2. SUTTON

Sitting in the comfortable leather interior of the car, I hugged my backpack to my chest. Star and Lazer argued quietly in the front seats. They drove through the reflective neon lights of New York City as they twinkled on the windows.

"Is she still in the same place?" I asked.

Star turned in the seat and glared at me. "We can't say."

"I'm guessing the shutdown error triggered you to come." I tried to figure out how they arrived within minutes. They were an easy escape, but I was forced to go with them.

"You think Maura didn't know where you were?" Lazer snickered. "That code in the shutdown was hers. We were close when you triggered it. She asked us to come and get you."

"So, she's still underground?" I asked.

They locked eyes with each other.

"Put this on," Lazer grumbled, throwing a scarf at me. "Around your eyes."

"I know you're not new, Lazer. You don't have to treat me like we didn't train together," I said, slipping the scarf around my head and eyes. "I don't blame you for being cautious, but you know me."

They continued to talk about Maura. I didn't care what she'd said. I thought about throwing myself out of the car, but they'd locked the doors. It was safer. At least I knew Maura wouldn't torture me.

"She didn't stop paying attention to you," Star said. "She let you get away with shit the rest of us would lose everything over."

Lazer chuckled. "Seriously. The shit you've pulled over the years. I'm surprised you aren't in a super max cell."

"I was in prison, for a time," I told them, clutching my bag. "They let me out within forty-eight hours, and I scrubbed every trace of it from any record. I'm surprised Maura even asked you to pick me up." We hadn't parted on the best of terms, so it was a surprise to know she cared enough to have people collect me. "I can handle myself."

"I don't remember you being such a talker," Lazer scoffed.

The noise outside changed from the bustle of the late-night streets to a quiet echo. I knew where we were. A parking lot. We came to a stop. The faint smell of engine fumes and the screech of tires confirmed my suspicion.

"I don't know why you need the blindfold. We're in the parking lot. There's a maintenance door and a tunnel to the base," I said. "Unless she's moved. There's a lot of real estate in underground New York these days, but also more tour groups acting like modern day explorers."

They stayed quiet as one of them opened the door and tugged my arm.

The squeaky hinge of the maintenance door opened. It hadn't changed in all those years. It was odd, the way they treated me like a guest. This used to be my home. I could've come here anytime I wanted. They weren't protecting themselves from anything.

I hadn't missed the faint damp smell or the quiet drip of water pooling in corners on the ground.

"We're here," Star said.

Lazer removed the scarf from my head. I caught Star parting a hanging blue tarp. It concealed a metal door with a key code. The door unlocked as metal wheels tapped together.

At the door, standing in wait, Maura Zims. She had brown and gray untamable curly hair and big green eyes. She dressed like one of my art teachers from school, denim overalls covered in colorful substances.

"My boy," she said, opening her arms wide for me. "I've missed you."

I hugged her. "Missed you too."

We were standing in the dull, flashing orange lights of a dark hallway.

"Her boy?" Star mumbled.

"She's not my mom," I said before she got anymore wild ideas.

"No, no," Maura said, ruffling a hand through my hair. "I found Sutton on the streets when he was young. You'd ran away from foster care. Well, he'd been waiting outside enormous office buildings and stealing the wallets."

I'd come a long way from that. "Maura taught me how to hone my gifts," I said. "She made me the criminal I am today."

"I don't think—well, let me show you around. Things have changed since you left," she said, tugging my arm into hers. "Star has been with me for a year now. We're working on our pink initiative."

"What's the pink initiative?" I asked.

Maura tutted at me. "That's not for sharing yet." She dismissed Star and Lazer as they walked ahead into another room. "I'm glad you're back," she said, pulling me into another hug. "You're my prodigy, but I taught you better than to fuck with the mafia."

"I'm not back," I said. "I didn't code that message. I wasn't asking for help."

"I saw him. The big guy. Russian," she said, nodding at me. "It sure looked like you needed help. But if you'd rather I left you to be tortured, then be my guest, I can have the Alexeyev family collect you."

"How did you—how did you know it was the Alexeyev family?"

She tutted. "I know more than you think. And I hear everything. Someone recently robbed the Alexeyev family through a cyber-attack. It wasn't anyone on my team, but the fingerprint said Myriad, and the transaction had your name. Well, Sutton. And only you know the one. So—what is it, Sutton?"

"I didn't steal his money," I said. "I'm not stupid enough to take so much from someone's account. I know it's all about the micro transactions." But now, I knew that the Russians had my name.

"So, you didn't leave a Myriad print for them to find?"

"I'm not part of Myriad. Why would I?"

"Well, that's the question I had," she said. "And I'm inclined to believe you didn't. You've never lied to me before."

"Unlike you," I snipped back.

"Please, Sutton, this is the first time I've seen you in years. We should wait a little before getting into all that mess," she said. "I'll show you around. I take it you'll be staying with us for the night."

I didn't have another option, and I wasn't ungrateful. After everything Maura had done for me, the last thing I wanted to be to her was a dick.

A lot had changed. The underground settlement used to have wires dangling from the ceiling, but they had all been cleaned and concealed. There were several more rooms and much longer hallways.

"We cleaned a lot," she said. "There's a room for sleeping, and we converted it into sleeping pods. There are a few spare pods. It's a quiet area, so we have a no coding and no talking policy in there." There was a hallway, down which there were the pods. They appeared to be bunk beds placed on top of each other but curtained off from prying eyes.

"It's an upgrade," I said. "I'm assuming you have a new coding room too?"

She tutted her tongue at her teeth. "We'll get there."

"You haven't changed much," I told her.

"We've got a kitchen and some more plumbing. Oh, and a games room," she said. "This is our home. You remember a time when this was your home too."

"And then I moved on. I have an apartment. I own."

She stopped me in the doorway of the kitchen, her hand on my arm. "I'm proud of you for that," she said. "And I hope you know I haven't stopped paying attention to you. So, I also know that Wendy Eccles owns that apartment."

I scoffed. "Rule number—whatever. No real names. Plus, if you hadn't stopped watching me, then you'll know I didn't do it," I said. "Now, we're on the same level. We need to talk about who you think is using the Myriad name."

Into the kitchen, it was much bigger. There were counters, appliances, and a long table. Two people sat eating and talking. They couldn't have been older than their late teens.

"You have a way to go before we're on the same level," she said.

"It must be someone here."

"No," she quipped. "I trust everyone here."

"You have more people now. You can't trust everyone."

Raising her brows, she shook her head. "I once thought I could trust you, so I suppose you're right."

"Trust is a deadly game."

She turned to the guy and girl at the table. "Stell, Bones. If you could give me the room for ten minutes," she said. "I need to speak in private."

They nodded, following her orders and left with their food.

"Are none of the old team still here?" I asked. "Except Lazer."

"People don't stick around when they learn all they can," she said, filling a teakettle with water. "What about you? Have you found yourself a boyfriend?" She chuckled. "I remember when you were obsessed with finding one and being normal."

"I thought you'd been watching me."

"You're right," she said. "But I'm not intrusive."

I'd had a few boyfriends, and of course, none of them stuck around. I learned too much about them and once the mystery was gone, I was done. "None worthy of mentioning."

"Take a seat," she said. "Stop standing around like some ornament. You want some tea?"

I sat at the table, the bag on my lap. "Sure. Are you still making your own blends?"

"Absolutely." She placed the kettle on the stove. "So, how did he find you?"

"I think someone gave him my address."

"When we got the message, the camera turned on to capture data. I ran facial recognition to find out who it was."

"The son," I said, cutting her off. "Danya. I know. I asked him."

"He told you?"

"Yeah. You taught us the people not to steal from. Mafia are at the top of that list," I said. "But I—I didn't let him believe I didn't steal from him." A way of saying I might have admitted to it.

"Don't you find it strange?" she asked. "He pinpointed you, exactly. And I'd be silly not to say how everything points to you currently. Or at least, us."

My mind raced as fast as hers to make sense of everything. I couldn't. "He didn't have any back up. Don't you think that's strange?"

"You don't look like a threat," she chuckled, pawing a hand at her chest. "I'm sure they didn't think they'd need more than one person."

"You know me, I'm a little slippery."

"I know. I also know it's the people we least expect who are the ones who eventually fuck us over."

"So, you do think it's someone here?" I asked.

"You know, I love you like a son."

The teakettle whistled, turning our attentions to the stove.

I almost regretted telling him I had the money. I wanted him to think I had one over on him. He shot my computer for no reason. Trigger happy asshole.

"I'll leave tomorrow," I told her. "I want to get this figured out. Someone told them it was me. I want to know who, and I want to know why."

She hummed, heaping her tea blend into the strainers. "I've got my people looking into it," she said. "I'm glad you came."

My third option had been to do what I always did; survive. I knew not to book into hotels or leave a trail of receipts for them to follow. I had a couple of fake IDs, but I didn't know which ones were compromised. "Maybe it was someone from our past?"

"If it is, they're a couple years too late," she said. "Why would they want to bring us back together now?"

Her answer to that was as good as mine. I didn't know.

"Drink this. It's a new blend," she said, placing two mugs on the table.

"You always had the best teas." I wrapped my fingers around the ceramic. "And you know, if I had millions of dollars in assets, I'd have more security. At the least then I wouldn't be ambushed."

She sat beside me again. "Tomorrow, we'll get some answers."

I sipped the tea, my mind transported back to being a teen. Her calming teas relaxed me and put me at ease. She also had stimulant teas, and they helped for those long nights on the computers.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, patting a hand on shoulder.

My blinks were slow, and a yawn opened at the back of my throat. "It's—" Everything blurred out of focus. "Oh—what's—what's—wha—" I fell into an unconscious void.