Chapter 3 Kaden

Present Day

Sir Mr. Ricci is on line 2” Christine, my assistant, paged into my office.

“Thank you Christine,” I replied, rolling my eyes. I had no desire to speak to the man, especially since he called a little over an hour ago, which I ignored.

“Romano” I said, hitting the speaker button and leaning back in my office chair.

“Care to share with me why it’s taking so fucking long for us to figure who planned the attack on my warehouse?” Ricci boomed through the phone.

“Well good morning to you too” I grumbled, knowing how this conversation was going to go.

“Oh don’t give me that bullshit Kade, we both know that the pleasantries are long gone. If your father was still alive..”

Before he could finish, interrupted, “Well he’s not. So I will have to do. Unless you want to find another security firm that's willing to deal with all facets of your business.” My tone was cool and straight forward.

I couldn’t stand the slimy scumbag, but my father had brought Ricci in as a client with a hefty contract. I didn’t want to tell him that I had a royal Phantom pain in my ass that I had a feeling was the one who was behind the attack. We’ve been playing this dance for a couple of years now. Sparing off in the cyber world against each other. Trying to uncover each other's identity was like trying to find a specific needle in a stack of needles.

“I have my best team on it as you know sir. We will be doing everything we can to figure out who is responsible for this but, if you keep on calling me every hour I can’t do my job. So please do what you hired me to do.”

“Fine,” he grumbled, and I ended the call.

I looked at the stack of resumes on my desk. Why my assistant insisted on having paper copies was beyond me, but I knew that I needed to go through them for the interviews that we had scheduled for the next couple of days. One in particular caught my eye.

Evelyn Myers, has an associates degree in Computer analytics and cyber security. Currently working as the cyber security and operations manager at Domino’s gym. The gym was widely known and had a waitlist to get into. I personally had taken some of the jiu jitsu classes there to see if it lived up to the hype. It did, especially for the Victoria's Secret bombshell that ran the class and kicked everyone’s ass. I didn’t continue my membership, since I had my own gym in my penthouse and my brute best friend was more than enough to spar with. I wonder if I would recognize Evelyn from there. I checked my calendar to see when she was coming in and to my surprise she was my first interview for the day tomorrow morning.

Normally candidates without a bachelor's degree were not selected, however, Dominos gym was an elite establishment that had some of the most lucrative clientele in the area. Stealing someone from their staff would be a gold mine, as they could help expand our relationships with businesses that we hadn’t had contracts with yet.

After my morning meetings, I sat in front of my computer, sifting through data and codes to help me identify who had infiltrated Ricci’s warehouse. Hyper focused on my computer I didn’t hear my best friend and business partner, Evan “The Machine” Amaro enter my office.

“I have news,” Evan said while I nearly jumped out of my office chair.

“Jesus Christ, Ev, you scared the shit out of me.” I took off my glasses and rubbed my eyes. The past 24 hours had been hell and the lack of sleep was not helping.

Evan chuckled, “and they call you Ghost, yet I’m the one who spooks you!”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah yeah, what’s the news?”

“I don’t know who tipped them off, but I can tell you that Phantom was definitely snooping and accessing the cameras of the warehouse when the feds infiltrated it. “

“Fuck…” I muttered, closing my eyes.

Evan placed a cup of coffee on my desk. “You look like shit, drink some fuel.”

I sighed, grabbing the cup. “Thanks,” I mumbled before taking a sip. I wished I could put more on my team to help find the culprits, however due to the sensitive nature of the bust, I did not want to compromise some of my valued employees. Some things were better off not being seen. And dead women and children who were supposed to be put in the skin trade, fell under that category. Lucky for me I was numb to almost everything cruel at this point.