[MAX]
"Since you had to ditch your phone, Reznor's been screening any and all efforts made to contact you," I explained to Phoenix as Danny returned from the hotel lobby. Dylan had showered, and I could hear the water turn off after Danny shut the door after himself.
"The hostess tried to get me to sign her notepad," Danny said.
Phoenix chuckled, but otherwise he went ignored.
"Now, given more than half of them are listed as UNKNOWN, he had to go pull on some technological strings, as it were, to determine ownership," I continued.
"Do I actually look like some kind of American celebrity? I'm not even dressed up anymore!" Danny collapsed onto the couch beside Phoenix.
I shot him an irritable glare before my focus returned to Phoenix. "He sent me the list of your most determined wanna-be friends," I told her.
"So the ones who texted her the most," Danny clarified as he watched me.
"Obviously, handsome," I said, suppressing an eye roll. "Anyway. The list. The names that stood out to Reznor the most were: Wallace Lister," Phoenix gave a rueful grimace, "Patel Mikaelson, Lord Sebastian Berkshire," I paused to roll my eyes, "Ueda Kaori, Hadron Jonz ... and Wang Hong."
"Mikaelson reached out to her?" Dylan's question was the only thing that alerted me to his abrupt appearance beside me. He was dressed again and in the process of toweling off his hair.
"Yes, one of your arch-enemies reached out to her." I gave him an admonishing look.
Dylan scoffed, but otherwise seemed to understand that now wasn't the time to get into that conversation.
"I actually recognize a few of those names," Danny volunteered. He evidently didn't want to be left out.
"Congratulations, Danny, you're a participant in the intelligence world, look at you go," I said dryly.
Danny smiled sheepishly but seemed to get the message.
It was in that moment that Phoenix saw fit to turn the conversation back to her. "Lister is a dunce," she said, her voice flat.
"A very rich, very powerful dunce," Danny said. He gave her a sideways look.
She returned the look in full. "Still a dunce."
"Knowledge isn't always as valuable without discretion," Dylan pointed out.
Danny shrugged before he looked back to me skeptically. "Why is it that we need to know who else wants what Nix knows? Also, why did you say Wang Hong like that, at the end?"
"Fascinatingly enough, the answers to your questions are related," I said, with a wry smile. "I'm inclined to believe that there is someone out there who poses a legitimate threat to Jin and her throne."
"And that helps us ... how?" Phoenix asked. She gave me a look that I would've coined as equal to skepticism were it not for the genuine curiosity that shone in her eyes.
"I have no desire to engage in a full-on war with the Triad," I said frankly.
"Isn't that a relief," Danny muttered at the same time that Dylan exhaled "Thank goodness."
I ignored both of them. "The best way to avoid said war is to prove to Jin Tè that you are not a threat," I said with a nod at Phoenix. "She's entirely unlikely to believe you just telling her as much, even with others backing you up. In her mind, you're not trustworthy; you're that unknown factor in the math equations that everyone's trying to solve. And, like the math equations, the best way to solve the problem is to just get rid of you."
"It disturbs me that you managed to come up with that metaphor, given how much you hate math," Phoenix mused.
"Unbeknownst to Jin, however," I continued, "there is a real danger present. Someone wants to overthrow her, claim her throne, yada yada yada," I waved a hand passively. "You get my point. If I had to give a guess, I'd say that the person who actually wants to take her out was in cahoots with your now dead contact."
"So you think they would reach out to me, since our mutual contact is dead," Phoenix finished.
"I think they already have," I corrected.
Dylan nodded. "Wang Hong."
"Exactly," I said. "Though the other names Reznor gave me are of relatively powerful players in the criminal world, Wang Hong is a little too close to home to be a coincidence. He's a member of the Triad, and he's actually in a relatively high position of authority. He also has called you," I looked back down at my phone, "six times."
Danny gave a low whistle as his golden eyes widened. "That's not very inconspicuous for a criminal mastermind."
"He's desperate," I said. "And no one said he was a good mastermind. Though Reznor did say the calls were spaced out across several hours, and at least three of them were made from different devices. You probably wouldn't have known all the calls were him if you actually had your phone."
Phoenix was silent. Her gaze was on her hands once more, though this time she was as still as a statue. Even from my vantage point before her, I could tell that she had zoned out on her lap, already deep in thought. Her teeth worried at her bottom lip. Eventually her head lifted and she made eye contact with me once more, her resolve now firm. "You have a plan."
It wasn't a question.
I grinned.
