Page 15 of Royal Hacker

The footsteps in the front room were headed toward our location. They sounded heavy, so it had to be a large male, maybe even two men. I was sure it wasn’t Brock. When I walked around the corner, I was half relieved and half pissed. It was Neal and Brock.

“What the hell is with the gun?” Neal asked. He walked over to Patty and engulfed her in a big hug. I knew I had nothing to be jealous about. They had more of a brother-sister relationship. Still, jealousy twitched in my gut.

I walked over to them and pulled her back into my arms. Neal knew what I was doing, and he shook his head and laughed. “I heard somebody open the door, and nobody should open the door and walk in uninvited.”

“Hey, man, Neal was the one who opened the door and walked in. I grabbed him from downstairs on my way up so he would know what was going on. I knew he’d want to be informed of the case,” Brock explained.

Neal looked confused. “What case? All the cases I’m working on with your team are closed.”

“It seems the case wasn’t closed. Patty has been getting emails from the same stalker,” I replied to Neal.

Neal paced back and forth, cussing under his breath. His hands were closing into fists and opening. “Patty, please tell me what Brock said on the way up about you receiving emails from a stalker is false?” Neal fumed at Patty.

“Well, you see…”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me. The stalker is targeting Patty. I told you last month to stop frequenting Club Heavenly Flame. I didn’t say it for my health. The stalker has been targeting people going to that club.”

Patty turned a lovely shade of red and settled deeper into my hug. There was no point in standing around the kitchen, yelling and pointing fingers. We needed to sit down, eat, and figure out what to do.

“Let’s sit down, come up with a plan, and stop trying to fix the past.” At least I was levelheaded about the situation, even though I was still angry Patty was a target.

Everyone sat down around the table. The view in the dining room overlooked the ocean. The sun was just setting, and it was picturesque and quiet. It looked peaceful—nothing like our conversation was about to be. I had to go into mission-planning mode to figure out how I would protect Patty from this cruel man.

“She needs a bodyguard on her,” Neal demanded.

“Brock can be her bodyguard during the day. We will make it look like he is a client. I’m going to stay here at night.”

Brock was already nodding. I could see from the look on Patty’s face that she was not pleased with the situation.

* * *

Patty

Who dothese guys think they are? They can’t just come in and take over my life.They had already decided who would go to work with me and who would stay at my house.

I might have had a crush on him for longer than a week, but I’d really only known Sam for a week. We’d talked, like, twice—and he was staying in my house! I should’ve listened to Neal. But I had gone to Club Heavenly Flame one more time, and I guess my awesomeness attracted a dumb stalker. Heavenly Flame was a nightclub that catered to music from the nineties. The last time I went to the club, they were doing a best boy band of the nineties night.

It’s time to put this bodyguard shit to rest.The emails had been coming in for over a month, and nothing had happened. I didn’t need somebody watching me all the time.

“Um, hell no, I don’t want a bodyguard. You guys can all go fuck yourselves.” I might have been a little over dramatic.Damn, I don’t want a guard.

Sam leveled me the death stare, or maybe it was that Dom stare. Neal has a similar one. All I’d wanted was a beautiful night with Sam. They continued to argue among themselves, not even blinking an eye to my demand. Since they weren’t giving me an option or even taking my opinion into account, I grabbed my plate and headed back toward my computer room, a.k.a. Lair.

At least Lemon was on my side. She got up and left with me. “Come on, girl. These guys are ignoring us.”

As I was leaving, Sam told me he would catch me up with everything they figured out. When I was almost to my office, he yelled for me not to do a Google search. That was like putting a red button in front of me and saying, “Do not press.” Anyone would push it and see what happened.

I went into my office and started Google searching. When the first images came up, I knew I should’ve listened to Sam. A woman in her early thirties had been brutally murdered. The cops had a hard time identifying the woman because the killer had cut the body into parts. It seemed the killer had also used acid on the body, along with other torture devices.

I needed to start working with people I trusted instead of coming up with my own plan. I would listen to Sam and Neal this time to help keep myself out of danger. Sam showed up in my office about an hour later. He let me know Brock would go with me to work tomorrow, and after seeing the photos and everything I saw online, I didn’t want to argue.

We spent the remaining part of the night on the couch, watching aBig Bang Theorymarathon because my almighty Dom and savior had never seen it. There was no way I could date a guy who didn’t like the show, so we had to do a marathon to make sure he liked it.

Sam walked me to the door of my bedroom. Before walking in, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me in for a kiss. The kiss was demanding. Immediately, I wrapped my arms around his neck. His hands ran down my back and rested on my ass. By the time Sam pulled back, I was breathless and wanting more.

He leaned down one more time and kissed me on the nose. “Good night, pixie.” Sam proceeded to turn around and walk toward the spare bedroom. I spent a few more minutes standing in my doorway, dumbfounded. How could he leave me wanting more and not give it to me?

8

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