“I didn’t know how else to get you here,” she offered as if we were still talking about the photo and the text, while my brain had moved on to what she wanted me for and why we were alone in this murder cabin, because that was what this place felt like: sparse, remote… no one would hear me scream out here.
I pushed my fingers through my hair and tried not to think about that in too much detail. “Asked… like a normal person,” I bit back.
“Ro.” My name was soft on her lips, and it went straight to my cock, but I hated that I didn’t know if it was genuine or if she was playing me. Anger tasted like poison on my tongue as the enormity of all this settled and my bravado grew.
“Either tell me what’s going on, or I walk out of here and leave you to whatever fucked up situation this is.”
She didn’t speak for a while, so I made good on my promise and started to move to the door with purpose, but she had no intention of letting me leave, and the loud click of the gun’s safety being removed made that clear.
“Sit,” she commanded with a tone I’d never heard from her before.
I turned, jolting when I found her closer than expected, the gun pointed at my face. I recoiled, trying to put some space between us, but Hana wasn’t having any of it, sticking next to me as my feet continued carrying me backwards towards the door.
My earlier belief that she wouldn’t hurt me was long gone. “You wouldn’t shoot me…” Even I could hear the fear in my voice, which worsened because she didn’t reply; she simply raised her eyebrow in a silent challenge, one I wasn’t willing to argue with. Instead, I stepped to the side, placing my bag onthe tired-looking oval table and pulling out a chair, all without breaking eye contact with Hana.
“There, that wasn’t hard, was it?” she said as I sat. The brat I was used to was back, but now the dynamic in our relationship had totally shifted, and I didn’t like it one bit.
I rolled my lips between my teeth, not sure how to respond, but I didn’t have to wait too long before she put the gun back in her waistband and took a phone off the side, placing it down in front of me.
“You’re into surveillance, right?”
I acted dumb, leaving her question hanging in the air, but Hana obviously had no patience for games today, as she quickly added, “Let me rephrase that. I know you’re into surveillance. I broke into your office that night I ran while you were sleeping. I saw the screens. No one needs a setup like that unless they’re into something hardcore.”
I held my breath, not sure if I’d left the cameras for her place running that night since she was with me, but when she didn’t tell me she’d seen her home and business on those large screens, I guessed I hadn’t. Then it hit me. “Youbrokeinto my office.”
She didn’t look fazed by her admission, while I was shocked to the core.
“It’s a party trick,” she replied calmly.
“Like wielding a gun?”
Her pointed glare gave the impression that she was disappointed in how little faith I had in her, as if the lock picking and the gun were only the tip of the iceberg, and dread settled in my gut like water freezing.
“There’s a message on there. I need you to find where it came from.”
I pointed to the phone, and she nodded her permission. It didn’t have a password on it, so a swipe of my thumb and it opened. I clicked through to the messages, and seconds later,bile burnt the back of my throat, and tears threatened to spill over. I swallowed a couple of deep breaths, trying to shake off the image of Tony I was currently staring at. I’d not seen him since the day he was arrested, so the graphic image of him lying in a pool of his own blood, looking like he died in agony, was not what I was expecting when she handed me the phone. I read the message that followed it.
“You don’t know who sent you this?” I asked, hoping Hana couldn’t hear the pain in my voice.
“No, but I know the person in the picture. That’s my brother, Tony. I guess someone took that from inside the prison he was in. The person who killed him.”
I saw her shaking her head in my peripheral vision as I kept my eyes glued in front of me, pretending I was looking at the image when I was doing anything but. To keep myself from losing my shit, I pulled my laptop from my bag and opened it, connecting to our secure server. A message popped up instantly from Wren.
W: Working late?
Me: Something like that. You still working?
W: Aren’t we always?!?
Me: Can you find me the owner of a number?
W: Silly question. Send it over, and we’ll work our magic. Who’s it for?
Me: A friend.
I typed in the number the messages had come from and clicked send.
“There you go. Just a matter of waiting now. Won’t take long.”
