Page 2 of Wrecked With You

Dragging his fingers through his close-cropped hair, he once again came up behind Noah as words and symbols flashed rapid-fire across the screen. “What’s—”

His friend held up a hand, cutting off Tony’s question. “Almost done. Just one more—yes. Got it, you slippery little fuck.”

Tony looked from the nonsense on the screen to Noah, then back to the screen. There was a reason Tony didn’t do tech. There wasn’t a damn thing on the screen of interest that he could see.

“I could explain it,” Noah said dryly, looking over his shoulder at Tony. “But then I’d have to kill you.”

“Funny man.” Tony pulled over one of the chairs and sat, rolling close for a better view of the nonsense. “Don’t explain. Just tell me what you’ve learned.”

“I can’t get a name for you. Not yet. But I’m working on software that will—”

“—do something magical with bits and bytes and quantum physics. Yeah, man, the whole world knows you’re a genius. What’s the bottom line?”

“Eighty-seven percent probability your contact really is a woman. I derived that from—”

“Ah, ah. Do I bore you with ballistics?”

Noah rolled his eyes. “There’s nothing boring about ballistics, and I’m a damn good shot, too.”

“I’m better.” Tony grinned, enjoying himself. Hell, the first time he’d laughed in months was last night at Noah and Kiki’s new house overlooking Lake Travis.

“Right now, the only cojones that count are mine. You want the intel or not?”

“You know I do.” He leaned back in the chair and kicked his feet out, prepared to get schooled.

Surprisingly, though, Noah skipped over the miracles of semiconductors and whatever programming language was in vogue these days. He dove straight to the results from his still-in-beta software.

“I can’t confirm your contact is a woman, but the probability is high. And based on where I’m pinging back from the shadow on her messages, she’s located in Southern California.”

“I didn’t think you could trace that kind of thing on the dark web.”

“Most can’t. I can. At least to a seventy-two percent certainty rate. Like I said, this is still in development.”

“So there’s a good chance she’s in California.”

“Either that, or knows her way around this nerdy tech stuff as well as I do and is purposefully shielding not just her location but the shadow of her location that I’m tracking.”

“I’m impressed.”

Noah grinned, but continued. “Since your intel suggests The Serpent’s based around LA, the probability that her information is legit increases.”

“All of which means it’s worth a shot to meet this woman.”

“Sounds to me like she’s the best lead you’ve had.”

“Lately, she’s been the only lead.” He’d had a bead on The Serpent years ago, but the plan had gone horribly wrong, and Tony had lost a hell of a lot more than the year of tracking and planning.

“Women are allowed to arrive alone at Debauchery,” Noah continued, and Tony nodded. That much he knew. “Men aren’t.”

“And she’s planning on meeting me there,” Tony said. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it. That means that she assumes I’ll find someone to come with me. And it means that she isn’t trying to entice me to travel with her. She’s probably going early to protect herself or to set a trap.”

“Right now, the probabilities are pretty much equal. But I did find a few single seats booked on Debauchery’s private jets booked the day before you’re set to meet her.”

“Any names?”

“Nope. Their security is tight. Not surprising considering the nature of the resort. I’m sure I can get around it if you think it’s important. Want me to keep poking?”

Tony shook his head. “Don’t bother. Odds are good I won’t be able to tell whether she’s there to help me or kill me just from a name on a ticket.”