Monsters, Matt Rogers [ereader for android .txt] 📗

That set him straight-backed, gave him an idea, but he tucked it away for future contemplation. He noticed her finger tracing a line up his thigh, felt himself grow hot in response.

She lowered her voice, mouth spreading into a half-smile. ‘What’s that line about living like it’s your last day on earth?’ She looked into his eyes. ‘Might be that way for us both. You never know…’

Tyrell appeared from the hallway and hustled past, slinging his backpack over one shoulder on his way to the garage. He didn’t seem to notice how close they’d been sitting. ‘Goin’ to the mall, guys. Meetin’ Liam and Andreas there.’

Slater said, ‘Liam scored some good weed again?’

‘Shut up, man. Get off my back.’

Slater chuckled as the garage door slammed. Alexis lowered her finger back to his thigh, continued tracing.

She whispered, ‘How’s that for timing?’

He put on his best fortune-teller voice, said in a low baritone, ‘The universe wanted it to happen.’

She laughed.

She wrapped her legs around his waist as he picked her up and carried her to the bedroom.

15

As he kissed Alexis goodbye, he tallied the day’s exercise.

Deadlifting for a three-rep PR.

Thirty minutes of boxing rounds on the heavy bag.

And, finally, sixty minutes of cardio that had left both he and Alexis sweaty and exhausted.

If he pushed it any further he’d run a serious risk of overtraining, so he fetched his laptop off the kitchen island and carried it to the sofa. He stretched out, draped the chinchilla throw over his legs, relishing a rare stretch where he had the house to himself. Isolation used to be his modus operandi. Things were different now.

What Alexis said earlier still burned at the forefront of his mind. He couldn’t shake it away. Maybe all monsters know their fellow kin.

Maybe.

He figured he’d put his new bag of digital tricks to the test, work on researching the remaining members of the list in his possession. As he powered up the laptop, useless intrusive thoughts tried to force their way in: What if that was the last time you saw her? What if it’s more serious over there than you thought? How will you go raising Tyrell on your own?

He understood exactly what the questions were.

Subconscious bait, desperate to sink their hooks into his mind, steal vital brainpower away from more important tasks. He relaxed into a meditative pose with the laptop on his thighs, and sat with his eyes closed for ten minutes before getting started. He pushed his thoughts away, emptied his mind of clutter and rot. When he opened them, he was still.

There were no questions anymore, because he understood almost all questions were useless, mere barriers to action.

He brought up a Word document he’d used to digitise the list:

Kian Grant.

Curtis Dunlap.

Dominique Newton.

Sebastian Day.

Donald Ayers.

Valentino Moretti.

Myles Vaughan.

Aiden Hall.

Frankie Booth.

Jacob Khan.

Jaxson Hoffman.

Robert Holland.

Six to go.

He set to work.

A month and a half of recuperation from injuries had left him with significant downtime, and he’d put it to good use. He’d met with Alonzo five separate times, roughly once a week since he got back from Mexico. Each session ran north of two hours, time which Alonzo had spent bringing him up to speed on the most useful tricks in the “black hat” book. Slater was ruthless enough with self-analysis to know he would never be competent with the latest technology, let alone anything close to a hacker, but he could focus and follow instructions better than anyone. It was a talent that had kept him alive hundreds if not thousands of times, made him a unique specialist in a wide range of fields. The computer sessions kept his mind occupied, and before long he was adept with the deep web, Tor browsers, and a host of black hat programs that Alonzo didn’t want anyone else knowing about.

Slater figured he could now commit digital crimes with impunity, but instead he used the newfound knowledge to investigate.

He worked his way down sequentially.

Curtis Dunlap was a prominent defence lawyer in Boston.

Sergeant Dominique Newton was a distinguished member of the Boston Police Department.

Sebastian Day was a life insurance titan with seven companies under his belt, all preceded by the “Day” trademark. His head offices were located near the Institute of Contemporary Art, overlooking the Boston Main Channel.

Aiden Hall was a tech entrepreneur and mogul. He owned three content marketing agencies that together controlled almost all the branding and paid sponsorships for Boston’s most prominent social media influencers. In this new world, he was probably more influential than the dwindling news stations in the prime time slots. At first he stood out from the other men on the list, but Slater quickly realised how Dwayne Griggs might’ve put him to use. He who controls the narrative controls the people.

Frankie Booth was in San Francisco.

Slater froze with his finger on the trackpad, sat bolt upright. The deep web results hovered on the screen, displaying details about the man that he’d certainly rather keep secret. He was using the alias “Frankie Costa” to escape a smorgasbord of prior convictions and recent allegations. Among them were assault, battery, racketeering, and some nasty allegations of severe domestic violence. Slater read a couple of transcripts of court proceedings and closed straight out of them, a lump in his throat. He didn’t need to read anymore. The guy deserved a slow and painful death if even half the stuff he’d been accused of was true. But, as usual, the justice system had done a stellar job of dropping the ball, and he was somehow out, free to flee to another state and change his name.

And his vocation…

He owned and operated a warehouse-style mixed-martial-arts gym in the grungy industrial suburb of Hunters Point, near the naval shipyard. The business was no-nonsense, its marketing unflattering (only a simple and ugly website that was hard to find), but it seemed successful. Several established professional fighters used his tutelage, all the men and women advertised competing in the highest tier of combat sports organisations. None were champions or household