The Insiders by Tijan

FORTY-TWO

I could feel the bass through our feet.

Once we stepped inside that nightclub, the same one Matt had brought me to so long ago, the dry ice assaulted us. The difference from that night to this one was that I was walking inside with Kash. My hand held with his. He was leading me. We came in through the back way, greeted by the same worker who had helped us last time.

She nodded, a ghost of a smile on her face.

“Welcome, Mr. Colello. Ms.” She still didn’t know my name, and that was partly my work, partly my father’s. His program was still at work, and every photograph of Kash that hit the internet disappeared after minutes. Even the print news referenced Kash but not me. There were pictures of me, but no name printed. They apparently didn’t know who I was, and I had to wonder how long that would last.

Knowing who Kash was, exactly, told me what a feat that was, for him to remain as mysterious as he was. He explained that it was partly because his grandfather had never publicly announced him or his relation, and Kash had never stepped up to take over his father’s shares. Once he did that, his privacy would be gone. He’d be firmly in the spotlight. I understood why he kept to the background as much as possible, but with his association with my father’s family, I also had to wonder how realistic that would be. It was only a matter of time before someone got a picture that couldn’t be deleted, no matter how magical my father’s program was.

So the worker not knowing my name was partly because the ones who’d gotten pictures of me didn’t know who I was. There’d been one, but I had hacked her and deleted everything she had of me, Kash, and Matt. And there’d been an entire file on Matt.

Camille Story was still interested in Matt, if I had to go by the amount of information she had on him.

I hadn’t told Kash I did that—or anyone. I wasn’t sure if I should, but glancing around, taking note of the attention we were drawing, I figured I should. Everything came around. I believed in that. So yes, I had to tell him.

He was leading us toward the same back VIP section that I’d sat at with Matt before, and like that night, Matt was at the same booth. He didn’t have a girl on his lap, but he was sitting in the back, his arms spread out over the top of the booth beside him, and two girls were pressed to either side of him. One was toying with his shirt. The other’s arm was under the table, toying with something else.

Matt’s gaze was trained on us, and he wasn’t happy. His top lip sneered up. Nope. So not happy.

I slowed, but Kash tightened his hold and kept going. Judging from the locked jaw on his face, he wasn’t happy either.

I was starting to recognize some of Matt’s friends. Chester was there, nuzzling into a girl’s neck, but not the other guy, who had been talking to Matt, or so I assumed, because he had an arm up behind the girl next to him. She was toying with his shirt, but he turned to watch us come in, too. There was light curiosity from him. Anger from Matt. And fear mixed with caution in Chester’s face, when he sensed something was happening and lifted his head from the girl’s neck.

The four girls didn’t look over. They didn’t even seem to know that other people were there. They kept doing what they’d been doing: flirting, teasing, and rubbing, judging by the girl whose hand didn’t move from Matt’s lap.

Once we were within earshot, Matt drawled, his eyes sparking, “Well, well, well. Look who finally decided to have a chat with me.” His eyes were mean. “You’re usually on top of me, Kash. You’re slipping. It’s been a good two days since you beat the shit out of me.”

His bruises were still there, but fading.

I winced, seeing them.

Chester and the other guy were enjoying this. Both seemed eager, and they leaned forward, resting their arms on the table.

Matt didn’t move. Not an inch.

His eyes switched to mine. The ugly glint was there, but as I met his gaze and raised my chin, it faded. A glimmer of regret flashed briefly, but then it was gone. And with it, some of the fight lessened too. His shoulders went up and down, smoothly, and he broke free, leaning forward to match his friends’ positions.

“And you … I am actually sorry.” He grimaced. “Again. And again. And again.” All the fight was gone. His shoulders slumped down. He mouthed a swear word, then motioned to the girls. “Leave. Go.”

They didn’t move quick enough, so he growled, “Get lost! Now.”

Chester scowled. “What the fuck?” But he slid out, letting the girls out. His, too. The other one looked up at the third guy, and he nodded to her, dipping his head in the direction of the bar. She stood up and he smacked her on the ass, then cupped it. “I’ll come find you. Don’t go far.”

Her eyes danced, and a seductive tilt formed on her mouth. “You know it.”

As soon as the girls were gone, Kash lifted an eyebrow. He was glaring at Matt.

Matt sighed, rolled his eyes. “Nuts. Dick. You guys, too.”

“What?”

“Dude.”

Matt waved them off. “This is a family thing.”

Both stood, glaring.

Dick’s glare was less, and he hotfooted it after his girl. Chester stood, moving into Kash’s space, but one turn of Kash’s head and the guy scrambled out of the way.

The corner of Matt’s mouth tugged. “The guys are all chickenshits. Scared of you.” He nodded to Kash, who stepped back, motioned for me to slide in on Dick’s side, and got in behind me. He could scope out the club, but his body was angled toward us. A passerby would think he was focused only on talking to us, not on watching them. The maneuver was so innate and smooth that I wasn’t sure he was even aware of it.

Then all got quiet.

Matt was glancing between the two of us, a slight frown marring his forehead. “Should I be the protective bro—”

“Shut up.” But there was no heat in Kash’s words, and Matt’s grin only deepened. “What were you thinking? Boning Amanda Bonham? She’s married.”

Matt shrugged. “Doesn’t act married in bed.”

“Her sleeping with you doesn’t change the fact who her husband is. He can make life difficult for your father.”

Matt guffawed. “Right. Dad can roll over him in two seconds. You know it. You can roll over him in less.” He skimmed me, nodding in my direction. “Bailey could probably take him down with an afternoon behind the keyboard. He’s a weasel shit. He’s nothing to me.”

Kash only flattened his mouth.

Matt jerked forward, new fight coming to him. “He’s in over his head. He owes the banks too much, and his new company is tanking. Besides, his wife has been cheating on him for years, and not just with me. When he finds out, he’ll find the rest. I’ll be the least of his worries. I know his two business partners got pokes in there, too, long before me. There’s rumors of a Christmas party, if you get my drift.”

Kash wasn’t amused. His eyes were hard. “That only means he’s desperate. He can latch onto the latest, a privileged prick of a tech golden boy. Guy that desperate won’t sit back and think rationally about who else surrounded his wife. You get my drift?”

They were at a standoff.

Matt growled, falling back against the booth. “Fine. Whatever. I won’t pick up when she calls.”

Kash ignored that, pulling out a phone and sliding it over the table. “Now.”

“What?” He was looking from the phone to Kash. His eyes widening. “No way.”

“Now, Matt.”

“Kash—”

“Goddamn it. Now. I’m not fucking around with this. There’s too much else at stake. A scandal like this can have blowback.” He motioned to me, his eyes not moving from Matt. “You know who else that can hurt. End it. Now.”

Matt was snarling, until Kash referenced me. Then the snarl softened into mere regret, and he closed his eyes. Raking a hand over his face, he shook his head. “What a fucking mess. Fine.” He took the phone, typing in her number and a text. Seconds later, he threw it at Kash. “There. Done.” His glare was back. “You happy?”

Kash took the phone, pulled up the history, then pulled up a different number. He handed it back. “Now actually text the phone she uses and not a dummy number.”

Matt froze.

Even I was surprised.

“You—” Matt grabbed the phone, saw the new number, and blood drained from his face. “How’d you get this—”

“Do you actually forget who your father is?” Kash jerked forward. He was close enough to be heard, but he dropped his voice low. There was a promise of violence under his words, being held back by a veiled line of restraint. He was done. That was obvious. Only Matt seemed still defiant, until Kash ground out, “I only had to give him a name, that was it. He pulled up everything. Texts. DMs. Private messages. Emails from three fake accounts. We have it. So fucking end it.”

“You went to my dad?” Matt’s top lip turned white, it was stretched so tight.

“No. I gave him a name. That was it. And before you jump down my back for being a snitch, I had to give him the name, because Bonham is a threat to your father, your sister, and you now. It was for security reasons. Not to give him the name would be reckless and stupid. Unlike your dick, I’m not a moron.”

“Jesus Christ, Kash. Sometimes I really hate you.”

“Feeling’s more than mutual right now, but you’ll be loving me the next second you need my ass to help you. You know it. I know it. Everyone goddamn knows it.”

I’d been watching the back-and-forth, but at Kash’s mention of security reasons, I waited for a beat. It was now.

I jumped in, holding a hand up. “Camille Story.”

Both looked to me. Both quieted.

I waited.

They didn’t say anything until Kash said, “Explain.”

I flushed, remembering another time he’d said the same phrase to me. But, pushing forward, I told them what I had done. Including the hacking. Including finding all the files on Matt.

“I deleted everything so she wouldn’t notice it was gone until she went looking for it.”

They were both silent a moment when I was done.

I fidgeted.

That was okay, what I’d done? I mean, maybe not in the grand scheme of the cosmic universe of morals and stuff, but she would’ve hurt us. Hurt Kash. Hurt Matt. In a way, I was just doing what they were doing for me, and what I’d done in the past. I was protecting people I cared about. In that way, I’d done nothing wrong. Karma was on my side.

I still eyed Kash, who hadn’t turned away from me.

What was wrong?

Then he said slowly, “She had your name?”

I nodded, just as slowly as him. “Yeah.”

“And how much information did she have on Matt?”

“A lot.” Scanning through it in my head, I added, “She knew about the Bonham woman.”

Matt jerked at that, rearing backward as if slapped. He hissed out, “What the fuck?”

Kash narrowed his eyes, still on me. “Tell me everything she had on us.”

He waited as I went over it all, and he listened. It took a little while, long enough that a server came over to offer drinks. Matt waved her off as Kash ignored her, listening to me. When I was done, both wore decidedly different expressions than when I’d started.

Unease.

A little bit of panic with Matt, and a darker hint of anger from Kash, one that was riddled with intent to do something not good. I picked up on that unease, but it was about Camille Story. I had enjoyed reading her gossip blog, until finding out more about her run-ins with Matt and then finding how extensive her research on him had been.

“She had a picture of you,” I told Kash.

“Me?”

I nodded. “I don’t know why it wasn’t deleted…” I was reexamining it, and that was wrong. I did know. “She diluted it. She ran it through a program and turned it into a sketch, not even a picture anymore, but it’s of you. His program wouldn’t have flagged it.”

Crap. That was smart, and that had taken planning.

I added, “She knows about the program that wipes out your image.”

Which meant there could be more, kept offline. That wasn’t good.

“Shit.” That was me.

“Shit.” That was Matt.

And Kash, he didn’t say anything. His jaw just firmed, and I knew he wouldn’t be with me tonight. He’d be going somewhere else.