Shire Bottom Chronicles

Chapter Eighteen

Matt swiped another chocolate chip cookie off the baking sheet before Rory could stop him. "These are the best cookies I've ever eaten," he declared. While in isolation at Crimson Inc., the last thing Matt had wanted was food. He couldn't keep anything down. Now, his appetite had come back with a vengeance. It seemed like his body was craving something. He was slowly gaining back all the weight he lost, but another side effect of the T.V was a fast metabolism, so it wasn't easy.

"I'm glad to hear that." Rory laughed. She had spent all afternoon baking two dozen cookies using a recipe Rose gave her, and only a handful remained on the cookie sheet. "They must have been good if you ate nearly the entire batch."

"You can always bake more," Matt insisted. He walked into the living room and flopped onto their brand new couch. He had no idea what happened to their old couch during the move, but this one had built-in recliners. "Hey, Cat's here. She must be bringing Chelsea," he said suddenly, his words followed immediately by a knock at the door.

Rory opened the door to see Cat, Bane, Komazzi, and James standing in the hallway. She looked at Matt and raised her eyebrows in surprise. "How did you know?"

"I heard them coming up the elevator." Matt grinned.

"We can't stay long. Bane and I have our interview at Crimson," Komazzi said and sat on the couch beside Matt. "Damn Paxton has been driving me up a wall. He won't stay at his desk, he refuses to screen my calls, and I tried to take him out on a hunt last night but he was playing fucking Pokémon Go the whole time."

"I saw his mom at Evermart this morning. She's bragging to all her little friends that her perfect son landed his dream job," James said. "Apparently, nobody told her this is temporary. She's going to be so pissed if Paxton fucks this up and ruins the family reputation. He doesn't have any skills...well, maybe as an arsonist. Remember the time he burned down my house?"

"Oh, that's right!" Cat gasped. "Church was at your place that night. Paxton threw a Molotov cocktail through the window because he was angry I had taken an interest in you and not him."

"We had to move in with our grandparents after that." James shuddered at the memory of his house erupting in flames. The staircase had collapsed, and they were lucky to make it out alive. Paxton had been harassing him for months, but at the time James hadn't suspected things would turn violent. Paxton resented him even more when he got the position as Cat's guard. "Paxton can't be trusted. Fortunately, Matt goes back to work on Monday."

"I wanted to talk to you about that," Bane spoke up. "I already discussed this with Komazzi last night. Paxton is going to guard him for a while longer—"

"Why?" Matt interrupted, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"I have a job for you and James. That's why I asked him to be here today," Bane explained. "I want to send you into the organization's headquarters to gather intel. We need to know their plans. If we have someone on the inside, we can get files, blueprints, names...anything that might be useful."

James didn't want to argue with Bane because picking a fight with him was a good way to get himself killed or grievously injured. But the truth was, neither James nor Matt had much experience with risky assignments. Out of everyone he knew, D'Arcy Les Valencort and Ben Foster were the most qualified. They were rich, charismatic, and intelligent men who knew how to bend others to their will. D'Arcy had raised Danny after his father's death, and Ben handled all of the legal issues for Crimson Inc.

"Why can't one of the older guys go?" James wondered, praying he wasn't stepping out of line. "What about D'Arcy and Ben?"

"Their loyalty to me makes them targets—the organization would kill them on sight to send a message," Bane said. "You're still young. I doubt they would hurt you, but they might resort to bribery or threats to convince you to join their side."