It was only after they’d gone that she realized they’d implied the same woman waited for them. Were they involved with one woman? Was that a thing the Kings did? Perhaps she should feel outraged, but all she felt was intrigued as she went inside to start dinner.
Chapter 5
That night Simoneslept better than she had in a long time. It had just been a kiss, but what a kiss, and with two of the sexiest men she’d ever met. She got up and fixed breakfast for Gemma, and when she went off to school, Simone went back to bed. Working late, she needed the morning sleep. But when she woke, something was wrong—her mind and her clock were out of sync. After a moment she realized it had stopped at nine in the morning.
She got up and went to turn on the light. Nothing happened.
“Shit. The power is off.”
She opened the curtains and went back to the kitchen. She’d have some coffee, get her head right, and find out what was going on. She went to the sink to fill the pot, but nothing came out of the tap.
A shudder rippled through her. She went to the stove and turned it on. Nothing. She left the valve open and didn’t smell any gas.
Everything was off.
It was a gorgeous California day,and Max felt better, more interested in life than he’d been in a long time. He could put a big chunk of that down to the effect Simone had on him. Her smile, her presence, made the world a nicer place for him and for Rafe. And that kiss still made his lips tingle. He and Rafe hadn’t really discussed it afterward, but they hadn’t needed to. He’d known it had shaken Rafe to the core, just like it had him. It left him more determined than ever to find a way to make whatever this thing was work for all of them because Simone shouldn’t have to choose when she clearly wanted them both.
After breakfast, he went to the clubhouse, meeting up with Rafe there. His friend was eating something greasy that resembled eggs and bacon, so he assumed Tonya was cooking that morning.
He joined him at a table. “Morning.”
Rafe nodded around a mouthful. “Work.” He said the word before taking another bite as he slid over a list. Soon enough, they had split up the chores and were doing the accounts and also some work for a client. Rafe had him evaluating some investments, though it wasn’t his strong point.
The client wanted to make sure that large cash transfers of his money wouldn’t attract too much attention. These days, it was just good sense to hide your wealth from everyone. He’d made sure it wasn’t laundering money or anything illegal. The feds were all over that stuff, but the client wasn’t worried about the government. He was trying to keep it out of the hands of hackers. Rafe had already done most of the preliminary work, and he was leaving Max to finish the small details. It was another practice session. Max didn’t much care for the financial stuff, and it didn’t make his engine rev like it did for Rafe, but it was part of his apprenticeship, so he rolled with it.
The bad guys were always around online, snooping and watching for opportunities to steal in one way or another. The people who were supposed to be the good guys could almost be worse. They were so afraid of someone managing to avoid taxes or laundering money that they made it hard for regular, legal businesses to operate, especially with any privacy. The bad guys often just watched where the authorities probed and took careful note. Once you got noticed, it was hard to get off the radar. So this client had paid Rafe a retainer to facilitate her transactions and help her keep a low profile.
This was work Rafe enjoyed and Max endured.
He studied Rafe’s notes, realizing his friend had spent the early hours of the morning working out a way for her to move some assets easily enough. The technique was simple and inconspicuous, and it involved starting up a new company. Even Max was able to follow the concepts. That was always a gas. So far this year, Rafe had formed thirty-six shell companies, and Max had assisted with about twenty of them. Half of them had failed. On paper, of course. Ironically, if you looked at the books closely, you’d see that the failed companies earned his investors the most money. Max was still trying to grasp all the nuances, but he felt like he was getting the hang of what came innately for Rafe.
Finance was weird like that, and with so much computerized, almost nothing was what it seemed. Now he needed to create one more, but before he put the client’s money at risk, he needed to make some real-world tests. Max felt reasonably confident with the next steps, since Rafe had laid the framework, and Max had done this before, though not such a large share of it. He was flying semi-solo with this one.
He’d launch the company, create its books, set himself up as CEO, and see if anyone paid attention to it. If not, well, his client would be a happy camper. If it did get noticed, he wouldn’t have done anything wrong. Rafe made sure he had nothing to hide, and Max was following his techniques closely.
As he closed out the online form, his phone chimed. Max grabbed it. Simone was calling. The way he felt, that had to be a good thing, and he answered excitedly. Her first words told him this wasn’t the social call he’d been hoping for.
“I don’t know what to do. Someone turned off my utilities,” she told him. “All of them. Gas, water, and electricity.” He could hear the stress in her voice and put her on speakerphone as he explained the situation to Rafe.
“When?” asked Rafe.
She didn’t seem surprised Rafe was with him. “This morning.”
“Take a breath now, and tell me what’s going on,” said Max, trying to sound gentle but firm.
“I don’t know. I got up and found out I have no electricity, no water, and no gas for my stove. I called the companies, but they say that their records show they received a turnoff order from me. I sure as hell didn’t ask them to cut me off. Anyway, they want huge deposits and turn-on fees to get them back on. I don’t have that kind of money and even if I did, I’d have no utilities for a few days anyway. I don’t know what to do.”
“Okay. Try not to panic,” said Max.
“We’ll come over and get it sorted it out. Get out whatever copies of your utility bills you have around—anything with account numbers on it so we can jump right on it. We should be able to get some of this sorted pretty quick.”
When he hung up, Max grabbed the laptop he used for work as Rafe did the same. It had his software toolbox on it—everything he had for online warfare. Most had been designed by Rafe or scavenged from others, but Max had contributed a couple of tools to the toolbox as well that might serve well in this war.
And he was sure that was what it was. Brad, most likely, had launched an attack. He remembered Simone mentioning that Brad talked about his work online. Hell, every other person seemed to be a computer guru these days, and there was no way of telling what Brad was into. You didn’t need to be a genius to screw someone over online—just stubbornly persistent and willing to spend an incredible amount of time in the effort.
Brad had to be pissed off if he’d been behind the tire slashing. He must’ve thought she’d walk out to the street and been waiting there for her. To grab her. Who the hell knew what unpleasantness a guy like that would have in mind for her? The thought made Max’s jaw clench, and he tightened the fist not holding his bag.
When the creep had learned she had a little more protection than he could deal with on the streets of the physical world, he’d taken his revenge into a playground where he had the advantage. Online. He was a coward and a bully.