Page 297 of Dark Love

I need to know.

And there’s only one way to find out… track it back to its source. The simplest way to do that is with a hacker.

But there’s no way I want Shock searching for that video. Not that I want anyone searching for it, but I can’t let this go. My skills aren’t up to digging deep into this.

A name is all I need. Someone to hire to get the job done. Another woman that won’t leer at Dahlia. No one in their right mind is leering at a fifteen-year-old.

Get over yourself and find the answer.

Max opens the door. “If you keep showing up like this, I’m going to start thinking we’re friends.”

Not going to happen. “You look terrible.”

“I just flew back from Australia, and Hope decided she wanted to talk instead of sleeping. When a teenage girl decides that she wants to talk, run. Hide. Sell your soul. Do whatever it takes to get away,” he’s grinning even as he says it. “Come on in.”

I follow Max into the living room.

“You look like you’re about ready to crawl out of your skin. And for someone that two months ago I would have sworn didn’t have any emotions, it’s kind of freaky. What’s going on?”

Don’t explain. Ask for the favor and walk away. “I need the name of a hacker.”

“Did something happen to Shock?” That got Max’s attention.

“He’s fine. A pain, but fine. I need a female hacker.”

“A female hacker…” Max gets quiet.

Is he thinking of a name or trying to figure out why I need one?

“This is about Dahlia’s video.”

“You know about that?” Has he seen Dahlia? I might need to kill Max, too.

“She lives near my family.”

Makes sense. Even though I wish it didn’t. “Did you watch the video?”

“Eww. No. You’d need to be a perv to watch that. She was a kid. I got about five seconds in and turned it off. These kids nowadays are stupid. Don’t they understand these videos never go away?”

“I don’t think Dahlia was stupid. If I’m right, someone drugged her.”

“Drugged? She had a glass with a pink drink in her hand.”

“Did you check her pupils?”

“I checked nothing. Clicked on. Wanted to puke. Clicked off and deleted it.”

Max doesn’t have to die today. “I need to check her pupils. And I need to find out who took the video and kept distributing it.”

“Distributing it?”

“They followed her for years, harassing her with it until she almost killed herself. I’m not letting whoever did this get away with it.”

“You don’t need a woman hacker. I can find that out for you today. We’ll put a filter up so that all we’ll see are faces. Come with me.” Max stridesupstairs without bothering to look back. He shuts his office door behind us. “This shouldn’t take long. Do you have an idea of who might have done this?”

“A feeling more than an idea. Her brother has this friend. There’s something about the way that he looks at her—”

“You hate every guy that looks at her.”

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