Page 25 of Breaking Conviction
“Hells yeah I called Naomi. Hawk said we needed to try to use her to go through the list.”
“Nora, she works for one of the companies that helps throw this thing!”
Nora rolled her eyes. “I know you don’t think she has anything to do with this crap. She was naïve enough to trust you with the list in the first place. I bet she’ll want to help. Color me an optimist, but she doesn’t seem the type to knowingly involve herself with a company that would harbor and support sex traffickers.”
“Nora, I don’t want her mixed up in all this shit. We can do this without her.”
Nora frowned and wagged her finger at him. “Come on, Snake, you’re sounding like Jason and Devil treating Ellie with kid gloves. Don’t let your BDE turn into Big Dumbass Energy, too. Naomi’s a grown-ass adult, dude. We’ll set up the sitch and see if she wants to help.”
“Nora, you don’t understand. We didn’t end on exactly the best note last week. I’m telling you, if I was hanging off a cliff with one hand, she’d stomp on my fingers. I doubt she’ll want to help if I’m involved. I think I’ve made her smile maybe once.”
“See! You guys are already in lurve! I knew creating those false alarm signals at Sasha Saves would do the trick.” She covered her hands with her heart and sighed like a lovesick teen. “It feels amazing to use my techno powers for good.”
Wes groaned before lifting his glasses and swiping his hands down his face. “I can’t believe it’s been you this whole time. I was seriously about to overhaul the whole system.”
Nora scoffed and propped her hands on her hips in mock disappointment. “I’m a wee bit offended you didn’t figure it out yourself, Superman. Did you really think I was too dumb to turn on a motherfluffin’ switch? I mean,come on.”
“Nope, didn’t figure it out. I guess that makes us 0-1 since you pulled a tech hack over on me.”
“Yasss! Victory!” Nora cheered before making a show of propping her legs up on the desk again and leaning back with her arms behind her head. “Don’t worry Superman, someday you’ll pull one over on me and you’ll get to be the king.”
“Hello?”
Naomi’s soft voice called down the hall and Nora winked at him.
“Oh, and look at that, my good sir, your queen has arrived.”
Chapter Ten
“In here, doll!”
Nora jumped out of her chair and headed to the door, but Wes was still too flustered to know what to do with himself. He and Naomi hadn’t had a proper conversation in a week, the last time she chewed him out for being too nosy. Since then, she hadn’t looked at him as anything more than something to scrape off her heel.
“Nay-oh-meee,” Nora sang out the door and disappeared into the hallway, coming back linked arm in arm with the beautiful woman in question.
“Snake?” Naomi’s head jolted back with a confused look on her face. “What are you doin’ here?”
“Seriously? I work here, Naomi…” Wes scoffed, annoyed she would come into his home and still be rude. Normally her attitude was cute, but today he’d been just as thrown off as she was. The last place he wanted her to be was mixed in with all this. Everything BlackStone was caught up in was dangerous as fuck.
At least this time, she had the decency to look chagrined. Her fist scrunched up the hem of her sweater as she studied the concrete floor. “I know. Sorry, I don’t know why I said that. I was just… surprised. I didn’t knowyouwere gonna be here.”
Her shaky voice and fidgeting set off alarm bells. The last sentence could’ve ruined the apology, but the way she’d said it, accompanied by her obvious anxiety, made him wonder what else was behind her reaction.
Is she afraid of me?
As soon as he asked himself, he dismissed the thought. She was terrified of someone else, and somehow he triggered that in her. The need to set her at ease squeezed his heart in his chest, but if he was part of the problem, he couldn’t be the solution. She also seemed like the type of person who might need to figure shit out on her own.
“Here you go, Naynay.” Nora pulled out another rolly chair from the round wooden table in the middle of the room. It was the only other furniture in the roomful of concrete and electronics, and where all the BlackStone meetings were held.
“Not sure I’m a fan of that nickname,Nono.” Naomi muttered under her breath.
Nora barked out a laugh. “I like it, but I’ll try to think up another one, don’t you worry.”
She placed the chair between the one she’d been sitting in and Wes’s, a move he would’ve attributed to Miss Stupid Cupid’s diabolical plan except that it also situated Naomi in the best position to observe every screen.
Nora waved her hand in a voilà flourish and Naomi looked at her like she’d grown a second head before reluctantly taking a seat beside Wes. Naomi darted her glance over in Wes’s direction, but as soon as he got a glimpse of those rich, fiery, chestnut eyes, she diverted them back to Nora.
“Sooo, what am I here for, exactly?”
