Page 239 of Dark Love

Be reasonable. It’s better to address this in our own way than to have itsurprise us.

Me: I’ll take care of it and update you.

Payne: Thanks.

Shock is just going to have to deal with Barb disappearing with a new face and a new identity.

Then we’re going to have to break the news to Barb.

What has my life come to?

A few minutes later, I let myself into Shock’s apartment.

Something is wrong.

When did the cleaner come by? This place isn’t just clean, it’s spotless.

Is Shock even living here?

If Max moved him out, I’m going to be perturbed.

Not that there’s much I can do about it… yet. “Shock!” My voice echoes through the large open loft. “Shock!”

“What?” He ambles around a corner nook half-dressed with his hair standing on end. “What time is it? Why did you wake me up?”

“What did you do?”

“Max and I were working all night.”

Good to know. “That’s not what I meant. I had a visitor this morning.”

“And?”

“A friend found out about your little project and now Barb is in the crosshairs.” And I’m going to make you pay for that stupidity. After you fix the problem. If that’s possible.

“That’s impossible. I didn’t leave even a spec of a trail. What did this friend say exactly? Because I was careful. Past careful. There wasn’t anything to leave crumbs with.”

“Well, there had to have been. My friend—” I use that term loosely since Torment doesn’t have friends either. “—found Barb’s name on the dark web. Now there’s chatter about people coming for her.”

“It wasn’t from me. It couldn’t have been. I scraped everything off their servers. I didn’t put anything on it. There’s no way they heard about her from me.”

I believe him. Shock has always been smart and careful. He has a crush on Barb. He wouldn’t risk her life. “Then how did it get there?”

Shock shrugs. “What if it’s not related?”

“Barb’s name just doesn’t show up on the dark web without something happening.”

“That’s true. But we’re leaving one element out of the equation.”

“What?” Because everything under the sun is running through my head right now. Especially a government assassin being sent to hunt her down.

“Barb.”

“Huh?”

“Barb could have done some digging on her own. I put a little worm on her computer to watch for related searches, but she could have searched for something else that bypassed my spyware.”

Could our determination to protect her have backfired? “Can you find out?”

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