was a win." Jason looked down at Crysis and ruffled the dog's ears. "But Dez came back. A few months before Deviant's first game, Silk, was released, a woman who played under the name Eden was raped at a college party. The cocktail of drugs used to spike her drink was an exact match to what Dez was given at the club in Vegas when Silk was revealed. They told her she'd regret it if she got back into games, and then they tried to make that threat good. Dez was seen overdosing in front of the world; Deviant Games took a big hit and had to claw their way back to prominence. Dez saw who drugged her, though. The narcotics made it hard for her to remember, but over time, she has. It was Arturo, and she's willing to testify to that, but it won't hold up in court."
"Damn it," Alex grumbled.
Jason waved that off. "We can get him from the other side. The drugs, Eden's assault, and so on. The thing is, Arturo was put in a position to be caught. We missed it. Either Soul Reaper set him up to fall - which I actually doubt - or Arturo isn't as smart as the man we're really chasing. He wanted to hurt Dez and he didn't think about covering his tracks. He was more interested in her seeing his face. He spoke to her when she was seizing. He wanted to be the last thing she ever saw, but he didn't anticipate that Destiny Pierce had one hell of a tolerance for opiates because of her addiction. She survived."
"Can you prove that?" Bradley asked.
"Sadly, no," Jason said. "I can prove he did it. I can prove he was there. I have an old recording of Samantha going off on him outside the club. Found it on YouTube. Sadly, I can't prove what he wanted, though. But all of this brings me to my point. Arturo Ganza is deep into KoG, but he is not Soul Reaper. The guy we're chasing? He set Arturo up. He let enough things slip so that we were pointed right where Soul Reaper wanted us to look: Arturo. See, right now, the Kings of Gaming is splintering, and one of the top guys, Ch40Sacid, is leading the opposition. They want more violence. Soul Reaper seems to think that he's 'saving the world' from women in technology. Ch40Sacid just wants to hurt them, and he doesn't even care why."
"Two very different ideologies," Alex said, nodding to show she was keeping up. "But what does this mean for our case? Jason, you're the expert here. I want your honest opinion of how we should move forward."
"See if we can flip Arturo," Jason told her. "Even if we're lenient, I can tie that man to enough that he'll never get out of jail. Make him a deal for a comfy cell and a whole lot of protection. The problem is that he may not have anything to offer. Soul Reaper's good. The man covers his tracks and he's not an idiot. That's why this has been so hard. So, if Arturo won't flip for us - or can't - we prosecute him as one of many people operating under the name Soul Reaper. We tie him to the crimes we can place him at, and we leave all the rest for the real bad guy. Trust me, there's enough to go around."
"Multiple people using the same name," Alex breathed. "Think we can get a jury to understand that?"
"I think most people share their Netflix login with a friend," Jason told her, "so yeah. Pretty easy stuff. Plus, if I can make my fianc茅e into a good enough gamer to get a kill streak, I can break this down for anyone."
"And this is the woman you want to marry?" Agent Dalton asked, clearly teasing him.
Jason nodded. "Means I always get to win, right?" With a chuckle, he waved that off. "The problem is going to be catching the real guy. He just made a threat against the biggest convention of the year: F5. I'm already planning to be there - "
"To get married!" Alex reminded him.
"Ma'am, right now, Soul Reaper doesn't know I exist. His threat? It was to one of my CIs. Knock is a sponsored gamer, and Jericho is his girlfriend. I'd like to have her watched for that weekend, because she and a few others will