Page 18 of Hacker Revelation

Since she had already seen what I had tried to hide, I whisked Kat away for lunch.

7

Kat

Antonio, his brothers, Zane, Brock, and a few men I didn’t know were downstairs at the poker table set up in Club Sanctorum. Earlier, Antonio and I had walked through the club before heading up to Brock and Jessica’s apartment on the third floor. The club had been transformed for the night. In place of the spanking bench was the poker table. All the other BDSM equipment had been packed away.

The laughter in Brock and Jessica’s kitchen brought a smile to my face. Over the past few weeks, Bridget and Jessica had brought me into their fold. Being an assassin, I never had time to stop and make friends, and I hated to lie about what I did for a living.

I still hadn’t met Patty or Sam. Patty was Jessica’s twin sister and the future queen of Shialia. Her future husband used to own Club Sanctorum and Blackwood Security. When Patty had to take over for her father, who had disappeared, Patty and Sam gave everything to Brock. We were supposed to be headed to Shialia for their wedding in the next few weeks. But something had happened in Shialia, and the wedding was put on hold.

Jessica and Sophie sat at the island and snacked on a cheese tray.

“Red or white?” Bridget held a wine bottle in each hand. Each bottle had the Ross family’s name and crest on the label. My husband's family had mastered every market I could think of. It was hard to fathom how much his family was worth. I was still dealing with the fact that I was worth a billion dollars from my own trust.

I pointed to her right hand, which held the bottle of white wine. “Fill it to the top. It’s been a long day.” I enjoyed my days at the women’s center, but it was hard to see what these women went through. I wanted to help everyone that walked through the doors. Earlier, a woman I had never seen before showed up with her three-year-old boy. Both the mother and son had black and blue marks on their bodies. It took everything in me not to head out the door and find the man who hurt them.

My afternoon had been spent checking her into the facility, and I made sure she and her son had everything they needed. The fact she had taken steps to get out of harm's way made me feel better.

“Is not being able to kill someone wearing on your soul? I figured you and Antonio would be making up for years of no sex. How do you have time to kill people?”

Leave it to Bridget to get straight to the point without giving me time to have a couple glasses of wine. They had included me in the group text that talked about my habit of killing people. I chose to ignore the text messages. It was harder to ignore people who stood in front of you.

“I killed five people, and everyone has an issue.”

Sophie grabbed a piece of cheese from the tray before asking, “Only five?”

“Fine. A few more than five. Does it really matter how many? If you would have seen what happened to these women at the shelter, every one of you would’ve done the same. Lily came into the shelter last week with a limp and a black-and-blue eye. When her husband and his friend came after me for keeping him from Lily, I had no qualms about defending myself. I would’ve preferred to kill Greg, though, rather than the man he brought along.”

“Speaking of women needing help to protect themselves, when are you going to do another self-defense class? Tomorrow would be great. Your classes always help me relieve stress. Mr. Ross has been extra cranky at work, and it is driving me crazy.”

Tomorrow was my first day off from the women’s center. I had worked at the center nonstop for the past two weeks, and I wanted to spend my day off on some leads I had on Juan.

Bridget set down her apple juice. She kept Sophie’s and my wine glasses flowing with wine, but Jessica and Bridget were both drinking apple juice. “Don’t let my husband push you around. He’s under stress about the second baby.” She rubbed her hand across the bulge of her six-month belly. “Tomorrow would work great for me too. I need to get in as many classes as possible before I can’t see my toes again.”

“Tomorrow is not going to work for me,” I said.

“Why not?” Sophie asked. She leveled her eyes at me and waited for the excuse I was going to make up.

I spouted the first thing that came to mind. “I’m working at the shelter.”

“Liar. I know you aren’t working at the shelter. Try again.” I loved having Sophie back in my life, but it made it harder to get away with undercover work.

“I’m volunteering at Ant’s school.”

Sophie shook her head, not buying my excuse.

“Grocery shopping?”

“Try again.”

“Going to the mall?”

“You buy everything on Amazon. Do you even know where a mall is?”

She was right. If I ran out of anything, I bought it on Amazon. When I arrived home each night, it was like Christmas. Half of the time, I didn’t know what was in the box I was about to open. Sophie would keep on me until I told her what I was planning, or she would show up at my house tomorrow and follow me.

“Fine. I found out Antonio is keeping information from me about the Sanchez case. I’m going to go check out the information.”

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