Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75748 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75748 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
There was something beautiful about his lack of control, about knowing I did that to him.
So I leaned over behind Goya’s back to rest my head briefly on his shoulder.
The way he turned his head and pressed a kiss to my head had my heart swelling in my chest.
“How does he live above a club?” I asked as we climbed out of the cab.
“He claims it helps him think,” Nico told me as we moved inside and upstairs. “I wasn’t exaggerating, by the way,” he warned when we got to Zeno’s door.
“About what?”
“How bad it is in there. I keep meaning to hire someone to clean for him, but keep getting distracted by something else.”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” I said as Nico reached for his keys and unlocked the door.
It was that bad.
It was worse.
But I didn’t even notice that right away.
Because the second the door swung open, Zeno swiveled in his fancy office chair, a gun the size of my forearm raised in our direction.
“Banana bread coffee girl!” he greeted, all smiles as he casually lowered the gun. “And the dog. Hey, buddy,” he called.
I was reluctant to let the leash go with such a mess all around, but Goya tugged until I let go, then bounded over to jump up on Zeno’s chair. But only to grab a chicken nugget out of the little square box on the desk.
“Goya!” I scolded.
“Oh, he’s a good boy,” Zeno said, grabbing another nugget and tossing it to my waiting dog. “Did you bring me any syrup?”
“Oh…”
“We’ve been kind of busy fleeing to the safe house, remember?” Nico reminded him.
“Oh, right.”
“I will make some this week for you, though,” I promised him. I could have Nico pick me up the ingredients. And a jar to keep the syrup in. It would be nice to have something to do when Nico wasn’t around to… entertain me.
“I’ll take ten. Or more,” Zeno said.
“Okay, focus,” Nico demanded as Zeno fed Goya a fry.
I wandered over toward the kitchen, intending just to toss the scattered trash into the garbage. But then I noticed all the mugs in the sink and ran some soap and water over them. Then figured half the job was already done, so I started to scrub them.
The deep timbre of male voices was kind of meditative as I kept finding cleaning tasks to do: scrubbing the coffee pot, cleaning out the expired stuff in the fridge, then cleaning the inside of the fridge as well. That led to sweeping, mopping, and window cleaning.
“Um, do you need this?” I asked, holding up a floppy disk. An actual floppy disk. Like from the ‘90s.
“There that is!” Zeno said, plucking it from my fingers.
“What did you need a floppy disk for?” Nico asked.
“A really old computer,” Zeno said, putting the disk into a drawer that was messy enough that I was pretty sure he was going to forget all about it in no time. “So,” he said, jumping out of his chair. “I hear you want to be able to do some work without anything tracing back to your location. I can make that happen.”
He walked over toward the hallway linen closet. It didn’t have a single towel or cleaning supply. But it did have no fewer than fifteen laptops stacked precariously inside.
“Just take one of these handy-dandy laptops. They reroute the IP through about fifty different countries every minute. Only the best hackers in the world would be able to trace it. And I really doubt a fool like Matt would be in contact with any of them.”
“Thank you,” I said, taking the laptop he handed me.
“Don’t mention it. Obviously, don’t geo-tag yourself anywhere. Other than that, post and email to your heart’s content. But after you make my syrup,” he added, shooting me that boyish smile.
“I wouldn’t think of delaying that for something as unimportant as work.”
“Exactly. She gets it,” he said to Nico. “Anyway, I wish I had more of an update. But so far, I’m not seeing much. That doesn’t mean it’s not there. The dark web isn’t like going to Google and typing in what you’re looking for. You need to know where to look and then search it. It’s very decentralized. I’m digging. But it’s going to be days. If not weeks. And even then, there’s no way to be one hundred percent sure. I’d have more to go on if you found his laptop or tablet.”
“Ronny said it wasn’t at the apartment. And as far as I can tell, he didn’t bring it to my place either.”
“Are you sure you can believe her?” I asked. “She lies as easily as she breathes.”
“That’s true. But I think she was irritated that she couldn’t find it. So I think she was telling the truth.”
“If the laptop isn’t at your place or with Blair, where the hell is it?” Zeno asked.