Page 157 of Fortress of the Heart

“Y-yes, I’ll tell you everything I know,” she says, glancing up at me.

Surprise, surprise.

Rocco raises his eyebrows as if to say,here we go.

She’s a beauty, there’s no doubt about it. She has long, honey blonde hair past her shoulders with a blunt cut fringe that hangs just above her brown eyes. I can’t gauge her age, maybe early twenties, but it leads me to wonder how the fuck an intelligent looking girl like this has ended up working amongst these assholes. It must be fucking paying well, that’s all I can say.

Nobody does this unless it’s for some serious pay dirt.

“What do you know?” Enzo butts in. “Start from the beginning.”

Good question.

“I get jobs through a contact I’ve never met. My boss, whom I’ve never met, contacted me in high school when I broke into the database as a dare and the entire school security system had to be redesigned.” She looks a little sheepish as she blinks in rapid succession. “I want to clarify that I just build firewalls, scramble phones, and alter security images. I won't delve into anything more sinister. In fact, I’ve been approached by more than one government organization and several banking corporations to track and upgrade their security systems.”

My ears perk up. She could be a very valuable asset to us. I can’t wait for Angelo to get a hold of this. It’s taking a very different turn from what I expected.

“Meaning, you could also hack into them?” I cock an eyebrow.

She nods. “I could, yes, but I’m not…I’m not looking at going to jail for the rest of my life. I’m only twenty-one.”

She looks younger. Maybe it’s her innocence and the fact she’s trembling like a leaf.

Rocco keeps up his pacing. He flexes his fists as he does so, clearly on edge because he knows as well as I do that this could be very bad news. He’s the one who takes out the trash, and I know that he hasn’t killed a woman before. Thankfully, it seems as though this woman just got caught up with the wrong people, at the wrong time. At least, I hope so.

I stay on my haunches and take a deep breath. “What happened with this last job? What do you know about it?”

“Please, will you untie me?” she replies.

Rocco shakes his head behind her. Not trusting her one bit.

“If you answer our questions, then yes,” I say.

She blows out a slow breath. “My boss gave me a number, and that’s how we made the deal. I make all my deals that way. I never actually meet them in person or see them. Anonymity in this business is crucial.”She’s fucking smart too.“So, they contacted me and wanted me to put up a firewall on all their devices, phone scramblers, you name it. Whatever they were doing, they did not want one trace of it leading back to them. It wasn’t that hard, though I did spend time building the software from scratch and then had to test run it from the ground up and ensure the configurations would withstand the web interfaces I’d made.”

I watch her carefully. “You’re very good at what you do, Sloane, but did you know that your actions almost caused a lot of people to be killed?”

She swallows again. “I didn’t see how. I made it clear I won’t work for the dark web…I’ve no interest in getting into anything like that.”

“That’s just it. The person you helped and their organization were running a people smuggling ring involving underaged women and children,” I say, watching her eyes widen. “No doubt you’ve seen it on the news. There was a big raid a few weeks back. One of the women belongs with us, the other to a powerful Russian Bratva Don. Both were going to be sold to an overseas prostitution ring.”

She shakes her head. “I…I didn’t know…I would never purposely be involved in something like that.”

I nod. “Is that why you’ve been inactive since the last job?”

Her bottom lip trembles. “Y… yes.”

She’s an honest thief, at least. “Tell me why.”

“I had an inkling that the firewalls I’d built had something to do with Angelo Medici. My employer never mentioned him by name, and they never told me anything like that. I swear to God, but it seemed uncanny that all of this went down right when Allegra Medici committed suicide and Angelo was apparently dead. I got my money upfront but never heard from my contact again, or my boss. I don’t even know who I was working for, I swear it. I just had a hunch, but that was after everything was across the news.” Her eyes and innocence tell me she’s telling the truth.

I see Rocco visibly relax just a little in my periphery.

She also felt safe enough to not leave the city. That is very telling. Most criminals who know what they’ve done and who they’ve crossed will flee.

My eyes meet Enzo’s; he knows too.

“I believe you, but now you have to think long and hard about any other little detail you may have, Sloane. Even the smallest thing could be helpful,” I say. I turn to Rocco. “Untie her.”

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