“Worse.” Sometimes my brain felt so crammed full of information on the human body and biochemistry that I was sure it was going to melt. That was the main reason my friends and I had jumped at the chance to leave the icy New York winter behind and head to several island paradises. We needed to blow off steam.
“Well, it will all be worth it someday. The world can always use more doctors.”
I expected her to make some comment about me not having time to have children and raise a family—which was a common theme from my mother—but she didn’t. Probably because I was a guest. Or maybe because I was a med student and it was a given.
It was nice all the same.
The sliding glass back door opened. The three brothers came back inside, each with a face flushed from the cold.
Leon sauntered over to the kitchen. He leaned against the wall opposite me, crossing his arms, making those thick arm muscles bulge. “I need to borrow Sofia, Mum.”
“Go right ahead. I was boring her to death, going on about this and that.”
“Not at all,” I said. “I enjoyed it.”
I’d found her talk comforting. It was all so refreshingly normal. I still had a difficult time believing Leon was related to this woman. Sure, I could see the family resemblance, but they were so different. Leon must have been born under a bad sign or something.
“Make sure you leave all the dishes for us to do,” Leon told his mother. “You always work too hard.”
She waved him off as if he were being silly. When I saw Leon with his mom, I could easily forget he was a hitman. People were strange, but Leon was like no one I’d ever met. He had plenty of bad qualities—being a killer for hire ranking near the top—but he wasn’t simply a handsome face, a nice man butt, and a decent set of shoulders, either.
I followed Leon, but as we stepped into the living room, I felt apprehension bloom inside me. “What’s going on?”
He turned the television channel to some game show and turned up the volume. “We’re going to find out what’s on that thumb drive.”
One of his brothers came back in from the front door carrying a laptop computer case. He was the nicer brother. Declan. When he’d arrived earlier, he’d introduced himself, shaking my hand and being a gentleman. Good looks seemed to run in the family because all three brothers were handsome. But his youngest brother—Ryan, if I remembered correctly—clearly didn’t like me. He’d been as cold as Leon. The same flinty eyes. The same hard stare.
At least now I understood why. They all believed my father had ordered the death of their brother. I had no idea if that was true, but I was deeply sorry they’d lost him. The family seemed close. From what little I’d gleaned, they’d faced some hard times together.
Declan powered up the laptop, setting it on the coffee table so the screen could be seen by us all. Leon and I sat on the couch. Ryan leaned against the wall near Declan and crossed his arms.
Leon handed over the thumb drive. Declan explained what he was doing—accessing the drive in a virtual instance in case there was malware on the drive.
He mentioned a few other insider-tech things that I didn’t completely follow until Leon growled: “What’s on the damn thing?”
“You’re killing my chance to show off.” Declan grinned at me, not seeming the least bit intimidated by Leon. “I’m trying to impress you, by the way.”
That scored a surprised laugh from me. Leon’s expression grew dark, his scowl ferocious. But he didn’t say anything.
I kept smiling at Declan. I finally had something that seemed to get under the unflappable Leon’s skin. At least Declan seemed to be a gentleman for all his scars and tattoos, unlike Leon, who could’ve modeled designer suits but had all the personality of a sleep-deprived bear.
Declan started clicking on things on the screen, opening windows and running programs on the laptop.
“No malware,” he announced. “No tracking programs. No encryption.”
His brow furrowed, then his eyes went wide. “Holy Mary, Mother of God.”
“What is it?” Leon demanded.
I leaned forward, my heart skipping a beat or two. The excitement was catching, and I might finally be getting some answers about what the hell was going on.
“This is a cryptocurrency wallet,” Declan said.
Even Ryan leaned closer. “Is it full?”
“It’s full of private keys. Technically, it contains pairs of public and private keys. But holy shit. The worth of this… It must be a hundred and twenty-five mil worth of Bytecoin. And that’safterthe hit the crypto market has taken.”
My breath caught in my throat. That was a staggering amount of money.
