“Joey, there’s been something wrong with you since you were fourteen. After what happened to you and that poor girl? Of course there’s something wrong with you. They broke you, son. They broke your bones and they broke your heart and they broke your head.”

“Why are you doing this?” the man demanded, though he still did not turn around.

“Because I love you, Joey. Always have, always will. And I’m scared for you. You’re not right, and I think you know that.”

“Leave me alone,” begged the man. “Please.”

The big white shepherd woke up and raised his head. He looked over the back of the bench, and for a moment, his bushy tail wagged back and forth.

Then the man felt a breath on his ear as if the person behind him had leaned close. He squeezed his eyes shut. The breath was cold and damp and smelled of rotting things.

“The darkness never forgives,” said the voice, “and it never forgets. It has almost all of you now, and if you’re not careful, son, it’s going to swallow you whole.”

The man got to his feet and turned.

“Dad, please…”

But there was no one standing behind him.

The trees in the park were crowded with night birds, though. Thousands of them like a cloud of shadows. Watching with their bottomless black eyes.

The man sank slowly down onto the bench and put his face in his hands.

CHAPTER 44

PHOENIX HOUSE

OMFORI ISLAND, GREECE

Bug was not naturally a vindictive person. It took some effort for him to be mean. But he could get into gear when he tried.

When Mr. Church suggested that he go after the hackers working for Kuga and to “make it hurt,” that came with a great deal of license and a tremendous reach. And MindReader Q1 gave that reach a lot of punch.

He locked his office, turned on some late-1990s dubstep, dragged his cooler of Red Bull to within easy grabbing range, tore open a one-pound bag of Twizzlers, and set to work.

The first thing he did was dive into some bookmarks he’d created especially for darknet market sites that were supposed to be access-only by special encrypted invitation. Over the years, Bug had created scores of online personalities, including one as the highly respected and highly feared hacker Coal Tiger, named for Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s original—and unfortunate—name for the comic book character who later became the Black Panther.