Page 29

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

FALIN

“Holy fuck!” Jasper’s shovel hits something solid and we both freeze. My shoulder muscles burn from digging, but adrenaline takes over as we drop to our knees.

I scramble back, climbing away from the hole before I vomit. There he is. Mischa’s boyfriend, body preserved by the cold earth. I try not to look at his blank face as Jasper quickly searches the pockets of his tattered jeans. When he raises his hand, holding a small flash drive, we let out shocked curses.

“She wasn’t lying,” I breathe, dropping to my knees.

“She wasn’t fucking lying.” Jasper steps away from the body, frozen, staring at the drive in his hand.

The emotion hits us both at once. Relief and surprise so sharp, I can hardly believe it.

One moment he’s staring at the drive, the next he’s pinning me down, his mouth on mine, kissing me with desperate intensity.

I end up on my back, my legs wrapped around his waist as he grinds into me. He sucks my tongue into his mouth as I rake my nails down his back. We’re wild and primal, too caught up in the moment to care about the cold or the dirt or the body we just unearthed.

“We fucking did it, baby,” Jasper murmurs against my throat. He sucks my neck before capturing my lips again.

I don’t care if we just fucked or that it’s the middle of the day. I reach for him with frenzied hands, ripping his pants down. We’re giddy and unhinged like two possessed souls.

“God, you’re so hot right now.” I squeeze his cock until he groans my name. “I need you.” Tightening my legs around him, I grab his ass, rough and hard, arching until his slippery cock notches my pussy.

I don’t stop for a condom. It’s reckless but I don’t care. This feeling is too raw. Too exhilarating. “I’m on birth control,” I manage, whimpering as his cock slides between my folds. “Fuck me, baby. Please.”

His answering thrust is exactly what I need. He groans my name, pumping into me, fucking me with a punishing pace against the cold ground. Frantic and uninhibited. “Fucking hell, Trouble.”

“Yes! Oh, God. Harder.” I lift my hips, meeting him thrust for thrust. My nails dig points into his skin.

“You’re so perfect.” Our slapping skin and cries mix with the sound of distant traffic from the road below. Knowing we’re out here in the open like this has me dripping. I devour his mouth, showing him my desperation and need.

He moves faster as pressure builds inside me. “I’m coming. Don’t stop.”

We tense and shudder, our bodies trembling into the frozen ground as he pulses inside me. Waves and waves of pleasure roll through me so good I cling to him, never wanting to let go.

My breathing slowly evens out as he shifts to the side, almost tumbling back into the hole. “Shit, I almost forgot about the poor bastard,” he says.

I sit up and adjust my skirt, already feeling his warm fluid leaking down my thighs. I blink, like I’ve just been shaken awake from an insane dream. “We should cover him up.”

Jasper zips his pants and sighs. “You’re probably right.”

* * *

I can hardly believe it. Mischa was right. A flash drive in the pocket of that unfortunate soul’s jeans. I’m dirty, freezing, and aching but I can’t stop smiling. This could be the break we need to find Bailey. If I’m this pumped, I can only imagine how Jasper feels.

The whole way back to the apartment, his warm palm rests on my thigh, his thumb tracing circles on my bare skin. I knew I was playing a dangerous game, tormenting him like I did. But I got what I so desperately wanted. And God, it was hotter than I could have imagined.

I glance at him, remembering the way he fucked me in the dirt, desperate and hungry. My thighs press together in a futile attempt to ease the lingering ache.

More than the physical connection—something deeper—shifted between us out there on the hill. I know we’re both scared shitless of whatever this is becoming, but if there’s anyone worth facing those fears for, it’s him.

We open the apartment door to the sound of banging and the smell of solder. Finally, they must be fixing the broken pipe. The timing couldn’t be better. We’re both filthy, in more ways than one. Everyone rushes us as soon as we step inside, the kittens included, hugging us and asking rapid-fire questions.

“Give us a second to breathe,” Jasper says with a laugh.

“Lee, grab your computer,” I say as soon as I can get a word in. “Damon, call Ray and give him these coordinates.” I text Damon the exact location where we found the body. “We covered him back up, loosely. Hopefully Ray will know what to do.”

“You’re filthy,” Blake says, stepping back to take me in. She eyes me suspiciously. “And your hair is all over the place.”

Yeah, she knows. I have a freshly fucked expression… always have. My best friend has been witness to it more times than I’d like to admit. And the way Jasper fucked me twice—there’s no hiding the evidence on my face.

“We didn’t have a spa day, Blakey. We dug up a body.” I realize the plumbers are probably listening and lower my voice. “How did you expect me to look?”

“Got it,” Leon interrupts at the perfect time. He opens his laptop on the kitchen counter and we all crowd around it. “Give it a few minutes to load.”

My body vibrates with anticipation. I remember feeling this way every time I’d search for my birth parents. Excitement for the possibilities, dread knowing my search would probably amount to nothing.

I used to imagine their photos appearing on my screen. Happy, normal looking people whose smiles would mirror my own when they realized I’d found them. Their address would be right there, leading to some picture perfect suburban street with white picket fences and kids playing hopscotch. The childhood I dreamed of, just waiting for me to claim it.

I squeeze Jasper’s hand, while Leon clicks open a file. Blake speaks first. “Oh my God. There’s so many.”

My eyes scan the document. It’s like an inventory listing. “This reminds me of what we had to fill out stocking shelves at the craft store I worked at in high school,” I say.

“Except these are real people with real lives that were stolen from them,” Leon says, his voice dripping with anger.

The numbered spreadsheet has me sick to my stomach—columns for names, most of which are blank, then age, price, and some kind of coded word at the end. Bile rises in my throat.

“How are we going to know which one of these is Bailey?” Jasper asks, his enthusiasm fading.

“I don’t know,” Leon answers, sounding despondent.

“Can I take a look at it?” I gently squeeze Leon’s shoulder, trying to convey that I know how he feels. He nods and moves over.

“I’ll make a pot of coffee,” Damon says. He must know hovering won’t get the job done any faster. They all give me some space, except Jasper, who pulls up a chair next to me.

“If there’s something on here, I’ll find it,” I tell him. His answering look cracks my heart in two. It’s full of hope and trust—in me. We didn’t dig up a dead guy in the freezing cold just to come back empty-handed.

I write up some quick code to help me sort the list by age. That’ll narrow it down quickly. While it’s doing its thing, I search the drive for other useful information.

The first file I open is empty. The next has another coded list. And this one—I tap the screen. “This has header info that matches what we found in Brennan’s container manifest.”

“Can you cross-reference them?” Leon asks, leaning over my shoulder.

I nod, already writing a script to compare the two files. “Give me a sec.”

The apartment fills with the gentle clicking of keys and soft purring as Havoc settles into Jasper’s lap. He pets her blankly, his eyes never leaving the screen.

“This file here,” I say, frowning at a particularly stubborn bit of code. “It’s encrypted differently than the others. Triple layer at least, maybe more.”

Leon leans in closer. “Let me see.” He scans the mess on the screen. “That’s not your standard encryption. Look at the pattern in the header.”

I squint, following his finger. “RSA with… Wait, is that?—”

“A custom key,” we say together.

Jasper shifts forward in his seat. “What does that mean?”

“It means whoever the fuckwad was that encrypted this really didn’t want anyone getting in,” I tell him, already pulling up my decryption tools. “But they probably didn’t expect someone like me to find their shit.”

My fingers fly across the keyboard as I work through the layers. First the outer shell. Basic stuff, almost too easy. The second layer puts up more of a fight, but I’ve seen worse. It’s the final layer that has me cursing under my breath.

“Need help?” Leon offers.

I shake my head, completely in the zone now. “I’ve got it. Just need to…” I trail off, focusing entirely on the pattern emerging in the code. There’s always a weakness, always a way in. I just have to think like the person who locked it up.

“There!” I say as the final piece clicks into place. The encrypted text transforms into clear files before our eyes.

The first thing we see are photos. Dozens of them. Young women and girls, a few boys too. Some obviously drugged, others looking terrified. Each labeled with only a number.

“Oh, God,” Blake whispers from behind me.

I feel Jasper go completely still. His hand reaches for mine, squeezing tight enough to hurt. Because there, labeled simply as #521, is a photo of a young woman with his same ocean blue eyes.

“Bailey,” he breathes.