My brow raised. “Such as?”
Frank spun himself to the side of the L-shaped desk and wiggled the mouse to wake up the two screens connected to his desktop. I tried to contain my impatience with a rhythmic tapping of my fingers on the opposite biceps, arms crossed across my chest as I waited for him to navigate to whatever he wanted to show me. After what felt like an eternity, he finally angled one of the screens for me to look at.
“You’re supposed to be good with computers, right?”
As are you,I thought bitterly. “I was hired by Andrea for my hacking skills, yes. Not really suited for IT work, if that’s what you need.” Like hell was I connecting this idiot’s printer to his computer.
“Perfect, that’s what I need!”
Frank had navigated to a rather unassuming webpage among a chaotic bookmark bar running across the top of his homepage. Overall, the site had a simple layout, with red boxes that held the navigation links across the top and an unassuming login box against a black background. The title ‘Prey to Play’ was scrawled across the top in a font I’d imagine a deranged serial killer would use to carve words on his victims. Frank was muttering to himself as he pulled a small notebook from his right top drawer and flipped through it for a minute, running his finger down the page before transferring what he found into the username and password fields.
“Ah, here it is.”
“Do you have your login information in a notebook?” I asked incredulously. “In a drawer? Whereanyonecan get it?”
This man was supposed to be the CEO of the leading technology company for data storage in the whole country... and he was leaving his shit completely unsecured like this? I had to physically bite my tongue to avoid berating this dumbass. I made a mental note to keep all communication with him encrypted and vague. Who knew what kind of information Frank may have already leaked? Countless hackers could have already created backdoors into his computer and siphoned information from him.
“So, what’s special about this site?” I prompted. The page was taking a while to load.
He didn’t turn to answer me, but even in his profile I could see an unsettling smile pull his wrinkled cheek. The light from the screen reflecting in his pupils was bright enough to see themdilating. Was he… excited? Aroused? What the hell was he about to show me?
“You’ll see.”
Those two croaked words made my skin crawl.
When it finally loaded, the screen closest to me populated with the site’s content. The black background remained, but now there were rows upon rows of pictures on the red overlay. Pictures I should have expected from an old, lonely, single man like Frank DeNiro.
“Really?” I asked, derision heavy in my tone. “You’re showing me aporn site?”
Women—and some men—in provocative poses seemed to go on and on as he scrolled down the page. They seemed to cater to every taste, dressed in all manners of lingerie and themed outfits resembling animals and popular anime characters. I hesitated to think they were cosplays with how little clothes some of them wore. But every single person shared one thing. They all wore masks covering their entire face. Every one was unique, some intricately designed while others looked to be little more than a Halloween mask, and Frank stopped on one in particular.
Her profile picture gave little away about her appearance. She wore one of those black Halloween masks that had recently become popular among dark romance lovers on social media—the one with the stitched mouth and X-shaped eyes—detailed with neon pink lighting, along with a lacy pink bra that did little to support her large breasts from spilling out. A black mesh top covering only her arms and her decolletage, vaguely reminding me of some kind of alternative fashion, giving her an edgy look. She stood out among the sea of cam workers on the page Frank had pulled up; something like confidence exuded from her as she sat on the edge of her bed, legs set wide apart as she leaned on both hands planted between them on the mattress.
This one, with the username 'Vixen', was built with curves and luscious, creamy skin. Pink hair slouched in a messy bun piled high on the top of her head with artful strands pulled to frame the mask, making it hard to tell what her natural hair color was. From her hunched position, there was a slight roll along her midriff that I’m sure some girls on this site would gag over, but she did nothing to hide it. Vixen looked like she embraced her assets, pressing the insides of her biceps to either side of her ample breasts to emphasize them.
Frank seemed to know his way around the site, clicking into her profile and scrolling down to the photo gallery. Stats like the total views, streams, and followers were listed in the millions below the main picture. She was a busy girl, for sure. I couldn’t even comprehend how much she was making off this gig.
“This one,” Frank hovered over her profile with the cursor. “I think she could be a good product at the next auction. I want you to track her down, however it is you do it. From some of the things she’s mentioned on her previous livestreams, I think she lives somewhere in Vegas.” He waved his wrinkled hand around like it was magic and not technology I dealt with. “I want a piece of that ass first, though. She looks like she could take a pounding.”
I wanted to roll my eyes and tell him he’d probably break a hip in his advanced age, handling a girl like that. Instead, I adjusted the square, black-rimmed glasses higher up my nose and cleared my throat. “Understood. I will wait for Andrea to verify that my usual rate is transferred into my account before proceeding.”
Code for: fucking pay up before you get what you want.
Frank leaned back far enough in his bulky desk chair to make it creak. “Consider it done. I’ll send her page link over to you later tonight. I expect to have her in the holding pit by the end of the month.”
I had little interest in finding out exactly what the ‘holding pit’ was. But my stomach churned all the same, thinking someone like him had one.
It was difficult to hide the sour distaste I had for this lecherous prick. Whenever Andrea called me back to Chicago, it wouldn’t be soon enough. Why he saw any value in ties to Frank DeNiro was beyond my comprehension. He must have some considerable assets here in Vegas that Andrea was interested in for him to be sending me out on loan like this, even with the cover story that I’m here to work for him temporarily. However, I had a hard time imaginingthiswas what he wanted my services put to good use for. Everyone in the United States trafficking rings knew Las Vegas was off limits. There was too much of a risk of the Red Riot mob coming down on a dealer’s head for even poaching in the state of Nevada.
And everyone who forgot ended up with drained bank accounts and a bullet between the eyes.
Almost all of the Red Riot’s profits came from enforcing their extremely high standards when it came to protecting sex workers—both shifter and human—and the extermination of black market traders for trying to traffic people unwillingly. I sure as hell wasn’t going to stick my neck out for this pervert without Andrea’s blessing, so Frank was going to have to go through him first before getting access to my services for this. I was only under his ‘employment’ on paper. And if he had selective memory over that, I’d be happy to fuck up the routing on his offshore bank accounts as a reminder of who I really worked for.
“Isn’t it part of your fucking job to help me find new inventory?”
“No,” I replied evenly. “My job is to connect with the Red Riot boss and keep you from getting killed while you try to fly undertheir radar. Which, might I add, would be much easier if you used a VPN when visiting sites like this.”
I knew for a fact he didn’t. How this idiot managed to survive as long as he did on the dark web was a miracle. Even his home security system was child’s play to get into. He was more of a throwback to an era when having armed guards at the gate was enough protection for criminals. My only saving grace was that he contracted me out, so I had a legitimate cover if questioned. I made a mental note to scrub his location from the site as soon as I made it safely to wherever Andrea had secured for my temporary base of operations. Even if this woman wasn’t the hacker, there was no telling what kind of data sites like this could scrape from someone’s computer. Especially from dipshits like Frank.
