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All of the blood drained from my face, and my stomach dropped. Of course, she went there. She knew me possibly better than I did. It was so frustrating how your best friends could see through all of your defenses.

“I’m not avoiding them.” I swallowed hard. I was a terrible liar, and I couldn’t understand why admitting my weakness to my friends was so difficult.

I had no words to explain myself because I didn’t know what to say.

“She’s afraid,” Kaz said softly.

“I am not,” I snapped back. It was an immediate response, and we all knew I was lying.

“Yes, you are.” He leaned in closer. “It’s okay to be afraid.”

“I’m not.” The lie tasted like bitter, bad coffee, but telling the truth would have been worse.

“Prove it.” Kaz slowly rolled up his sleeves as if preparing for a physical fight rather than the verbal one he was already instigating.

I adjusted my bracelet and pressed my lips together. “Fine. I’ll start with the Man in Black then. I will prove to you that I’m not avoiding him.”

I reopened my laptop and clicked back into the cloned server. The plan was to show them something to get them off my back, but as I clicked through the files, I realized I had no idea where to begin looking for him.

Yes, I’d seen his face, unlike Blackwood, but I knew absolutely nothing about him.

Most of the men I found through research. Security cameras, financials, cyberstalking. But I never sat down and said, I’m going to find X. I always found them through another means.

This is stupid.

I opened my mouth to admit defeat and tell my friends they were right, but before I could speak, something in the files caught my attention.

They were moving around again… in real time.

Someone had created a folder titled “Little Rabbit.”

My hand stilled over the mouse.

I clicked into it. Only one document sat inside, titled Hello, Little Rabbit.

I inhaled sharply, and it caught in my lungs as I opened the live document. Like a Google Doc, this one could be updated in real time and seen on both sides. It was empty except for a blinking cursor.

I hovered over it. The user’s name was Damon. I’d never met a man named Damon—at least not one I remembered—but hundreds of men had visited me during my Order days, and I knew close to forty percent of them.

Picking at my lower lip, I waited for him to do something else. Then he began typing.

Damon:

Hello, My Little Rabbit. Perhaps you were once his rabbit, but now you’re mine. Do you remember me? Oh, how I hope you do.

His cursor paused and flashed as if he were thinking about what to type next or pausing for dramatic effect.

Damon:

Do you, Xeniya?

My skin prickled, and my pulse kicked hard. My fingers stilled over the keyboard. He knew my name. Not Keira. Not the Ghost. But Xeniya. How much more about me did he know? And who had he told?

But I rolled my shoulders back and began to type a reply:

Me:

No. How would I remember you?