Page 484 of Dark Love

“No. I was going to look for her parents.”

Shock has gone off the deep end. “That isn’t for you to decide. If she wants to search for them, then you can help, but you don’t get to decide for her.”

“I’m going to do this.”

Stupid man doing stupid things for a woman. “Why?”

“Because bad things have a way of popping back up. In order to protect her, I need to know what monsters are lurking in her closet. She’ll never know. It’s just to keep her safe.”

That makes too much sense. I’d do the same for Dahlia in a heartbeat. “What right do you have to keep her safe?”

“None… yet. But she’s going to be mine.”

“I don’t need to remind you about what I do.” That’s more of a reminder than a threat.

“It’s not like that. It could never be like that.”

Do I believe him? “Fine, do the research, but report back to me.”

“How do I get through Mr. Vincenti?”

Not easily. “I’ll take care of him.”

***

“Squirrely is an understatement. How does Shock even get any work done?” Max closes my office door.

“We’re not sure, but he does it.” All I need to do is distract Max for the next few hours. How am I going to do that? “I’m surprised you’re not over there geeking out with him.”

“My setup at work is slightly better. But if I didn’t leave, I think he would have had a heart attack or something. You need to cut off his caffeine consumption.”

“We tried that. Shock got even worse.” Those were a few weeks I don’t want to remember.

Max sits down at the other side of my desk. “Sounds like he has undiagnosed ADHD.”

Everyone nowadays seems to have ADHD. “We should get to work and not diagnose my hacker.” Hopefully, this means Max isn’t going to try to steal Shock.

“What do you know so far?”

“Not much. Our dirty cop procures women every few months based on his offshore account.”

“What bank?” Max’s voice raises slightly.

“Sun Savings. Shock plans to hack in and find out who is making the deposits into Plant’s account.”

“Mind if I use your desk?” Max gestures to his bag.

“No. Go right ahead.”

The metal briefcase that Max used to bring the board Shock wanted opens to reveal a laptop, which has Max’s company’s emblem on the cover.

When did they start making computers?

“There’s no need to hack when I do their security.”

Well, that’s convenient.

“Give me the account number.”

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