Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
L ark still had the knife, but she’d set the gun and the Mace down on his kitchenette table. She must be starting to trust him just a little bit. Or, at least, she didn’t think he was going to murder her. Ren would take that as a victory.
Maybe she’d let him take his handcuffs off soon, too.
“Please, have a seat,” he said, gesturing (with his still cuffed hands) to the couch.
She sat down at the far end of the couch, as far away from him as possible. He didn’t let that bother him. All he was to her was a stranger who’d invaded her personal space and kidnapped her with nothing but his word as proof that he wasn’t a raving lunatic who may or may not have a murder pit in his basement. She had no way of knowing she was a beacon of light and hope in his life.
And frankly, he wasn’t looking forward to explaining that to her. Not. At. All. There just wasn’t a way to do it that didn’t make him sound like a psychopath at worst, and pathetic at best. “Grab that laptop off the coffee table and I’ll talk you through accessing the dark web.”
She picked up the laptop, but didn’t open it. “Um…do I want to access the dark web?”
“Oh, it’s safe,” he assured her. “This laptop is untraceable. I’ve made sure of it.”
There was no need to explain that to anyone trying to track this machine, it would look like the user was somewhere in the outer reaches of Siberia where humans had probably been overrun by polar bears decades ago. He knew she wouldn’t be impressed or comforted by that knowledge.
“That’s not exactly what I meant,” she grumbled, opening the laptop. “OK, tell me what to type.”
He gave her the string of code that would get her where she needed to go, admiring her hands as she typed. They were so elegant looking. Delicate and graceful. Unlike his dinner-plate-sized, rough-as-sandpaper meat hooks. She had the hands of an artist. His hands were built for violence.
“Whoa.” Lark let out a low whistle after she’d hit the last key. “What the hell am I looking at?”
“That is the dark web’s idea of a search engine. It always kind of reminds me of a mosh pit at a punk rock concert: messy and chaotic with lots of opportunities to get hurt,” Ren said ruefully.
“Why does it feel like I need to take a shower?” Lark asked, wrinkling her nose.
He chuckled. “Because this is the seamy side of the human experience. The lowest of the low are here. If you want to steal identities, do espionage, hire a hacker, or create and distribute malware, this is where you’d do it.”
“Or if I wanted to hire a hitman,” she murmured.
He wished it wasn’t so, but… “That too.”
Lark let out a deep breath. “Show me.”
That’s my brave girl . He gave her instructions to navigate to one of the corners of the dark web where hitmen got their jobs. When she was done typing, he kept quiet. Better that she digest this info on her own than hear it from him.
All the details were there. Her name, a current photo that looked like it’d been taken from outside the flower shop, her age, address, driver’s license info…it was all there.
Along with an offer of $100,000 to whoever killed her.
Her eyes shifted over the data, her expression growing more horrified with each word she read. “This is…all my information. It includes my work schedule, the route I take to work, where I buy my morning coffee, what kind of car I drive…Jesus, who could possibly know this much about me?”
Well, I do . “It’s easier than you might think,” he admitted. “This kind of information comes from the most basic of surveillance.”
She sat up straighter. “Did you know that someone was trying to kill me when you came to my house?”
He nodded. “No one had accepted the hit yet. But I knew someone had posted the job.”
“How?”
“I monitor the dark web regularly.”
He braced himself for a freak out. This was when she was going to call him a creepy stalker and stab him with his own knife. The sad part? He deserved it. He was a creepy stalker. His best of intentions didn’t matter in this case.
She glanced at his bank of monitors, then back at him. “You’re, like—what?—a security expert?”
He hesitated. Would it be misleading to say yes? He didn’t work for a security firm or anything. But he technically was a security expert. The fact that he worked for her without her even knowing it didn’t change his skill level or expertise. “I am,” he eventually said.
Her eyes narrowed slightly. She knew he was full of shit. But in the end, she had two choices. She could stab him and make a run for it. Take what she knew to the police and pray they put her in protective custody. They’d fail, but it was still an option that was open to her. Or she could put her faith in the creepy stalker who had zero trouble breaking every law known to man to keep her safe.
She swallowed hard. “And do you have a plan to keep me safe?”
Did destroy anyone who ever even considered hurting her count as a plan? “I think that given a little bit of time, I can figure out who put the hit on you. Once I know that, I can… convince them to call off their hitman.”
“And when you say convince, you mean…”
He would not mislead her on this point. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”
Her eyes searched his. He had no idea what she was looking for. A reason to trust him, maybe? There wasn’t one. He was not a hero. But sometimes, it took a bad guy to know one. And she needed to realize that.
He reached out and laid one of his cuffed hands on hers. She flinched at the contact, but didn’t pull away. “The police can’t keep you safe. They have too many rules. I don’t have any of those. I can help you. I need you to trust me, though. I know I haven’t done anything to earn your trust yet, but I’m asking for it anyway. Can you give me that?”
Her gaze moved from his hand on hers, to his face, back to the laptop screen, then back to his face again. After what felt like an eternity (especially since he was holding his breath), she finally whispered, “OK.”
The relief that washed over Ren was damn near overwhelming. If he’d been standing, he was sure it would’ve driven him to his knees. “Thank you. You won’t regret it.”
A long, strangely companionable silence that was only punctuated by the noisy snuffle of Dammit George’s breathing as he gazed up at Lark adoringly followed. And he hated to ruin that…but also… “So…think you’d be willing to uncuff me now?”
The snort she let out startled Dammit George. “Let’s play it by ear for a while longer, yeah?”
He nodded solemnly. “Fair enough.”