Page 11 of Endless Obsession

“If I don’t like it, we can leave?” I ask hesitantly, and Jaz nods.

“Of course,” she assures me. “If you’re uncomfortable, we’ll go immediately. I won’t even do anything with anyone, if that will make you feel better. I’ll just stay by your side,” she promises. “And wait for you while you find some hot guy to start making all your wildest fantasies come true.”

“I doubt I’m going to do anything,” I warn her. “But yes. Let’s go. I want to see what this is like.”

Jaz’s squeal of excitement makes me smile for the first time since I saw those messages light up Nate’s phone.

If nothing else, this will be an adventure. And I trust Jaz to shepherd me through it. I don’t think I’m going to uncover anything new about myself, but…

There’s always a chance. And I’m ready to start a new chapter.

4

IVAN

If any of my brothers ever saw where I live, they’d be horrified.

Not that there’s anything wrong with it, as far as I’m concerned. The house I purchased a few years ago is nice enough, a Midwestern two-story that blends in with the rest of the neighborhood, with a basement large enough that I could fully kit it out with everything I need to operate. I bought it with cash—the less of a paper trail, the better—and registered everything that needed to be done publicly under a fake name. If my family dug hard enough, they could probably figure out who owns it, but I’ve covered my tracks as well as I’m able. Which is pretty fucking well.

Like I said, I’m a rat that’s hard to trap.

The upper levels of my house look like any average home in the Chicago suburbs. Clean, neat, decently well-furnished. By my brothers’ standards, I might as well live in a hovel, but it suits me just fine. I have a fancier apartment in the city where I take women, if I want to bring someone ‘home’ for the night. But this—this place is just for me. No one else comes here. No one else knows where it is. My own private lair.

The upstairs might look like a nice, normal home, but the basement looks like something out of The Matrix. Wall-to-wall computer screens and various tech, blinking neon in the dark. I sink down in my leather gaming chair, leaning my head back against it as I roll up to one of the screens and log on with an alias.

All of my various Internet personas are heavily encoded, layered under so much security that it would take someone as good as I am to hack into it and uncover my real identity. And very few hackers are as good as I am.

I’m good at three things. Violence, technology, and sex. The first two frequently interact with each other. The second two do sometimes. The first and last—never. That’s the one area of my life where I consider myself a good man. A man with dark and deviant tastes, yes. But not one who would ever hurt a woman.

That’s how I got in this position in the first place.

The screen lights up.

Wyatt8640: Check-in, Viper.

I let out a breath, running one hand through my hair as I start to type with the other.

Viper69: A mouse was caught. He won’t be squeaking to anyone else.

My username is my own private joke. I know it irritates the feds that I work for that I have something so juvenile attached to it. But I like to remind them that I’m my own man. I’m feeding them information, but I’m not one of their serious, badge-wearing flunkies. I’ll do things my own way.

Wyatt8640: Make sure if they’re squeaking, you’re the one who hears it. I’ll be in touch.

The chat logs off, and I blow out a sharp breath.

I’m well aware of the position I’ve put myself in. I could end up in custody myself, if I step wrong. There’s plenty the feds could pin on me, if they wanted to. I could probably negotiate a damn good deal, considering how much I’ve fed them, but that might not keep me from going behind bars. And if that happens, there are only two ways that ends.

One is with me in gen pop, where I’d die in a matter of days. As soon as my father discovered my betrayal, he’d have men on the inside after me, ready to spill my guts onto the floor.

The other is with me in permanent solitary, to keep exactly that from happening. And even then, my father would pay a guard to murder me. Prison means death, for me, if what I’m doing gets out. If I piss off the feds enough at any point to make it so that they don’t protect me any longer.

But frankly, I’d rather die anyway than be behind bars.

I grit my teeth, running both hands through my hair. It infuriates me that I’m mixed up in this at all. That my father is so goddamn greedy that he couldn’t be satisfied with the billions he already has, that arms dealing and drugs aren’t enough. That he had to dip his toe into human trafficking, and make me feel the fucking moral compunction to stop him.

Now I’m here, playing a more dangerous game than I ever wanted to be a part of.

I shove myself up from the chair, heading for the stairs. I blink as I emerge onto the first floor, the light almost painfully bright after hours of sitting in the dark, with only the neon screens. I rub the heels of my hands over my eyes, hard, and head for the kitchen, where I know I have some good liquor stashed away.

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