Page 117 of Mayhem and Minnie

But that wouldn’t explain the missing footprints since I’m sure of what I saw.

I sigh as I complete my morning ablutions and head out to work. God knows I’ll probably end up doing nothing, but at least I can devote more time to stalking Minnie online. Now more than ever I need to know everything there is to know about her. Not because it would change the fact that she now belongs to me, but because I need to know every single man who’s ever been in her life. Family, friends…lovers?

I scowl at that thought.

She better be telling the truth about never having had a lover because by God, I’ll scour this Earth for the man who dared touch her and I’ll kill him slowly and painfully.

Fuck my rules. I’m officially throwing every single rule I’ve ever had out the window. So what if he’s innocent? The mere fact that he’s put his hands on her means he’s guilty in my eyes, and thus worthy of a fitting punishment.

Heading to my office, I turn on my computer and start a new search into Minnie.

Minerva An’yan.

I type in her name and check the police database first.

No hits.

I turn my attention to Google, genealogy sites and other databases, but that’s equally fruitless.

She doesn’t exist. Plain and simple.

But she can’t not exist, especially in this day and age. Everything is on the internet. The fact that she’s not is rather concerning. And it can only mean one thing. Someone made a deliberate effort to erase all traces of her from the internet.

I could, of course, torture the answers out of her. But where’s the fun in that? There’s also the unfortunate issue that I don’t want to harm her—a first, I know.

She said I’d find out her identity in due time, but the curiosity is killing me.

Thinking about this issue for a few more moments, I grab my phone and dial an acquaintance who owns a security company. He’s developing a state-of-the-art software to aid background checks, which is supposed to revolutionize the industry. As far as I know, it’s still in beta testing. Still, it’s worth a try.

Clearly, a simple Google search will not yield anything. The police reports gave me some new information but not nearly enough to find out who she is.

“What?” he answers with a long drawl.

“Does your background check software include facial recognition?”

“Straight to the topic, I see.” He chuckles.

I grumble something under my breath.

I don’t do people and I don’t do friends. But in my industry, Leonidas is the only one I’m on friendly terms with, perhaps because both of us hate going out. To this day, we’ve never met face to face, but we’ve talked plenty via email and phone calls.

“As a matter of fact, it does. We’ve patented a new AI technology that can scour the entire internet archive in a matter of minutes and find all available matches. However, the program is nowhere near finished. We still have a lot of glitches to fix and?—”

“Can it find me info on a person based only on their picture? I’ll take anything,” I cut him off.

He pauses and clicks his tongue.

“I suppose it could, though I would not trust it to be one hundred percent accurate just yet.”

“That’s fine. I need to use it for something. Personal, not business.”

“It wouldn’t kill you to say please, you know.” He laughs.

“You owe me one,” I remind him. I did him a favor last year when his company was being blackmailed with sensitive information. And I’m not one to not cash in on the debts I’m owed.

He groans. “Fine. I’ll have my team send you an invite into the beta. If you have more than one picture, that will help. A video would be even better so the AI can do a 3D scan.”

“Thanks,” I say and hang up.

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