crossed the lobby.
Starr snorted. “Titanium? Really?”
Bella hummed the song, “I am Titanium,” about enemies shooting her down but refusing to fall. She twirled as though marveling at the architecture.
“I see…security cameras. Heat sensors, motion. Good coverage, and a good brand. Windows are covered, as we expected. I looked up the building schematics and the security team is adequate to cover the general security. No audio jammers yet, but prepare to lose me in the elevator.”
A caramel-brunette in a white business suit sat on a slim bench next to the elevators. She typed something on her phone with her thumbs and stood. “Bella? I’m Hazel Gray from MerMatch. You’re late.”
“I got mugged in the subway.”
“Ugh.” Hazel pulled something out of her purse and raised a fist. “That happened to me three times last year. This year, I’m prepared.” She opened her fist to display a mini personal defense system.
“Is that mace, a Taser, and an air siren?”
“I like this girl,” Starr said.
“For people who take personal defense seriously.” Hazel packed it back into her purse. “No one’s getting the drop on me now. And if they do, they’ll regret it.”
Bella smiled with just the right touch of schadenfreude. “New York.”
Hazel pulled papers from her tan messenger bag. “Here are the forms Dannika mentioned.”
“Oh, are we signing here? Not up in the office?”
“We’ve had too many close calls. Dannika said no strangers after hours.”
“Ooh, ask her who’s getting in during regular hours,” Starr said in her ear.
“That’s understandable. Rubberneckers must flood your office during regular hours.”
“Ha! No. Everyone uses the website.”
“Everyone?”
“Tourists get weeded out here.” Hazel tapped her pen on the papers thoughtfully. “You know, now that you mention it, I barely let in any strangers. It’s weird.”
“You never let in anybody without an appointment?”
“Yep. Not a soul.”
“No one at all?”
“Oh. Well.” She rolled her eyes. Not at Bella, but at her memory. “I mean, aside from us. The mer warriors. And the window washers last week. And the AC guys. Oh, and these painter guys, but they left without painting anything. You know, nothing but ordinary business maintenance.”
“Bingo,” Starr said. “Well, the office is probably crammed with spy stuff. I bet you can’t fart in there without somebody hearing it.”
“But you had to let them in?” Bella pressed. “They were doing building maintenance, and the landlord didn’t give them a temporary key?”
“The landlord can’t just give out keys. Somebody could misuse it and break in.”
“Aw. So close to the truth and so far from realizing it. Bless.”
Bella took Hazel’s pen. Nondisclosures, privacy agreements, promises not to go on talk shows or write books about tonight’s date. She scribbled her signature without reading.
None of this mattered.
But to pretend it did, she released a ditzy laugh and gushed. “I’m so excited. You see Balim every day. Do you have any tips for me?”
“Don’t be a terrorist.”
“Hardy har har,” Starr said.
“I’ll do my best,” Bella said.
“Not that she’d know if you didn’t.”
Hazel stowed the s
igned forms and swung the bag over her shoulder. “Let’s get this over with.”
They entered the elevator. The doors closed.
“You don’t enjoy first dates?” Bella asked.
“They are the most wretched, awkward, pointless wastes of time.” Hazel fiddled with her phone, shaking it as though not realizing being isolated inside a solid steel box would break the Wi-Fi connection. “But if you mean do I enjoy catering dates for the mermen, getting shot at and poisoned takes the bloom off the rose. I started as a receptionist, you know. I didn’t sign up for violent hate crimes.”
“Yet, here you are.”
Hazel blew her caramel bangs out of her face. “Yep. Here I am.”
“Caring about someone changes what risks you’re willing to take.”
Hazel blinked and then her shoulders softened. “Well, yeah. It’s not the guys’ faults. It’s those stupid college kids. All the warriors want is to fall in love, have warrior kids, and repopulate their cities. I can’t stand by and watch some disturbed, faux-adult man-children with anger issues ruin it for them, can I?”
Bella smiled.
Hazel rocked on her heels, a nervous tic, but she was friendlier as she led the way out of the elevator onto the rooftop. “I hope that jacket is warmer than it looks.”
“I’m used to putting my shoulder to the cold.”
“That’s so deep,” Starr commented.
Bella snorted.
Hazel glanced back at her in curiosity.
Bella smiled blandly. Starr calmed her butterflies.
She’d met and wooed clients a million times. All she had to do was ask innocuous questions while her sister audited their security. After a socially acceptable period, Bella would convince Balim to let her into the MerMatch office. She’d do what Starr needed to inspect, take over, and secure the space.
Starr would learn how the Sons of Hercules hacked in. With any luck, she’d ghost them back to their origin and expose their identities along with their crimes before anyone else got hurt. And if her investigation took longer than tonight, Bella would string them along until Starr succeeded.
