“Yeah, but we have to work really hard not to get caught.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s the same all around.”
“I can always hope the Little Rabbit will reveal themselves one day.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m sure they will come out in public just for you.”
“Don’t pop my bubble.”
“Sorry. I’m a realist.” I shrugged. “So, back to work.”
I had to redirect her thoughts or she would never get off this topic.
“Wait, one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“About the delivery method for the tracker, can you do a deeper palette this time? It will go better with my dress. Perhaps a deep burgundy?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” I almost rolled my eyes and hung up.
Standing up from the sofa, I made my way to my hallway coat closet and pushed aside a set of winter jackets. I stepped onto a pressure sensor and a panel opened. Leaning forward, I allowed the retinal scanner to identify me and the hidden door opened, revealing the heart of my operation. Computers of various types lined one side of the room and a large array of screens jigsawed around another. The back half of the room was set up as a lounge of sorts so I could relax when in the middle of a project without having to leave the space.
I could admit there were times I’d locked myself into what I affectionately called my secret dungeon for days.
Only a handful of people knew about it, people who would die for me before revealing my secret.
Too bad they didn’t know all of my secrets.
Pushing the last thought back, I moved to a cabinet in the corner of the room.
The cabinet held preprogrammed microchip trackers ready for jobs like Devani’s that would only need a few tweaks for her specifications. With the exception of Devani, most people thought I worked on their projects real time and it kept the demand for my work high because it was assumed they were getting a custom job. In reality, most jobs were standard.
Plus, it would look pretty lame for it to get out that instead of partying it up as most twenty-nine-year-olds would do in their free time, I locked myself in at home and programmed while watching reality television or the latest binge-worthy series on the popular streaming platforms.
No, that was a lie. Well, sort of.
I went out on occasion. But it was rarely, and mainly to serve a double purpose, to be seen in public and to pass off items to contacts as I would do tonight.
After picking out the correct-sized tracker, I exited and locked up the lab and headed for my bedroom. With a quick power-up of my laptop, I attached all necessary cables and devices, reviewed all Devani’s notes on my secure network, and went to work. I shook my head, thinking about how I was going to help my girl hack her family’s diamond conglomerate. Whatever it was, it was a fair trade as far as I was concerned. I had my reasons for what I did and she had hers.
An hour later, I was set. Leaning down, I pulled open the bottom drawer of my bedside table and hit a hidden button revealing a selection of lipstick tubes. The colors ranged from bright pinks to deep red and everything in between. There were even some wild colors ranging in the blue, yellow, and green spectrum.
Concealing my microchips in the bottom of lipstick tubes kept anyone from suspecting it was more than makeup, and unless you knew the exact way to open the canister, its secret would never reach the light of day. Plus, it helped that the majority of the clients I selected were female.
It wasn’t that I was opposed to working for men, I just seemed to prefer working with other women—they understood what it was like to work in a field dominated by men.
Once the unit was assembled, I slipped it into the clutch I’d use for tonight and headed for the bathroom, turning on the shower. As the room filled with steam, I stripped and loosened my hair from the messy but sophisticated bun I favored when at work. As my hair tumbled down my back, I glanced at my reflection in the mirror behind me and smiled. Along my shoulder and down the left side of my body was a unique design of a tigress lying on a bed of exotic flowers. The details of her body were a waterfall of computer code translating a poem my mother would recite to me about the tale of a warrior goddess.
When I’d gotten this ink, I needed something to tell me I wasn’t the creature I presented to the world, the creature Ashok Shah had created. It was my hidden rebellion.
And in truth, who would believe the always perfect Danika Dayal’s body would bear the marks of a body tattoo?
My attention shifted to the one going down the column of my spine. It held the key to too many secrets.
It was in Sanskrit in its original form, an ancient language very few people spoke and even fewer read.
“Beware of the Little Rabbit.”
I’d had it done in New Orleans, when Uncle Ashok had sent me to meet with a potential investor.
It was also the first time I’d gone outside of the realm of hacker for hire. I’d learned a known sex trafficker was in town and decided to help the FBI by anonymously giving one of my contacts the exact locations and codes to the warehouse where the trafficker would be.
It was my way of getting back at those who hurt the innocent.
Among them was Ashok Enmesh Shah.
I guessed everything in my life went back to him. He’d taken so much from me.
My mother.
My father.
Nik.
I knew his connection to people with underworld ties had allowed him to create the empire he currently had. One built on the backs of too many people to count. An empire I’d take from him and give to its rightful heir.
But that was the end game.
First, I had to broker a bargain with Nikhil King.
4
Danika
At a quarter past ten, I climbed out of my car, buttoned my long coat, and made my way toward the entrance of The Library, a twenty-four-hour coffee shop favored by the locals of my SoHo neighborhood.
My security detail tailed me. Ones I’d told Uncle Ashok were required by art clients but were actually people I’d hired to keep Uncle’s men away from me.
Ever since I could remember, the man had spied on me. And I knew tonight would be no different, especially after the blowup we’d had right before I’d left my apartment.
As if sensing I had plans for the evening, he’d called, demanding I drive over to his house for an important discussion. When I told him I had a meeting scheduled with an art dealer, he’d jumped into a tirade about my lack of duty to the family and how without him I’d have ended up a penniless nothing like my father.
It had taken all of my strength to bite my tongue and listen.
His words weren’t anything worse than other things he’d said to me. At least, they hadn’t come with a backhand to the jaw as many of his lectures had ended when I was a teen.
“You’re playing with the big dogs tonight. Keep your head in the game,” Richard Kade, my head of security and all-around protector, said, bringing me back to the present.
Rich, as I called him, was retired CIA and one of the few people who knew what I really did for a living. Maybe not everything, and if he did, he pretended ignorance well enough.
“I’m always playing with the big dogs. I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you?”
I glanced to my side. “Yes.”