Page 29 of Dirty Little Secrets

I stare at the screen long after the office has gone quiet. The cursor blinks, like it’s mocking me. Like it knows what I’m about to do. I slip the jump drive into the port, my fingers moving on instinct, muscle memory overriding guilt.

This is it.

I don’t do it because I want to. I do it because it’s the only way I get out of this alive.

Out of Brent’s grip even if it means betraying Xaiden for all the wrong reasons. But I need out of this suffocating half-life.

I tell myself I’m not doing it because Xaiden doesn’t care. That he never cared. That I was just a pair of thighs and a tight skirt he happened to enjoy looking at during work hours. I was entertainment until I wasn’t. Even as Red, it meant nothing. I was quickly replaced.

He pulled a woman looking like a model into his office and closed the door as proof.

It stung but I didn’t expect any less.

I click through the files like I’ve done a dozen times before, looking for the folder Brent wants.

The one with the source code. To me, it’s just a lifeline in disguise.Lines of encrypted characters fill the screen.

Protected, firewalled, locked down with layers of coding only a madman could have built.

Brilliant, brutal, and completely unreachable. Even when I’m pressed against a mattress, his cum dripping down my chin in a locked club room, he doesn’t see me .

Just a body. Mask to use for his perfect illusion to chase so he didn’t have to see the real girl—raw, wrecked, desperate to erase the memories that haunt her.

I ring my fingers for a moment like I used to when I was little. Like I can somehow make myself feel better for what I’m about to do.

I sniff, swiping under my eyes before anything falls. Thinking of what Kristina might think of me if she ever found out. What Xaiden would do. But there is no time for weakness.

The faster I do this, the faster I disappear.

I give Brent what he wants. The file, the program, the manifest logs, and I’m free. No more threats. No more midnight meetings in dirty alleys. No more Tammy begging me to get her out because I could help them. Girls who have no help.

I can vanish.

Start over.

Be someone new.

Someone Brent can’t hurt. Someone a man can’t ignore and discard.

A sharp beep from the computer tells I’ve cracked another layer. My heart stutters. I’m getting closer.

I rub my wrist, remembering the last time Brent grabbed me hard enough to leave bruises. I remember how he laughed afterward, like it was funny. Like hurting me was some kind of punchline.

Xaiden might not want me.

But Brent wants to own me.

And I can’t survive either of them.

So I do what I’ve always done.

I lie.

I survive.

And I pull the last set of files to the jump drive with a silent promise to myself: this is the last time. I will not be their puppet anymore. Not Xaiden’s. Not Brent’s. Not any anyone’s, even if it kills me.