Page 7 of Duality

“We know Citadel is just going to undercut our prices to get their business,” Sebastian said, a frown on his usually happyface. That or Citadel was going to charge them more to make the problems go away. Permanently.

I would have to let Izzy know so she could increase the security on the four victims from Geoff Young’s club. We would have to keep them safe as the court case proceeded.

“Then it’s not our problem, anyway,” Alexander said. “Let’s draw up the proposal and send it over. Then we’ll have done our part.”

My eyes widened as an idea hit me.

“What if I pulled together a list of people who, over the last year, had proposal meetings with both us and Citadel? We could reach out to those who went with Citadel and see if they wanted to switch to SDS?” This would allow me to gather information about all the companies that hired Citadel under the guise of research for the Archers, and it would potentially bring in more revenue for SDS.

Alexander frowned, drumming his fingers on the table. “I don’t see why not. We could frame it as just a check-in, so we don’t piss off Citadel.”

Sebastian beamed at me. “Great idea.”

I ducked my head to hide the warm flush that filled my cheeks.

“I’ll get on it.” The brothers stood to leave, and I closed my laptop. “I’ll email the notes out in a few minutes,” I murmured to Alexander as he held the door open for me.

“Thank you, Miss Harper.”

I sat at my desk and quickly copied and pasted the notes in an email to the brothers and Adrian. I edited some of the shorthand I used and clicked send. Then I opened the secure messaging app that Liam, one of my lieutenants and the Archers’ best hacker, insisted on installing on everyone’s phone. I typed out a short message describing the meeting and instructing Liam to look into Geoff’s business dealings a bit deeper and to shoreup our defenses in case Sebastian decided to poke around. We could discuss everything in more detail at our own meeting in a few days. I sent another note to Izzy asking her to double check security on the victims from Opal’s. The last thing those women needed was to be traumatized further.

This type of meeting was exactly why my job at SDS was so critical. Most of the work the Archers did outside of the occasional mission was research. My grandma had always said that an ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure, so we constantly gathered information until we needed it. And I had a feeling we hadn’t heard the last from Geoff Young’s businesses.

CHAPTER 4

EVELYN

“Who got my lasagna? This is someone’s chicken parm,” I said, digging around in the takeout bag.

It had taken me longer than I would have liked to arrive at headquarters tonight for the meeting with my lieutenants. Not only did I have to pick up food, I was also always super paranoid about the routes I took, often doubling back to make sure no one picked up on my trail. The Archers had several safe houses and smaller headquarters throughout the city, but this building was our main command center.

“Here’s your lasagna,” Danny said, brushing his brown curly hair out of his eyes as he handed me the takeout container. “Izzy got the chicken parm.”

“No. I got the spaghetti and meatballs. Liam got the chicken parm.” Izzy, my lead investigator with the Archers, passed the chicken parm down to the Archers’ resident hacker.

Liam balanced the takeout box on his knees as he kept typing on the laptop in front of him. He was rarely away from his screens. If Izzy or Maya didn’t drag him away from his cave every two weeks or so, he would never leave it.

“Here’s your spaghetti and meatballs,” Maya said, handing Izzy a container.

“Who has the breadsticks?” Gracie asked, her brown eyes scanning the table intently. “Danny, hand those over before you eat them all.”

Finally, everyone had their food. For the next few minutes, the only sounds were chewing and the clacking of Liam’s keyboard. Each one of the people sitting around this table were the founding members of the Archers, personally recruited at key points in our organization’s history. I trusted them with my life and couldn’t imagine having built the Archers without them.

Danny was the first member. We grew up more like siblings than cousins, and he’d taken what happened to me in high school personally. When I started my early vigilante work, he was right there at my side. To an outsider, his upbeat personality and friendly face could be disarming, but on a mission, he was ruthless.

Grace joined next. She was a veteran, serving ten years in the military before being discharged. Like many veterans, she ended up homeless, forgotten by the country she had sworn to serve. Danny and I had bitten off more than we could chew one night and were taking a beating in an alley when Gracie had appeared like an avenging angel. With impressive hand-to-hand combat skills, she made quick work of the rest of our attackers. I offered her a job on the spot. She had been hesitant at first, but the Archers gave her the purpose she needed after the military. She and Danny constantly picked at each other, sparks flying between them even if they hadn’t acted on it. Yet.

Technically, we met Maya next, but they didn’t join the Archers until later. Maya was the child of one of the city’s police captains. I had been undercover at a college party when I noticed the frat boy I was watching slip something in their drink. I managed to get to them before anything happened and stayed with them till their father arrived. When the frat boy’s case had been dropped due to “lack of evidence”, Danny and I haddelivered a warning to the whole frat house about what we would do if we caught them drugging another person.

Somehow, Maya’s dad heard about it. I was sure that was the end of the Archers, but he’d looked the other way and helped cover up the evidence we left behind. Ever since then, he gave us a call when a case looked like it was going to slip through the cracks. Maya left the state and transferred schools. They began their career as a journalist and returned home a few years ago. They showed up on my doorstep demanding to join the Archers, and with their help and media connections, we began to shine a light on stories that would otherwise be covered up.

It was through Maya’s dad that Liam joined our ragtag vigilante group. Liam was the youngest one of our group at 22 and began hacking when he was twelve years old. A few years ago, he had been caught by the police department’s cybercrimes unit breaking into electronic case files and exposing them to the internet. He should have done serious time, but Captain Patel called me, and I recruited him to the Archers. Now he was our resident hacker, tech guru, or whatever else he was calling himself that day.

Isabella, or Izzy, as we called her, was the last member to join our group. She was a former police detective with a stellar record until she uncovered corruption within her own department. It was actually the Archers who had sent information to her department about a trafficking ring we had uncovered in their district a few states away. Izzy was one of the detectives who received the information but was prevented from acting on it by her captain. She quit the force and reached out to us instead. Now she uses her investigative skills and understanding of law enforcement to help us instead.

Izzy clapped her hands. “All right, in the interest of Eve getting some sleep tonight, let’s get started. Grace, can you give an update?”

Grace nodded. “We’ve had four requests come through the tip line in the last few days. I’m doing some initial recon, but I could use some help.”