Chapter 161 Shame.

Chapter 161: 161 Shame.

There was a dead, heavy pause on the line. Then a brittle, icy response. "How the hell did you get this number? You realise we cannot fraternize anymore."

Oh sometimes I missed when he was just Finn, but regardless, heroes and villains could not be friends, especially one of his calibre.

"From a very talented friend," I said. "Listen, you’re at the top of the food chain at the BSA, right? A founding member?"

"I am the avatar of the Moon," Khonsu intoned, his voice echoing slightly over the secure line. "What is this about, Miles."

"Great. Quick question: is the BSA currently looking to hire freelance villains for any big, corporate-sponsored menace jobs? Like, franchising my new team out for a week-long televised rumble?"

"We would never degrade our mandate by engaging in such hollow theater," Khonsu snapped, his ancient patience already fraying. "Heroes exist to battle true evil that threatens the world. Not to participate in a... a spectator sport. Are you attempting to propose some sort of absurd partnership right after refusing our offer of amnesty?"

"No. But your boy Cortex is."

There was a silence on the line. Much longer, much heavier than the first.

"This is a remarkably poor joke, Polaris."

"I agree. But it seems like you’re the only one not in on it. I’m currently standing in the lobby of Firefly headquarters, getting pitched this exact crossover event by Michael Carter himself. Seems like he has a whole multi-stage marketing plan drawn up for it. I was just calling to see if this was officially on the level."

"There has been absolutely no change in our operational policy," Khonsu said, his voice dropping to a dangerously quiet rumble.

I nodded along. I’d figured as much. It would be a cold day in hell before a fanatic like Khonsu stooped to hiring someone like me for ratings.

The S-class heroes didn’t care about fame or marketing; they were true believers of the classic sort. Which didn’t make Khonsu friendly to me, but it did make him predictably rigid.

And I had absolutely no intention of getting pulled into some internal, bureaucratic civil war within the world’s most powerful hero organization.

That kind of crap got old fast, and it was the absolute last thing my fledgling syndicate needed. Let the heroes have their boardroom brawls. Those things always just blew up in their faces anyway. Plus, the merchandising rights were usually a nightmare.

"That’s all I needed to hear. Take—"

The line went dead with a sharp, definitive click.

Hm. Rude. But considering I had just dropped a massive corporate espionage bomb in his lap, I couldn’t really blame him. With a shrug, I tucked my cracked phone away and pushed back into Lacey’s office.

As I approached the desk, Lacey smiled genially. "Well, Miles? Have we reached a consensus?"

I stopped in front of the heavy mahogany desk. "Lacey. Michael," I said, nodding at each of them in turn. "I’d like to thank you both for the incredibly lucrative offer you’ve put forward. But after careful consideration with my team, I’m afraid I’m going to have to pass."

Lacey leaned slowly back in her plush chair, scrutinizing me with a wry, calculating look on her lovely lips.

The movement also gave me an excellent, entirely deliberate view of her firm curves pressing against the plunging V of her slate-gray jacket.

"Well," she purred. "That is a deeply unfortunate thing to hear, Miles. We were very much looking forward to a collaborative project of this magnitude."

"Of course. And I’m deeply devastated that we were unable to properly synergize our operational bandwidths with your generous offer. But it just wasn’t meant to be," I replied, matching her stiff, weaponized office-speak word for word. "If you’d like, I know of several other independent villains who might be able to fulfill your current demographic needs, and I’d happily forward you their contact info."

Lacey slowly turned her head to Cortex, whose expression hadn’t so much as flickered. "Mister Carter? It appears our offer was not accepted."

His flat gray eyes slid mechanically from Lacey to me. "As you like," he said, rising from his chair in one perfectly fluid, robotic motion. He snapped his briefcase shut. "Should circumstances change, you have my secure number," he informed Lacey, extending a hand to give her a stiff, firm handshake.

He turned my way and did the exact same thing, pumping my arm exactly three times with rigid, terrifying uniformity. Then, without so much as a single backward glance or a change in his heart rate, he walked briskly out of the office.

As soon as the heavy doors clicked shut behind him, Lacey sighed, flopping back into her chair. "Well," she said, reaching up and grasping the lapels of her jacket. "I must say, I’m incredibly disappointed, Miles."

"Well—"

Before I could finish the syllable, Lacey smoothly unbuttoned and parted her top, revealing the sheer, wildly expensive black lace bra she wore beneath.

I thought by now that nothing Lacey Davenport did could genuinely surprise me. But I really should have known better. She weaponized sex appeal the way I weaponized iron.

"Guh?" I said, articulating my thoughts with the eloquence of a concussed brick.

"Oh, yes," Lacey said. She rose gracefully from behind her desk and began pacing around it. "Quite disappointing. Here you had a golden, highly subsidized opportunity, Miles, to make a massive debut as the head of your very own evil organization, going toe-to-toe with the biggest hero association on the planet, and you just say no? It really is quite a shame."

There was a deeply predatory look in her smile now as she strutted right up into my personal space. She was a great white shark that had just scented blood in the water.

"Was it?" I managed to say roughly, trying my absolute hardest to ignore the sudden spike of heat in my blood as Lacey shamelessly flaunted herself inches from my chest.

Lacey tilted her head, smirking up at me as she casually shrugged her jacket off her shoulders entirely, letting the expensive fabric pool unheeded on the immaculate floor.