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A mild panic invaded my chest. I never let anyone know where I lived. “Don’t you drive a motorcycle? Where will we put this food?” I stalled.
“Yes, and I can strap it to the back of the bike with the bungee. I’ve also got a backpack and we can put it in there if you want.”
Shit, what other excuse could I come up with? I looked up into his ridiculous handsomeness and almost caved when he threw that charming-ass grin at me. Since he now knew my first name, I figured with his skills, he could easily find out not only my last, but where I lived. In fact, I was sure that was exactly what he was going to do once he got back to that warehouse they all lived in.
“Okay, I guess I’ll take you up on that.”
His lips twitched. “You sure? Took you long enough to decide. If you don’t want me to know where you live, I can just drop you in the general vicinity if you’re more comfortable with that.”
It was like this dude could read my mind. I was beginning to think we were almost too much alike. “Well, I’m sure you’re just gonna go on a search when you get back to your place anyway, so it’s fine, you can drop me off at my building.”
He chuckled and led me out the door. “Well, I wasn’t going to, but since you already assume I would, I think I will now.”
“Don’t bother, the last name’s O’Donnell. Then, you’ll soon see where I live, and all your curiosity will be gone, and you’ll have time for other things. Like figuring out how to access your favorite D.W. site without getting malware.”
“Hop on, smartass,” he said, taking the food from me. “Just sling one leg over.” He grabbed my hand to steady me, and I felt a tingle rush up my arm at his touch, like I had in the diner. After I was on, he put the boxes on the back and hopped on the front. The engine was so loud I wanted to cover my ears. I lifted the hood over my head.
“What’s the address?” he yelled over the noise.
I told him.
“Hold on tight to my waist,” he instructed.
Slowly, I put my hands around his waist and pressed my front against his back. We drove through the city in silence, and when we neared my apartment building, I pointed to it. He brought the bike to a stop and put his feet on the ground to steady it. After killing the engine and putting the kickstand down, he helped me off.
“Well, thanks for the ride,” I said, as he handed me the food boxes.
“First time on a motorcycle?” he asked with a grin.
“You forget I’m older than I look,” I deadpanned.
“Well… do you need me to carry those up for you? Or help deliver them?” he asked.
I bit back a smile at the cute way he was stalling. “Nah, I think I can manage.”
He stepped toward me and reached up one hand toward my cheek, like he wanted to touch me, maybe kiss me, but I turned my head and took a step back. “I… I’m sorry. Goodnight, Parker.” Turning away quickly, I rushed inside my building without looking back. I heard the motorcycle start up a few seconds later.
I set the food boxes in front of Kathy’s door, knocked, and then went down the hall to my studio apartment. Once inside, I closed and locked the door and then pressed my back against it.
Well, that was the most social interaction I’d had in… forever. Was he really going to touch me? Kiss me? I was so out of the game that I didn’t even know. All I knew was that I didn’t want to be touched on the face. He probably thought I just didn’t want him to touch me at all. That wasn’t the case. It had been so long since I’d met someone I was attracted to, who was also attracted to me, and I had no idea what I was doing. Sigh.
I threw my hoodie onto the sofa and went over to my workstation. I smiled at the photo of Parker in his underwear ad I was using for the background on one of my monitors and brought up the server I used to access the Dark Web. After punching in several commands, I went to the website I maintained for these alleged human traffickers and took a good look around. I still refused to believe that was what they were. Parker had to be wrong.
There were several boards and sub-boards with titles like, Makes You Feel Young Again and The Softer the Better. I clicked on one and my stomach roiled in disgust. Photos of kids, from toddlers to teens, in various stages of undress, were featured inside the boards.
“What the fuck?” I whispered, hating myself for clicking on a photo of a completely nude teenage boy. The text was captioned with his age, price, and a link to contact. The boy’s face wasn’t shown but he did have some bodily bruises. I gagged and almost vomited up the club soda.
“God, Devon, you’re such an idiot!” I chastised myself.
These people had approached me a few months ago for a “job.” The only difference between this one and the others I did was this was completely online and anonymous, and I knew nothing about them. They stated they had a buy-and-sell site that had items they couldn’t sell on traditional sites due to laws, and I figured it was probably drugs, alcohol, blood for vamps, stolen goods—even human organs crossed my mind. Problem was, it was too easy for me to take the job. I just had to infect the site with spyware, monitor it like once a day, and report back to them as to who had accessed the site. I never really took a look around it.
Shame on me.
“Fuck!” I said, standing up and swiping the keyboard off the desk where it clattered to the floor. I paced the living room floor with my thumbnail to my mouth. What was I going to do now? I couldn’t keep working for these sick animals. My stomach was already in knots. I felt like I’d assisted them in ruining children’s lives—hell, some of them might even be dead. I knew what happened to a lot of those kids. They were sold to abusive pedophiles and were sometimes even killed. Tears welled in my eyes.
I had to make this right.
I sat back down, picked up the keyboard, and put it back. First thing I did was find the Nighthawks’ computer in the list of visitors and put a protection on it that would prevent it from getting malware so Parker could continue to monitor them. I knew I had to report this to the BSI since it was run by vampires, and it killed me that I couldn’t shut it down yet. Once the authorities figured out who was running this site, I was going to try to bring this disgusting thing down with a crash, and then plant bugs all up in their shit.
