Page 45 of Indecent Demands

“Ariana. Right.”

I needed to stop staring at him like he was about to stab me. I was giving myself away. “Sorry to have bumped into you. Have a great rest of your day!”

I hurried into the elevator and heaved a sigh of relief as the doors closed behind me.

That was way too close.

Chapter19

Seth

Ifelt like a goddamn idiot.

No, I wasn’t an idiot—I was arrogant. I had assumed that she couldn’t hack through my security system to get out of the house. But she had. I’d underestimated her, or more accurately I’d overestimated myself. I had grown too used to being unbeatable.

Now I had to find her.

Smart girl hadn’t taken her phone with her so I couldn’t track her, but I did have that security video that showed her looking up where certain people lived. I watched the video again and made a list, same as hers. The question was, what order would she go in?

Best to start at the beginning—with the parents. I stopped by their place, out of the city proper and into the suburbs, but she wasn’t there. Should I wait here for her? Or had she already come by? I didn’t want to go up and ask the parents—that would make them suspicious and the last thing I wanted was for one of them to possibly call their son and say that people were stopping by to ask about him.

No, she’d most likely already been here. I went to the college next.

The campus was just big enough to be annoying when trying to find someone, but she’d probably want to talk to administration. I grabbed a clipboard out of my car and went over to those buildings, then walked around. Nobody questioned me as I strode purposefully through the building, occasionally making a note on the clipboard. They just assumed I was there for any number of reasons.

There was no sign of Ariana anywhere.

God fucking dammit. Had I missed her? Or had she not come here yet? Where had she gone? I needed to find her and she’d gone off the grid. Unless I really wanted to pull out all the stops and start calling in favors to really track her down, I was fucking stuck.

My phone buzzed with a text. I pulled it out in case it was Damien. It wasn’t, but it was Tony.

Hey, this might be no big deal, and I hate that I’m texting you this. But Ariana came in just now and she seemed weird. Not like herself. I don’t know I just got a strange feeling. She’s a really great person and I’m sure it’s nothing but I know you’ve been using her account to run double-blind testing for the security system and I thought maybe something had happened?

Thank God Tony had listened to his instincts. What the fuck was Ariana doing in the company building? Did she want to put herself directly in danger?

She might not even realize how much danger she was in. I had to get to the office and nab her before she did something that put her on Damien’s radar.

I needed to placate Tony so he didn’t do anything stupid that would land Ariana in hot water. I texted him back:

Ah, crap. I found some anomalies and didn’t tell her about them. She must be concerned. No worries. I’m on my way into the office so I’ll explain to her before she thinks we’re being robbed blind. She’s got a real eye for detail, no wonder she’s your best.

There, that should throw him off the scent.

I started up my car and booked it. I didn’t know exactly what Ariana hoped to do or find while she was at the office but I had the feeling it wouldn’t be good for her general safety. What if she went to confront Damien? What if she thought she could play the hero that way?

I was almost there when my phone rang. Oh man. Bryce. That probably wasn’t anything good.

“Hey, what’s up?” If this turned out to be something about how to work the finicky printer at the office then I was going to cut off his trigger finger.

“Hey, where are you?” he asked.

“En route to a location, why?”

“Is it Smirtech? Because I just got a call from a buddy of mine who said you were shaking the tree and seeing if any contracts fell out.”

“What did you hear?” I asked anxiously.

“My buddy’s buddy has a contract for two kills. He didn’t say who, just that it was five million apiece. Clientmighthave been your guy.”

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