Could you possibly continue Truth Serum?
Her friends turned up, but Delilah knew there was no time to waste. The information broker hadn’t left so long ago – she could still catch him, stop him from bringing ruin to them all.
“He knows,” she’d told the other heroes, wide-eyed, “everything.”
They’d said they would handle it. They’d told her to go home, in no uncertain terms, after her ordeal. She’d told them in no uncertain that there was no bloody way that she was going to sit at home while they all got killed because she was stupid enough to get caught.
They’d looked ready to argue, to bring her forcibly to someone’s safe house if that was what it took.
“We don’t have time,” she’d snapped. “We’ve got to stop him before he delivers that info, and there are too many options who he could be delivering to.”
The Broker would obviously be selling to the highest, or most appealing, bidder. But who was that? While they would all often team up against the larger threats, most so-called-heroes had enemies of their own. The broker had asked questions about all of her occasional teammates, but that could have been him taking advantage of the opportunity, more than any specific contract that he’d received. It didn’t mean the person who’d hired the Broker didn’t have a more personal agenda in mind.
It obviously had to be one of their richer enemies to pay the Broker’s impressive fees, but that still left a fair few options, given crime most certainly paid and billionaires were inclined to be villainous scumbags as a species.
In the end, they split up – divide and conquer, after all.
Her mind raced over everything the Broker had said and done, even as her body raced through the city. She searched for some clue to expose his path and the best way to stop him. What did he mean when he said he’d save her?
In the end, it wasn’t her who found the Broker that night. It was Victorious. At his enemy’s manor house. The rest of them found Victorious, real name apparently Victor Rodriguez, strung up in the town square the next morning. Dead. Beneath the grief, the crippling guilt, was the terrifying certainty that the Broker had sold his information to the Monarch.
So, maybe, if they could stop Monarch before he let slip information about them to the others-? But that still left the Broker. That still left the uneasy stalemate between heroes and villains, previously evenly matched, broken.
Rumours claimed that the Broker’s lair moved often. He could only be found when he wanted to be, apparently. His defences were on par to none, not even Monarch or the other big players. Yet, hadn’t it been easy enough, untied, to leave where she had been? But even knowing where it should have been, it was nigh impossible to find the lab again. Even when she knew, she knew, she was standing in the right spot. Perhaps the Broker had abilities of his own that he had not made public knowledge, aside from his uncanny ability to learn other people’s secrets.
Maybe if she could find some way to draw him out? She thrummed with the desperate need to do something. Her own abilities were hardly the sort that would let her take on the Monarch, not like Victor’s. He’d been…
That day, Delilah started spray-painting pictures of the Broker’s face wherever she could. Just to piss him off. A man like that, who so knew the value of secrets, surely would not want his face and #screwtheinformationbroker trending across the city. By that night, when she finally trudged home in the dim early hours of the morning, wired with exhaustion, he was waiting for her.
She froze.
“Very rude,” he said, standing at the counter of her tiny kitchen. “To try and expose me when I’ve kept all of your secrets.” He had his sleeves rolled up to the crooks of his elbows, and he was wearing her purr-fectly cute apron.
Her apartment smelled delicious.
He shot her that smile of his over his shoulder, though it didn’t reach his eyes, and raised his brows. “I trust you know where your own plates are? You can set the table. And don’t try anything,” he added. “I have information set to send on everyone you love if I don’t make it home.”
She swallowed. Her empty stomach clenched. She managed to force her feet forward, warily, depositing her jacket and taking the plates out. She laid them out on the small table simply for something to do with her hands.
She’d expected a reaction from him, but…
“You’re making brunch at two in the morning. In my house.”
“You haven’t eaten, have you?” It was not, really, a question.
“Been a bit busy.”
“Mm. Drawing me. You’re quite good at that, you know.”
“What the hell do you mean,” fury and impatience prickled inside her, as she yanked cutlery from a drawer and sincerely considered his jugular, “that you kept all my secrets? You most certainly did not. Victorious-“ She faltered, as his broken body flashed through her brain. She thought he might be sick. She turned away from him sharply.
Her home had never felt so cramped. So airless. She was aware of every inch of space between them, and how easy it would be for either of them to close the gap. In the kitchen, certainly, they couldn’t get out of arm’s reach.
“There are none of your enemies at your house, are there?”
“There’s you.”
He laughed, and moved a pan of sizzling eggs and tomato out of the kitchen and onto the table. “Shakshuka,” he said. “It’s good, if I say so myself. Sit.”
She considered not sitting, just to be contrary, just to spite him after everything he’d done. It wasn’t like her good behaviour might stop him from selling her out, after all, was it? And yet…
It was true, that he knew more about her than he did about any of the others, because she knew more about her own life than the lives of any of the others. It was also true that her apartment had not been demolished, and the only ambush awaiting her was him. And brunch, apparently.
She sat.
“Is that what you meant, by saving my life? Keeping my secrets? You expect me to be grateful?”
“How is that you can draw my face?” His head tilted, his hands steady as he served her up a plate. “Most people can’t remember what I look like.”
“I’m not under truth serum now, I don’t have to answer any of your questions.”
Was there truth serum in the eggs? That would explain why he’d cooked, if he planned on drugging her. Did he think her some kind of idiot? She watched as he helped himself and took a large bite. Maybe he had an immunity to truth serum.
“True enough,” he said. “But at the very least I was hoping for more of the adorable rambling.” He pointed his knife in her direction. “Olive oil, onion, red pepper, garlic, paprika, cumin, tomatoes, eggs, salt and I through in some chorizo for good measure.”
“What?”
“Your breakfast,” he said. “In case your policy on consuming unknown chemicals extends to other substances.”
She blinked at him, gobsmacked, and wondered if maybe it was a side effect of whatever he’d done to her that she was starting to hallucinate.
“Why are you here?” she demanded. She did, however, finally allow herself to take a bite. It might make him open up.
“You wanted to screw the information broker.” He blinked back at her, placidly. “That wasn’t an invitation for a date?”
She choked on her eggs.
He laughed again, his eyes gleaming with an again really quite disarming boyish mischief. “I’m kidding,” he said. “It’s fun to make you blush.” His head tilted the other way and in an instant his eyes were deadly cold once more as if they had never been otherwise. Mercurial. Unnerving. “But don’t pretend you didn’t want my attention, Delilah.”
Well, she had. She just hadn’t expected—that wasn’t the point.
“What will it take,” she said. “For you not to share any more of the information I gave you?”
If she could deal with the Broker, maybe her friends could deal with Monarch. No one else would have to get hurt. The information trail could end, assuming of course that he’d only told Monarch. But part the reason for the expense of information was surely its exclusivity, right? And he’d already been paid, she assumed, so it wasn’t like he had that immediate incentive.
“How is it that you can draw my face?”
“Is that your asking price? You seem to want to know quite badly.”
“You could tell me in return for me graciously not telling anyone all about you.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that,” she countered. “So you cannot demand payment in retrospect.”
“A favour, between friends.”
“You sold out my friends and got one of them killed. We’re not friends.” But, a damning sort of curiosity, did burn through her. “Why didn’t you tell anyone about me? Is you having a fun Saturday night seriously all it takes?”
“I take my own pleasures quite seriously.”
She squinted at him, trying to tell if he was – she didn’t know what. Bluffing? Making light?
He smiled again, and leaned forward across the table before. “It seems there are truths that we both want,” he said. “And I believe I have already proven myself more than capable of getting answers from you by force. I thought doing it over brunch might be more pleasant this time. Do you disagree?”
She exhaled a breath, catching the threat. It was hardly subtle after all. She leaned back in her chair, considering her options. There was no guarantee he would be honest. But without truth serum, she could tackle her own words better too, even if she was tired. It was more of a chance than she’d had on his last encounter. Possibly he wouldn’t be able to capture her again like he had the first time, so he was only banking on intimidating her, but…
Nobody knew anything about the Broker. If whatever weird interest he seemed to have in her caused her to get the advantage, how could she let that advantage go?
Delilah squared her shoulders.
“I’ll answer a question for every equal question you answer,” she said. “You first.”
He stayed silent for a beat, and for a moment she thought he wouldn’t take the bait. Then, he inclined his head.
And they started.