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I

force a smile. “I love you for offering, but I think we both just need sleep right now,” I say.

Daya nods, and after wishing me goodnight, retires to her room.

I flop on the white duvet in her guest bedroom. Just like the rest of her house, it’s pretty bare in here. Light blue walls, decorated with a few oceanic pictures and white, gauzy curtains.

My eyes snag on those.

Not the curtains themselves, but what’s in between them.

For the second time tonight, my heart lodges into my throat, pulsating against my voice box and preventing me from making a sound.

Outside the window is the silhouette of a man. Staring directly at me.

I take a step back, ready to turn and call for Daya. When my phone buzzes, I flinch, freezing me in place and nearly choking me on the fear.

Keeping one eye on the man, I slide my phone out of my pocket and see a new text message.

UNKNOWN: You didn’t like my flowers?

Chapter 12

The Shadow

“T

here’s another video,” Jay says through the phone, his voice solemn. I scramble up from my couch and make my way into my office.

An array of computer screens line the ten-foot-long desk, and all my other illegal devices in here. Jammers, trackers, buttons that set off explosives in a number of places should someone betray me, and so on.

This room alone is worth millions with all the shit I have in here.

It’s both my happy place and my living nightmare.

This is where I make a difference in the world. Where I find women and children who need saving, while also witnessing the torture those sick individuals put them through.

It takes money to infiltrate high-security buildings, rescue the girls and give them sanctuary and safety off the grid.

Big corporations pay me an ungodly amount of money to hack into their rival’s systems for whatever bullshit reason, whether it be because they’re competing and want to know what the other is cooking up, or because they have a lawsuit against one another and trying to find information.

I don’t give a fuck what their problems are with each other. It’s only my concern that they get what they hired me for.

In the end, someone wealthy gets fucked over, my client makes a massive profit from it, and I collect interest on it. It’s dirty, but I’ve never been in the business of keeping my hands clean.

And it allows me to dedicate my life to ending human trafficking.

“Where?” I bark, my fingers already flying over the keyboard.

“Already encrypted and sent to your email.”

I roll my neck, cracking the muscles and gearing up for something that’s going to make the steak I just ate settle in my stomach like a wrecked ship in the ocean.

The video starts playing, and despite my instincts screaming at me not to, I turn up the volume so I can hear.

It’s a grainy video of a fucked up satanic ritual. The person recording is breathing heavily, more than likely from the risk of being caught doing something extremely dangerous.

Four robed men stand over a stone slab with a squirming little boy tied down to it.