Page 33 of The Hate We Breathe
If Juliet hears me, she doesn’t respond. I glance down to find her eyes rolled back into her head and her body trembling with the force of her own orgasm as between our legs, her pussy gushes with wetness. A groan steals my voice and it’s game over for me. My second orgasm rises up from the depths of my soul with an explosion to rival an atom bomb.
I continue fucking her as I erupt, painting the pink walls of her cunt with my cum until I can’t anymore. Moments later, I collapse on top of her, spent and drained. Both of us are panting and sweat slick. I half fear that I really did take it too far and she’ll shove me off in the next second.
To my amazement, however, Jules’ hands come up and stroke through my hair. I nuzzle down between her breasts. This woman doesn’t seem to realize it, but she holds the reins to our leashes. All of us—Gio, Lex, and even me.
Maybe it started out with just us—my friends and I—but she’s become so much a part of us that there is no separating where we end and she begins. And this right here, I tell myself—remind myself—is exactly why I am still putting up with Darrio.
I’ll protect her, take care of her, and get her the hell out of this godforsaken town if it’s the last thing I do. I have no qualms about using every tool and weapon in my arsenal to do it.
13
LEX
It’s three a.m. and my head is killing me. Gio left hours ago, claiming that since Juliet isn’t here, he was going to go home and sleep in his own bed. I can’t blame him. Part of the reason why I’m still up is because of the same reason. I sleep better when she’s around, but if I try to chain her to my bed and keep her all to myself… that would dim her shine.
If I want to make her happy, then I need to let her make her own decisions. Still…
I click on one of the screens to my right and bring the flat box with the recording of a darkened room to the front. Juliet sits up on the bed as lights flash over the blinds of Nolan’s bedroom. My phone beeps and I withdraw it to double-check. Just as I expected, Nolan is just now getting home. Fucking Darrio. I can’t wait until we kill that asshole.
Moving away from the image of the bedroom, I return to my other task. My eyes scan down the computer screens anchored to the wall and I sit atop the desk until I find the security camera I hacked into earlier. The angle is a little off—the purpose of this camera is meant to capture the front of most of the cells in this prison block—but I can see the man lying inside the cell.
Allen Donovan is curled on his side, looking thinner than when he was first arrested, but that’s no surprise. Most people tend to become sharpened over time in prison. Sometimes, that’s muscles, and sometimes, it’s the bones that jut out beneath their skin. It’s as if so much time spent alone with themselves turns them into little more than blades.
I type something out quickly on my computer, scrolling through the messages I had waiting for me when I got home. There are two from some of my hacker friends, one from Viks, and another that goes directly into spam and then trash. I don’t know how it happens, but even using the dark web doesn’t get rid of those annoying marketing emails.
My mouse hovers over Viks’ name before I slide it up and click on one of the hackers’ messages. I read it quickly, frowning when it reveals that he had no luck finding anything odd in the files and banking of the Donovan family.Useless.I curse beneath my breath and move to the second message, prepared for further disappointment.
I straighten when the email isn’t a message at all, but a zip file. There are no words. No subject line. No signature. There never is on these types of emails. Though I want nothing more than to open the damn file and get to the information, I wouldn’t be the 5C0RP10N if I didn’t take precautions.
Sliding away from the desk, I bend and rummage around underneath the surface until I find a little black box. Setting it on the side of the keyboard and monitor I’m using, I then reach for the associated cord. Once it’s plugged in, I open up the coding system that I built myself some months back and let the added security system scan through the data, downloading it to the mini server.
Minutes later, the system goes off, letting me know that the zip files have been cleared. I lean close enough that the edge of the desk slides against my stomach as I click on it. As soon as Ido, dozens of pages and files pop up along my screen, spreading out over the monitors along either side of my primary one and even up to the ones on the walls.
Some are videos, I realize, when they begin automatically playing—sans sound since I have that system currently turned off. Frowning, I stare at what the pictures and videos reveal. I don’t recognize anyone in them, but I wait—sure the hacker that sent me these has a reason for doing so.
Not wanting to miss anything, I don’t speed up the videos, but sit and watch them carefully—eyes roving, trying to pick up any detail and analyze it. Seven minutes and thirty-two seconds into the video closest to my primary screen, I see it.
Stopping all of the videos, I bring the one I want forward and blow it up before starting it again. Denise Donovan walks into the scene, her hair pulled up in a tight bun, her face pale. In the few months that she’s been missing, she’s aged considerably. Her normally coiffed and dyed hair has graying strands woven throughout. The wrinkles that line her once pretty face are deeper.
Is that what happens when you miss too many Botox appointments? I thought it took time for that shit to wear off, but it looks like Denise Donovan has been through the wringer and come out the other side a few years shorter. Without her expensive clothes and makeup, she looks like any other normal woman.
I turn on the volume and wince when it pierces my ears for a second with all of the minute sounds. Whatever microphone had been attached to the camera is obviously low quality. There’s no barrier or dulling of the unnecessary sounds. Every movement, breath, and footstep echoes through my speakers. I have to strain to hear the conversation between Denise and the other man and woman on-screen.
“…affair wouldn’t prove anything,” the unknown woman is saying. I take a quick screenshot of her face and save it to a secondary file to search for her later.
“It has to!” Denise Donovan’s voice is desperate, her body on film trembling as she moves closer to the couple in front of her.
The two unknowns sit, relaxed and reclined in what appears to be a booth table of sorts, but there’s no background to suggest they’re in a restaurant. A private club, maybe?
“We’ve searched through all of the files that you were able to give us,” the unknown woman states. She brushes long blonde hair out of her face and frowns at Denise, her lips curling down in distaste or perhaps annoyance. “We can prove that Morpheus was sleeping with the girl, but not that it was forced and not that he had any sort of involvement with the embezzlement of your husband’s company.”
The man remains interestingly silent, watching the two women with a half-shadowed face. I need the fucker to lean forward so I can get a snapshot of his features too, but he never does.
Denise turns away from the two and stalks away, only to about-face and stride back. She goes right up to the edge of their table and slams her palms down.
“I know he did it,” she insists. “He assaulted my daughter! He’s trying to ruin us so he can take her.”
Holy shit.I sit back. Juliet’s mother knew what happened to her. I hadn’t expected that. Does Juliet know?
