Page 40 of Dominic

Panic gripped Cassandra deep in her core. ”No. Don’t hurt her. I’ll do it.”

“Good. And like I said, I don’t plan to do anything that’s going to draw attention to the little trap you lay for him. That wouldn’t end well for either of us.”

Gordon hung up and Cassandra just stared at the phone in her hand. God, was she really going to do this?

Another picture came through on her phone. Taken bysomeone much closer to Sarah this time. Her friend still had that blissful, excited look on her face.

You have five minutes.

Cassandra dashed to the bed where she’d stuffed the USB drive under the mattress. Detaching herself as much as possible from her emotions she walked into Dominic’s office. All she had to do was plug in the drive. She didn’t even need his password.

She didn’t allow herself to think, she just made sure the computer was on and inserted the drive.

She texted on her phone: it’s done.

It was done. The drive was installing software that would report back to Gordon. Unless Dominic was specifically looking for this sort of spyware, he wouldn’t find it. It wouldn’t come up on the normal security sweeps of his computer, and wouldn’t leak enough information to be easily seen.

Gordon was playing the long con, putting measures in place so that he built information over time. Eventually those pieces of information would provide a useful picture. One Gordon would use himself against Dominic, or sell to Dominic’s enemies.

Sarah was safe. For now. Until Gordon decided he wanted Cassandra to do something else for him.

Cassandra took the USB drive out of the computer once it had finished uploading what it needed to. She walked back slowly to the bedroom.

She couldn’t allow this. Couldn’t allow herself to be used against Dominic. She would leave. Leave before any of the things unsaid between them became more permanent. Leave before she once again destroyed the best thing that had ever happened to her.

She should leave right now. Write a note, tell Titus about the spyware. He would know how to get rid of it. Leave before Dominic got home tonight.

But she would give herself one more day. In the morning she would uninstall the spyware. Gordon would’ve gotten enough information to leave Sarah alone, but not enough to do any true harm.

She would give herself one more day to go to the wedding of the woman who had become her friend. Spend one more day with people who had become her family.

And then give them the best gift she could: her absence.

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