34. Volt #2
“Volt Medina, you are going to tell me right now.” Wallace was about as threatening as a kitten with its fur up, and twice as cute. But beneath it, Volt could feel the hurt.
He’d fucked this up.
Just like Angel had told him.
Time to lay it all out. “So… we’ve been wondering for a while if some of the problems we’ve been having aren’t just bad luck, but sabotage.
I mean, you know about a lot of it. The rocks through the window, the paint on the door, the false reports.
But I didn’t tell you that the guy who came to investigate the kitchen said that he thought it was specific targeting.
And, uh, remember our first date, when you fixed the bots and I was working on the heater?
Well, the vent on the roof looked like it had been smashed in with the full strength of a human with tools.
An animal couldn’t have done it, unless, I don’t know, a moose made its way up there.
There aren’t any trees high enough to drop branches.
Not saying it’s impossible for it to be natural, but… ”
“But it’s unlikely,” Wallace finished for him. “Which means the bots could have been sabotaged, too.”
Volt nodded, feeling like a failure.
“Fuck,” Wallace said. “Just… And the nickel drive was all part of it, too.”
Volt nodded. “There’s one more thing. Uh…
” He sighed. He definitely hadn’t wanted to raise this with Wallace.
“So one of Magnolia’s things, for decades now, has been helping sex workers who are being trafficked or abused get out of their situations.
She has friends—I don’t know any of them by name—who can provide safe transportation and a way to set up a new life somewhere else. ”
Wallace just raised an eyebrow. Waiting.
“Mitchie was one of those sex workers. Probably about seventeen years old, skinny as a rail, and barefoot with trackmarks up his arms. He was standing outside our back door in the snow about four years ago.” Volt could still remember how blue his toes had been in the cold with those flimsy flip-flops.
The whimpers he’d heard through the bathroom door as Mitchie had eased into a lukewarm bath with the door tightly locked.
“Shit,” Wallace breathed.
“Yeah. So if they’re looking for Mitchie…” Ben prompted.
“Yep.” Volt swallowed hard. “And then this spring, there was another woman, Jaya, who was supposed to get out and… well, on the day Magnolia’s contacts were supposed to pick her up with her kid, they couldn’t find her.”
“Fuck,” Wallace swore. “And you think Colton Alexander is mixed up in this?”
“I have no idea,” Volt answered, exhausted by just thinking about it. “But probably. This was really Magnolia’s project. At the most, I gave out a few meals and passed the word along. I was told that it was better for me not to know anyone else involved so I couldn’t betray anyone.”
“Shit!” Wallace swore. “That’s serious. Volt, that’s like…”
“It only happened once or twice a year, though. I mean, I know people are forced into sex work all the time, but I think Prism was just one of many places they could go. Somebody else handled everything, and we just called in when we needed them to do their job. Sometimes we let someone stay in a bed overnight. We gave out some bags of food. If anyone would know something, it would be Angel, but I don’t think he had any names either. ”
“Angel hinted at this,” Oliver reported. “He told me that he couldn’t provide more information about Mitchie, but that there was someone he needed to alert.”
Volt nodded. “Good. I don’t know why they would be asking about Mitchie anyway. He’s long gone.”
Wallace closed his eyes, looking frustrated and exhausted in equal measure. “I need to tell Parker about this.”
“Who’s Parker?” Volt asked. The name sounded familiar, but he still had so many alerts going off that wading through memory vaults that hadn’t been property indexed wasn’t worth the effort.
“The private investigator.” Wallace glared at him. “The one who’s currently investigating Colton Alexander and why he might have given me a shitty takeover mod that nearly killed you.”
“Oh, uh…” Volt tried to think of a response, but his mind was whirring, caught equally between the horror of what might have happened and worry over how much a private eye would cost. “I’m not sure that’s nec—”
“Volt.” Wallace’s harsh words cut him off instantly.
“I get it that this wasn’t your project and that you weren’t supposed to tell me anything.
But the rest? The fact that you were being targeted?
You knew that I had a private investigator working for me already.
You knew these weren’t just random attacks from rowdy teens.
You were putting not just yourself, but me, Angel, and Magnolia in danger.
Daddy, I almost lost you. Why did you lie to me? ”
Wallace’s eyes burned with indignation, and Volt shrank under them. He hadn’t thought of it as putting them all in danger, but he had. And he’d lied about it, too, though he hadn’t meant to at the time. He’d thought he was sheltering Wallace.
All he could do was apologize and beg for forgiveness. “I’m sorry, baby. I just… We’d already told the police everything, and they said they were working on it. And you’d already given us all that money, and I didn’t want you to worry about…”
“Well, I was worried, too,” Wallace interrupted. “You should have told me about this a long time ago. I could have done something, especially if the police weren’t taking it seriously.”
Probably… but it would have cost a lot of money, which was why Volt hadn’t said anything. That and his fears that Wallace wouldn’t look at him the same way if he needed Wallace to rush in and solve all of his problems.
He felt even worse now. Because all of the pain he’d been through the past few days? His damaged arm and internet port? And all the other fuckery they’d been dealing with?
Maybe, if Volt had trusted Wallace more, if he hadn’t been so worried about using Wallace’s money and losing his love in the process, they could have done something about it.
“I’m sorry, creampuff. I should have. I just… Shit. I messed up, didn’t I?” He was feeling it deeper every minute.
He watched, with the corner of his eye, as Ben quietly snuck out of the room and pulled the door closed behind him.
At least they would have some privacy for what was probably about to be their first big fight.
And Volt deserved every bit of it.
“Yeah, you messed up.” Wallace leaned forward. “Volt, this is big. It makes me feel like I don’t know you at all. Or like our relationship isn’t real.”