Chapter 25
The sound of vibrations wakes me from a deep sleep, and I fumble across the nightstand until my fingers close around my phone.
The screen’s glow cuts through the dimness, flooding my vision with light and noise.
It’s nearly noon, which means Sebastian let me sleep half the day away, and guilt pings through me.
I’ve been a night owl for all of my adult life, half by preference and half because of my job, which I’m not currently doing.
Hundreds of notifications blink from my camming app, each one a reminder that every day offline costs me, and I open it before I can think better of the action.
As I scroll through the messages, a knot grows in my stomach.
CHAT COMMENTS
DaddyBrooks: When are you coming back online?
BlueJay77: You okay, Elliot? You just vanished
SkyKing69: I’m done. Not wasting my time waiting around anymore
SweetTooth44: hope you’re okay babe
Anonymous: fucking loser, treating us fans like trash
GoldenTipper: We miss you. Come back when you’re ready
The last message hurts more than the angry ones. I’m failing my real fans. As I drop the phone onto the nightstand, face down, the quiet ping of another notification fills the room before my screen locks.
Turning my head, I see sunlight filtering through a gap in the curtains, painting a single stripe of gold across the empty pillow beside me. I reach out, my hand brushing only cool cotton where Sebastian should be.
Of course, he’s already been up for hours, working.
I swing my legs off the bed, wincing when my feet meet cool hardwood.
Sebastian’s T-shirt hangs from my frame, reaching mid-thigh as I pad toward the bathroom.
The face in the mirror appears rested but wary, dark circles fading beneath my eyes.
Despite how much I’ve been sleeping, I still feel off balance, not fully belonging in Rockford Manor, and unable to go home.
After a quick shower, I pull on fresh clothes from the pile Sebastian bought for me. The simple jeans and hoodie are an attempt to comfort me, but still more expensive than what I’m used to.
The corridor outside our room stretches empty in both directions, the usual staff nowhere in sight.
I wander toward the main staircase, following the faint hum of electronics rather than voices. My sock-covered feet make no sound on the carpet runner as I descend to the first floor, where I spot light spilling from beneath the partially closed door to the war room.
My pulse quickens as I push the door open.
The war room has transformed since yesterday. Additional monitors line the walls, cables snake across the floor in organized chaos, and the scent of fresh coffee mingles with the metallic tang of electronics running hot.
Milo sits cross-legged in an oversized leather chair, his slender fingers dancing across three keyboards arranged in a semi-circle before him.
Saint hunches at a desk nearby, his familiar profile illuminated by blue light as he scans the documents assigned to him.
A muscle in his jaw twitches as he works, a tell I recognize from our years together.
He’s always been a hands-on sort of guy and easily frustrated when forced to sit still and read.
Ezra stands by the window, his back to the room, phone pressed to his ear. His free hand gestures, emphasizing points in a conversation I can only hear half of.
“Yes, with the original documentation… No, under section 27-B… That creates plausible deniability while still achieving the desired effect…”
None of them sees me hovering in the doorway, a ghost at the edges of their coordinated assault. The knots in my stomach twist tighter as I observe them working with the fluid efficiency of people who have done this many times before.
When a warm hand settles on the small of my back, I startle at the contact.
“Sorry,” Sebastian murmurs close to my ear. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
His presence steadies me, though the somber expression on his face does little to ease the tension building in my chest.
“What’s happening?” I whisper, though there’s no real need for quiet.
Sebastian guides me the rest of the way into the room, closing the door behind us with a soft click. “We’ve begun the soft pressure phase.”
“The what?”
Milo spares us a glance before returning to his screens. Saint gives me a lift of his chin in greeting before his irritated gaze returns to his screen.
“The systematic application of pressure on our target.” Sebastian steers me toward a corner workstation where multiple monitors display Travis’s entire digital footprint. “We start with the invisible. No physical confrontation, no direct threats.”
My throat tightens as I scan the screens. Bank accounts, utility bills, rental agreement, driver’s license, and work schedule, every aspect of Travis’s life laid bare.
“This is what you meant by clean methods,” I murmur.
“Yes.” Sebastian’s hand is still warm on my back. “We dismantle his infrastructure piece by piece. By the time he realizes what’s happening, there will be nothing left.”
As if on cue, Milo hits a final key with theatrical emphasis. “First phase complete. His banking access is locked for ‘suspicious activity.’ The freeze will clear in seventy-two hours, during which time all automatic payments will fail.”
My mouth dries. “His rent?”
“That, as well as utilities, insurance, and his phone bill,” Sebastian confirms. “Nothing immediately catastrophic, but the dominoes are now falling.”
Saint always handled the fallout before. I’d only point him toward the monster and convince myself it was different. That the aftermath wasn’t on me. But watching these screens light up one by one, the illusion shatters. I’m part of the process now, no longer merely the trigger.
Ezra ends his call and turns to face the room. “Legal obstacles in place. His rental contract has been flagged for review due to a conveniently discovered code violation. His landlord will be serving notice by the end of the day.”
Their methodicalness amazes me. I’ve tracked stalkers before, exposed them to consequences, but never with this level of coordinated destruction.
It wasn’t even possible with my self-taught hacking skills.
With these methods, I don’t have to risk Saint getting in trouble or hurt while dealing out his form of justice.
“His social security number has been flagged in the system.” Sebastian pulls up new windows filled with code. “Not enough to trigger a federal investigation, but sufficient to create friction in any database that runs standard verification.”
Milo leans back with a bloodthirsty smile. “Good. Now we wait for him to feel the pressure.”
“How long?” I ask.
Sebastian’s fingers massage my spine as he leans closer to examine the monitors. “Most people panic within forty-eight hours when their money becomes inaccessible.”
I stare at the screen of code. “And then what?”
“Then we find him,” Sebastian says. “When he’s disoriented, isolated, and desperate.”
My stomach tightens further, a mixture of satisfaction and horror swirling inside me. Can I learn to do this? Do I want to?
Milo stands, the movement fluid as he crosses the room toward me. He assesses me with a shrewd stare as he slides a sleek laptop across the table. “You can ghost an IP through multiple proxies, right? Sebastian mentioned you have skills.”
The question catches me off guard. Until now, I’ve been a problem to solve, a victim to protect, not a resource to utilize. My fingers hover over the laptop’s smooth surface, not quite touching it.
“You want my help?” I ask, unable to keep the surprise from my voice.
I look up at Sebastian, who gives me an encouraging nod.
“We need someone who understands anonymous networking from the inside.” Milo tucks a strand of bright red hair behind his ear. “I’m still learning this stuff, so I don’t have any practical experience, only theoretical. My strength is more in strategy than tech.”
Sebastian’s hand shifts to my waist. “You don’t have to if you’re not comfortable.”
“But you could use the help,” I say, reading between the lines.
Sebastian doesn’t deny it, which tells me everything.
Milo taps the spacebar, waking the screen. “We need to force Travis to connect from a predictable location. Right now, he’s skipping between public networks, which makes physical tracking inefficient.”
My pulse quickens. They trust my abilities enough to incorporate me into their operation. After spending days as a helpless pawn, the shift sends an unexpected thrill through me.
My fingers uncurl, reaching for the keyboard. “What do you need me to do?”
Milo pulls up a chair beside me and opens several command windows. “We’ve created a digital mousetrap. A secure portal that mimics his company’s employee access system. The real one is offline for ‘maintenance,’ so when he tries to check his schedule or payroll, he’ll hit our replica instead.”
“And when he logs in, you can trace the connection,” I finish, already seeing how the pieces fit together.
“Exactly,” Milo says. “But we need additional layers of security to ensure he can’t detect the trap. That’s where you come in.”
The code on the screen speaks a language as familiar to me as breathing. Nested VPNs, redirects, and ghost protocols are all the tools I’ve used to protect myself and Saint over the years.
“You want me to build a one-way mirror.” I pull the laptop closer. “He sees what appears to be a legitimate connection, while we track everything flowing through it.”
Saint’s eyes lift from his own work, his expression unreadable as I slip into this new role.
When he catches me looking, a question and an offer pass between us.
Saint has always been the one to protect me.
The one to break bones while I look the other way.
He’s still willing to be that for me, so I can keep pretending.
But I’ve hidden behind him for too long.
I give him a subtle nod, and he returns his attention to his work.
The room fades into the background as my fingers dance across the keyboard, adding layers of redirects that will bounce Travis’s connection through a dozen servers before landing on our trap. Each line of code feels like coming home after being adrift for weeks.
This, at least, I understand. This space belongs to me.
“Add a timer trigger here,” Sebastian murmurs into my ear, his familiar rumble slipping in along my concentration without disrupting it. “When he connects, it’ll ping the nearest cell tower.”
I lean closer. “Clever. We can triangulate his physical location from the signal strength between towers.”
My typing falters as the reality of what I’m creating sinks in. This isn’t my usual tracking method, where I expose stalkers to social consequences, or point Saint in the right direction and wash my hands of the consequences.
The metallic taste of anxiety floods my mouth, and my heart pounds hard, the rush of blood in my ears nearly drowning out the tap of keys.
“Hey, are you okay?” Milo asks, his slender hand settling on my arm.
“Yeah, it’s just…”
“When I first came here, I thought I could train to be a hitman,” he murmurs, a wry smile tugging at his sculpted lips.
My head jerks back. “Seriously?”
“I had a lot of anger for the people who sold me,” he admits. “I wanted to make them pay. But when it came down to it…I didn’t like being the one to dirty my hands.”
“But you stayed,” I say.
“Because there are other ways to fight back.” He wiggles his fingers. “Moving pieces on the board, setting traps for the bastards who think they can own people, is cleaner. It’s still justice, but without the blood.”
I study his beautiful features, seeing a hardness there that didn’t come from growing up as a pampered Omega in an affluent household. “Did you really work at a convenience store?”
“I did. In Brickwell, not too far from here,” he confirms. “I met my mate, Dominic, when he infiltrated the slave auction. He almost blew his cover when he bid on me so I wouldn’t go to a stranger. I owe the Rockfords my life, but even if I didn’t, I’d love this job.”
I sell myself to strangers all the time, but I have control over when and how I perform. It’s not the same as what Milo went through, and I struggle to wrap my mind around the horrors he must have faced to get to where he is now.
“Once we have Travis’s location,” Milo says, directing my focus back to the laptop, “the extraction team can move in.”
Extraction team. My gut clenches, and my fingers pause over the keyboard again. The code blurs before my eyes as I imagine what happens after my digital trap springs closed. Men in black SUVs. Travis, confused and terrified, bundled into a vehicle.
Do the Rockfords have an underground facility where they deal with creeps like Travis? Or maybe a warehouse in the slums?
Sebastian’s hand cups the back of my neck. “Micah?”
“I’m fine.” I force my hands back into motion, committing myself further with each line of code, and binding myself to the Rockfords in my complicity.
“We’re going to need a fake authentication portal,” I say, pushing past the tightness in my throat. “Something that appears legitimate but harvests his credentials.”
“Already built.” Sebastian leans past me to open another window. “You’ll need to integrate it with your proxy chain.”
The code flows from my fingertips, each function a link in the chain that will bind Travis. My technical mind appreciates the elegant trap we’re constructing, even as my conscience whispers warnings. This isn’t Saint going too far while I look away. This is me choosing to build the weapon.
Sebastian watches over my shoulder, his presence both reassuring and unsettling. Does he see my internal conflict? Does he care? Or is he simply pleased that I’m adapting to his family’s methods so readily?
“Almost done,” I murmur, integrating the final verification loops. “This will force his connection through our controlled pathways, no matter what device he uses.”
A drop of sweat trickles down my temple despite the room’s cool temperature. My heart thumps hard, each beat echoing the question I can’t bring myself to ask aloud.
What happens to Travis after we find him?
“Perfect.” Milo takes back the laptop to connect it to the main system, and my code integrates with their larger operation, my contribution now inseparable from whatever comes next.
Sebastian’s hand squeezes my shoulder, pride evident in his touch. “Well done.”
The digital trap glows on the primary monitor, ready and waiting. On screen, it resembles a harmless login portal asking for username and password. Behind that innocent facade lies a complex web I helped to create.
For years, I let myself pretend Saint’s hands were the dirty ones. But no more.
Now, I’ve become the hunter, not the hunted.
And the realization terrifies me almost as much as it empowers me.