An hourglass materializes in the corner of my screen, along with a waterfall of computer code. I have five minutes to solve one of the most complicated maths problems I’ve ever seen in my life.
I study the numbers and variables for two full minutes. I start to type my solution confidently, checking for typos. I get almost to the end before I realize something’s off.
The grains of sand are running out. The feckin’ ice ghoul is circling me, growing closer on each lap. Nevertheless, I review my work, tracing every line of code. I’m patient. I’m focused. I’m determined.
Thirty seconds. Fifteen. I see the hole I missed before. I start typing with no time to check for errors. Five. Four. Three. Two…
The Snow Star demolishes the ghoul.
Sitting back in my chair, I’m as breathless as if I’ve fought a real physical battle. I flex my fingers. I twist my spine one way and then the other.
And I climb higher on Shadow Peak to find something else to kill.
17
COLE
Idon’t intimidate easily.
That’s the result of a lifetime spent facing down people who had more discipline, more power, and more money than I did. My warden in the juvenile detention center. Shannon’s various “managers”. Just about anyone with a twenty-dollar-bill in his wallet, the entire time I was growing up.
Now that I run Lone Wolf Enterprises, I’m the most controlled person I know. I notched my first billion dollars three years ago, and a fortune like that just keeps growing. My personal wealth would make me the twenty-first richest country in the world, if I was a nation. I can sway world markets with the click of a few computer keys.
But Barry Lynch thinks he’s well on the way to putting me in my supposed place. Baltimore’s Irish mob boss greets me in his home office. He’s invited me to Sunday Roast—family dinner, served in the middle in the afternoon—now that I’m joining the clan.
Lynch’s chair tilts back so far it’s nearly horizontal, the angle he needs to rest his feet on his desk. His stomach fights his suspenders like a harpooned whale. I wonder if he likes the taste of his cheap cigar, or if that’s the only one he can afford.
He nods to the armed guard who frisked me at the gate. “Go ahead, Lochlann. This one isn’t a threat.”
If he means I’m not armed, he scores one point. But if he means I can’t take him out, he sadly overestimates his safety. The black belt I hold in krav maga isn’t as obvious as Lochlann’s cheap Bryco pistol, but it’s a hell of a lot more likely to incapacitate an enemy.
But Barry Lynch isn’t my enemy. He’s my client. And soon to be—strange as the phrase sounds when I voice it in my head—my father-in-law.
He takes three puffs on his cigar before he gestures to the chair across from his desk. “Take a load off, son.”
I manage to hide my bristle. There’s only one man in the world I allow to call meson, and Mr. A has nothing in common with the underworld boss eyeing me now.
I settle into the leather chair, making a point to spread my knees, to curl my fingers over the edge of the worn armrests. In my experience, short men don’t like it when other people dominate the space around them. Especially short, fat men with criminally bad toupées. Too bad for Lynch.
He fortifies himself with another acrid puff. “I figure this is as good a time as any to show you what you’ll be working on,” he gloats.
“I’m intrigued,” I lie.
“I did my research on you,” he says. Puff. “Read all about that Swiss bank, and what you did for them.” Puff. “I’m sure you understand corporations, with market caps in the billions.” Puff. “But I don’t know if you’re familiar withpersonalfinances that clear a billion dollars.”
I’ve done my research, too. Barry Lynch is lying through his tobacco-stained teeth. Baltimore real estate isn’t going up invalue, at least not the blighted blocks he owns in Harlem Park and Druid Heights. The Baltimore Port took a huge hit when that bridge collapsed, and the mob has lost millions on its share of routine traffic diverted up and down the coast. Baltimore’s mayor has turned over half a dozen times in the last ten years, corruption scandal collapsing corruption scandal. It costs a lot to keep politicians bought, and word on the street is both the Italian mafia and the Russian Tarasov bratva pay a lot more than the Canton Crew.
The way I read things, the twenty million dollars Lynch is paying me is his last-gasp strategy. Whatever he’s taking from Kate and her Red Cap raids isn’t enough anymore. Lynch must believe cryptocurrency is the only way out of his spiraling disaster.
In other words, he’s making the classic error of a grifter’s mark. He’s lured by huge numbers he doesn’t begin to understand. He’s over-extending himself to a massive extent, betting on something he doesn’t know how to measure. And like every victim of a con game, he’ll fall. Hard.
Not thatI’mgoing to scam him. My days in the life are over. I provide fair value to every one of my clients. Even the ones who aren’t selling me their daughters.
Lynch is back to bragging: “They say crime doesn’t pay, son, but they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. This is the good stuff, young man. The secrets. The crimes. This is what I’ll only share with family.”
He heaves his feet off his desk, cracking a fart into his cloud of cigar smoke. Turning his computer monitor toward me, he brings up a bare-bones spreadsheet. I spend the next hour and a half letting him walk me through files I could navigate in five minutes—theft, extortion, gambling.
Along the way, my mind wanders.