Good Elf Gone Wrong: A Holiday Romantic Comedy

The private plane was waiting for me when I arrived at the small regional airport that supported Maplewood Falls.

It was not a lie I’d told Gracie’s family. I did have to go to work.

I nodded to the pilot and flight crew then took a seat.

No, this wasn’t my plane. A kid from the Gulch didn’t grow up to be the type of man who owned his own plane. However, he could grow up to be the type of man who had clients who owned their own jets. I settled back in my seat, opened up my laptop, and typed in my password for the encrypted message program.

Did I feel bad about what had transpired at the O’Brien holiday party?

Not at all.

I had an in with the inner sanctum of Gracie’s family. Sure, Gracie might have been upset, but I had preyed on her insecurity about her sister. She wasn’t just going to walk away now that she had seen firsthand that her sister would have dragged me up to her bedroom and had her way with me if she could have.

I would have stayed to see it play out, but one of my teams had had a big break on another contract. Svensson PharmaTech, a major pharmaceutical company, had hired us to find evidence that one of their employees was selling top secret corporate information to foreign nationals.

A car was waiting for me when the plane landed.

It was a quick drive to the warehouse where my employees had been sorting through the literal tons of trash we’d recovered from the dump. Gracie’s family might sneer at a man who worked a labor job, but there was no better way of digging out someone’s secrets than if you had access to their trash.

After commandeering his household trash from the last eighteen months, Layla, a woman I’d served in the military with and then hired because she was organized and competent, had finally found what we were looking for. She waved me to a laptop, where a USB drive was plugged in.

“We ran a recovery program and found evidence of contact between the person of interest and a member of the Chinese government. We have a name, and we just ID’d the recipient. We also,” she said, leading me to another station, where several people were meticulously piecing together scraps of shredded documents, “found the remains of a receipt from a deposit made to an account at a local credit union. Forensic financial analysis has determined the account has been closed, but Skylar created a fake Tinder account, went on a long and boring date with a bank executive, and was able to access his system long enough to pull records of transactions in the account.”

“Thank you for your sacrifice,” I said to Skylar, Layla’s girlfriend, who had the body of a supermodel and the mind and constitution of a Cold War spy.

“I told her she owes me a ring for Christmas,” Skylar replied.

“Obviously, the client can’t give that information to the authorities. However, between the USB and the receipt, this is enough information for our client to get a warrant to have an official paper trail,” Layla said loudly.

“Why don’t you call the client with me, and let’s tell them the good news,” I told Layla.

The Svensson PharmaTech rep thanked us profusely when we showed them the evidence. After assuring them that the physical evidence would be delivered by hand that night by Layla personally, they wired over the money.

“Nicely done,” I said, shaking Layla’s hand when the money cleared our account.

“That’s a holiday wrap!” Skylar fist-bumped me.

“Do you need help on the EnerCheck Inc. contract?” Layla asked as she put on her coat.

“No.”

Layla raised an eyebrow. “That’s not a confident no.”

“You have your holiday plans,” I reminded her.

“I can cancel.”

“She cannot,” Skylar said loudly.

“It’s just one girl,” I told Layla.

“I think you mean grown woman who’s been leading you and C-Team around by the nose while eating copious amounts of cheese.” Layla smirked.

“It’s just because all my best people were focused on the Svensson PharmaTech contract.”

“Flattery doesn’t close accounts.” Layla put her hands on her hips.

“Go enjoy your ski trip. And if you see a certain banker there …”

“She’s not supposed to be working!”

“Please.” Layla snorted. “I know you and Demarcus have a bet to see if you or I get the banker’s passwords off him first.”

I shook my head. “Enjoy your Christmas.”

“Let me know if I need to swoop in and save the day,” she sang as she accepted the locked case from Demarcus.

I headed up to the rooftop to look out over the industrial park where I’d set up shop.

Most people thought of hacking as something you did in a fancy war room with lots of blinking lights and frantic typing. However, brute forcing your way into a system wasn’t how it was done. Hacking was all social engineering, a scavenger hunt, a monthslong process of carefully advancing your way past layers of security to reach the treasure trove.

Well it was months long in cases like the Svenssons’ PharmaTech contract. For the EnerCheck Inc. contract, I should have had what I needed weeks ago.

Dammit, Gracie.

Usually, I didn’t get directly involved in the project, but I needed to close this account. Gracie must have the information I needed on her laptop. Once she was used to me being around, I would wait until I saw her type in her password, memorize it, then while she slept one night, I’d log into her laptop and copy over her data. Done. Mission accomplished, just in time to be home by Christmas.

Not that I celebrated.

I felt the air move before I saw him.

“I am starting to think this job isn’t a priority for you.” Grayson Richmond stepped up beside me at the rusted railing on the roof deck.

“I told you we’re ramping up.”

“It’s December. I’ve had to listen to ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ five hundred times already, and I don’t go shopping, don’t listen to the radio, and don’t have a Christmas-obsessed girlfriend. It’s everywhere. You promised me in July that this was a slam dunk, that you could do it with your eyes closed.”

“This job has actually turned into one of my trickier ones,” I admitted. “EnerCheck is locked down.”

“It’s run by frat boys and some girl,” Grayson countered. “Are you even sure there’s anything there?”

“Family businesses always have exploitations and skeletons in the closet,” I assured him.

“I need this deal closed by—”

“December twenty-third, yes, I know,” I told him. “Have I ever failed you?”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

“I’m in with her now,” I told him. “Give me a week.”

“I’ve heard that one before.”

There was a pause.

Grayson stared out over the dark industrial park. It was down on its luck, like the Gulch of Maplewood Falls. It was just how I liked it. Fewer potential witnesses that way.

I had met Grayson over fifteen years ago and kept in touch. He’d been my first client back when he was building his empire by any means necessary.

I appreciated Grayson’s take-no-prisoners attitude, his single-minded dedication to success. That was how he had become a billionaire. I was cold-blooded, but Grayson was ruthless, though not without reason. If you did your job to his satisfaction, he was generous. Fail, and he’d end you.

I also appreciated how he wasn’t emotional about jobs he hired me to complete.

Give me a corporate espionage contract any day over someone trying to find evidence that their mistress was cheating on them. Yes, you read that right.

“You’re not falling for her, are you?” Grayson asked.

Are you fucking kidding me?

I didn’t fall in love period, especially not with someone like Gracie O’Brien. I pulled out an envelope from my jacket and waved it at him. “Just for that, I’m not giving you this.”

“What the hell is that?”

“I came across this on another job. Looks like the woman your brother is dating is a ticking time bomb. She’s got a track record of unsavory and self-serving behavior.” I handed him the envelope. “Maybe he does his due diligence and figures it out, maybe not, but best to cut these things off at the knees before it gets too far.”

Grayson was wary.

“Hey, I have little brothers too,” I told him softly.

He snorted and opened the envelope and pocketed the flash drive.

“I can never figure out your motives.”

“The best way to get rich is to do a good turn for an even richer man and take your cut,” I quipped.

“Uh-huh,” Grayson said.

The unspoken words between us:

He was going to fuck me up if I didn’t deliver.