"I'm fine. It would hurt if I wasn't numbed up," Dixie replied. "You really are like a damned stray cat. Showed up on my doorstep all scraggly, I was nice to you once, and now there's no getting rid of ya."
To his astonishment, Greg recoiled as though struck, the happy look on his face turning to one of hurt before he muttered an apology and fled like his ass was on fire.
"Damn it! Get back here!" Dixie called after him. "Don't—I didn't mean—" He broke off and huffed, then said, "Summon Byron."
The computer system chimed an affirmative. A few minutes later, Byron came striding in, atrocious and beautiful all at once in a teal t-shirt and purple pants, his hair tied back with a pink ribbon, and gold and green spectacles perched on his nose. "What's wrong?"
"Greg. Get him the hell back here. I hurt his feelings when I was only meaning to tease him."
"He came up here?" Byron asked, pulling off his spectacles and tucking them into his shirt. "What in the world?"
"You gave him something to poke at. What did you think he was going to do?" Dixie asked.
Byron gave him an odd look. "Greg doesn't poke around unless he's working."
"Aw, hell. Would you drag his ass up here? I don't want to sit around for another—" He glanced at the screens. "Seven and a half damned hours before I apologize."
Frowning, Byron pulled his phone from a back pocket of his jeans. "Scan for Greg." After a few minutes, there was a soft series of chimes. Byron shook his head. "He's already gone."
"Damn it!" Dixie bellowed.
"Calm down," Byron said, going over to the bank of monitors and typing idly as the keyboard flared to life. "You know better than to get wound up while your system is rehauling. Greg will be back. He never sulks for very long. What did you say?"
"I was teasing him about acting like cat, said I was nice once so now he's going to cling."
Byron winced. "Yeah, I did something similar once. I have no idea why he reacts so badly, but he doesn't like being accused of being clingy and such."
"Thanks for the damned warning," Dixie groused.
"I didn't think of it, sorry." Byron gave him a look as he turned away from the monitors. "What do you care? You're not exactly a cold-hearted bastard, Dixie, but you do prefer to keep to yourself. Especially after you've fucked somebody."
"I was zoned out," Dixie snapped. "He was the one who came up here and sprawled across my lap casual as you fucking please. Wasn't like I could put distance between us. Thanks for making sure he left me the fuck alone instead of wandering up here like he had an invitation."
Wincing again, Byron replied, "Greg isn't normally the type to pry into someone else's business. He's curious, yeah, but not if it's going to intrude on someone else's privacy. At least in my experience. He must be really curious about you."
Dixie heaved a sigh. "I guess I'll deal with it when I'm done here."
Byron nodded. "Anything else you need?"
"Naw, but thanks. I'll see you later."
When he'd gone, Dixie said, "Dim lights," and settled back into his trance, though it was harder to do than he liked admitting with guilt over Greg gnawing at the edges of his mind.
Nine hours later, cleaned up inside and out, a good hour of exercise to work out the kinks from laying still for half a day, he headed for the kitchen. Byron was there, but his only company was a bunch of maps and other papers scattered across the table, the island, and half the counter space. Dixie sighed. "Pizza for dinner, then?"
"Mm-hmm," Byron replied absently around the pen in his mouth. "Do you know anything about Timothy Rekker that's not on file?"
"One of the meanest bastards I ever saw, the kind that hangs back and coaxes everyone else into getting their hands dirty, like it was their idea all along and they're happy to do it for him. They're the worst ones. Wouldn't be surprised if he was the one that signed off on the order to kill my dad."
Byron took the pen out of his mouth and said softly, "I see. Well, that is definitely not on file. Not sure why Greg went for such a dangerous fish when there are less dangerous options out there. Honestly, it would be better to hit someone outside the city. We don't want them crawling through here tooth and comb for us, and that's what they'll do the minute they realize a Mason Chip was taken."
Dixie got a beer out of the fridge then went over to the table, pulled a chair and spun it, then straddled it and rested his arms on the back. "You got someone in mind already."
"I haven't gotten quite that far," Byron replied. "I've compiled a list of options, but I wanted to make sure there wasn't some reason we should be sticking with the charming Timothy."
"He's high-ranking. They probably thought the higher the rank, the better the access on the chip," Dixie replied, taking a pull on his beer before he read over the list. To be fair, that made perfect sense and was probably how it would work most places. But Mason Chips were all the same—access and other such things were determined by the person into whom the chip was placed. A chip could be taken out of one person, put in another, and all the information would immediately change and update, and access denied person A would be granted to person B.
The bitch of it all was changing the master files where all that information was stored. With his father dead, Dixie and two top-ranking G.O.D. members were the only ones capable of accessing the master lists. They were desperate to get him back because as long as he had access to the Mason System, the
