Accidental Villainy 79 - End of Book 1

It was already afternoon. And I was lounging on Emily’s bed. She was next to me, sleeping soundly, exhausted with everything. Unfortunately, before I could join her, my phone buzzed. A message, from Daria.

‘We need to meet. Be in my apartment in an hour.’

‘How rude? What if I don’t have time?’ I wrote back. While acting like that against her was dangerous, it was better than changing my attitude after the last night.

‘You will be here!’ she wrote, no doubt trying to sound intimidating. Unfortunately for her, it was difficult to do so.

‘Not unless I get an advance payment,’ I wrote back.

‘What kind of payment? Weren’t you supposed to be rich?’ she replied.

‘I have a different kind of payment in mind. Why don’t you start it by sending a beautiful photo of your amazing tits, a little advance payment.’

‘You’re a bastard. How dare you. I won’t send you a nude,’ she answered.

‘Then, I won’t come to the meeting,’ I wrote back, unable to hide my smirk.

‘Right now?’ she said back.

‘I won’t even get dressed before you send the first picture,’ I said, deliberately pushing her. It was a good way to play to the character she was familiar with, while also showing the importance of the meeting. If it wasn’t important, she wouldn’t have accepted that quickly.

After a decent delay, my phone buzzed, showing a beautiful selfie from her. Interestingly, she was in the bathroom, with the door firmly closed. I could see her looking there hesitantly.

She wasn’t alone.

‘Beautiful enough to make me stand up, but keep them coming,’ I said. But, annoying her wasn’t the main objective of that message. No, the hesitance she displayed as she glanced toward the door revealed that she was not alone. More photos meant I could glean more, which would make me more prepared.

‘Maybe later,’ she wrote.

‘Why, do you have something more important?’ I asked.

‘Y-yeah, I need to take a shower, or I’ll be late,’ she answered, which was a terrible excuse.

‘No harm in multitasking, send one while taking a shower,’ I wrote back, imagining her shocked expression. She was truly terrible under pressure.

She didn’t send anything immediately, but I didn’t let it bother me even as I took a quick shower and prepared, wondering who was her other guests.

I didn’t fear an ambush even for a moment, which was one benefit of cooperating with someone who could smash me easily. She had no need to trap me to get rid of me.

However, once I stepped out of the shower, I was surprised to get a picture of her while she was in the shower. She must have used the same excuse for her other guest, which, considering her general personality, made me believe that I was about to meet with Rosa, her mysterious leader who I only knew from the messages I had read.

“Interesting,” I said even as I woke Emily up. “I need to leave, but before, I need your help,” I said before I gave her several instructions. Then, I dressed and left.

While talking, I received a few more pictures from Daria, each more daring than the last. Her face was beautiful. More importantly, despite her frustrated messages, there was no hiding her arousal. Not too shocking, as while the situation that led to it might be an accident — at least, from her perspective — but there was no doubt that she enjoyed the experience.

‘Happy?’ she wrote after another sexy photo.

‘For now. See you in forty-five minutes,’ I wrote back, already walking. Her apartment wasn’t too far away, but there was a reason I started to walk early.

I wanted to make sure that they couldn’t trace me back to Emily’s apartment by tracing back my steps through public security cameras. Luckily, with my power, finding a spot to change my disguise had been easy.

So, I walked, no matter how much I wanted to sleep more. My mind wandered toward my plan. With her allies arriving in the town, I had a feeling that things would speed up. I needed to put my plans into operation as well.

I wasn’t exactly happy with the need to infiltrate a building filled with heroes, but this last meeting changed things. I had a feeling that she would save that imprisoned heroine sooner than later, and I wanted to be prepared.

Refusing her was not advisable.

Perils with trying to collaborate with someone who could play tennis while using a truck as a ball.

At least I didn’t need to fear an ambush. If she wanted to capture me, she would, and there was nothing I could do to prevent.

As I walked the unnecessarily complex route I picked, I started thinking about the other steps of my plan, including the details of our latest achievements.

My false backstory was a part of it.

The preparations we made hadn’t been limited to making money and creating a potential infiltration identity. Last night, I also asked Emily’s help to create a digital presence. Nothing much, just a few scattered mentions of me as a mercenary, hoping that it would look like I was a small-time mercenary that used a second-rate hacker to remove my digital presence, but inevitably leaving clues.

We even created a secret website to get job requests. Not that I expected it to ever be actually useful.

The other part of my preparation was to create a shopping list, and even make several orders. At this point, I still didn’t have the plan to save her — other than revealing the exact location and letting Daria loose, which was workable but not ideal — but it felt a better idea to get a sense of all the gear I could purchase first before making the plan based on what I could buy, now that I had some legitimate funds that wasn’t entirely cash.

Of course, that didn’t begin to solve the problem. My funds had increased, but also they were split between hundreds of different companies and shell companies. Even the combination of our powers didn’t give me the ability to easily move those funds around without triggering all kinds of checks. And, since I didn’t have any security clearance, I couldn’t purchase anything dangerous in the first place.

But, that didn’t mean the money was useless. They were a great deal of stuff that could be purchased, from bulletproof windows to support materials that I could use in the basement into a real bunker.

“Now, the delivery,” I muttered even as I started checking the buildings for sale, before identifying a nice house that had been demolished by yet another fight. The fact that it was destroyed was critical for two reasons. It meant that it was cheap enough to buy without combining the accounts of multiple companies.

It also meant that the constant delivery of construction materials wouldn’t be suspicious.

Was that a lot of work, certainly. Unfortunately, I couldn’t alert the Syndicate by suddenly ordering a truck of material to my bar. It might force them to act.

The house was an ideal delivery location. It was far away from the warehouse, making it unlikely that the Syndicate would notice the purchase. Yet, it was close enough that Tara could dig another tunnel there and carry the necessary material.

“Now, the necessary equipment,” I muttered as I checked some of the civilian-grade construction material, the most expensive I could afford without triggering any kind of red flag. Luckily, one benefit of the constant battle of the supers, an emergency material delivery for construction material was hardly surprising.

I even asked Tara to start working on the tunnel, marking the completion of another stage.

Ordering a more offensive arsenal was more difficult. Ordinary guns and explosives weren’t too difficult, but I didn’t think about acquiring those. Unlike any other gang, I lacked the numbers and reliable hires to use it. Emily was not suited for combat, and Tara didn’t need any weapon in the first place.

But, with a potential raid toward the guild, I changed my mind. I might not need extra guns — though a decent sniper rifle might be useful — but some explosives might give me the edge I needed. Luckily, a quick check gave me a lot of options, particularly since I was more interested in creating a commotion than causing damage.

No need to turn into a mass murderer.

I had a safe house, a supply chain for secret deliveries, a new secret fund, and a rough list of weapons.

Now, I was ready for the meeting.