Page 26 of Protecting it All

Dylan's hand was squeezing hers so hard it had begun to hurt. She didn't miss his whispered, "I'm gonna kill the motherfucker dead." She didn't doubt him for a second, and that made her strangely happy.

She continued her story. "He wasn't done. The sicko then led me to a desk across the office and made me..." She couldn't describe the humiliation of sitting on the dildo stool. "He tied me to the desk and made me work on entering data into an encrypted program from a leather journal. It was coded and I couldn't figure out what the data meant, but I'm sure it had sales and customer information that he wanted to keep secret."

"How long did that go on?"

"An hour or two. He made a bunch of phone calls while I worked. Some people he schmoozed as if he was trying to sell them something, but they spoke in code words. Others he yelled at. Like they had screwed something up."

Lukus had to keep prodding her to continue. "Then what happened?"

She finally opened her eyes, somehow needing to watch Dylan's reaction. "Then he pinned me over the desk and raped me." She watched his eyes cloud over with rage.

Dylan was on his feet. "God damn it! I fucking told you, Mitchell! I was sitting outside in my car like a damn moron while he was inside raping her! I should have broken in. I should have called the police. I should have—"

"Sit down, Dylan." His boss's voice was calm... too calm.

"Fuck you. I quit. I'm packing up Hannah and Connor and I'm taking them away from here, and you can't stop me."

The vehemence of his rage on her behalf surprised Hannah. Instead of being scared, she felt comforted to know he was so committed to protecting her and Connor. She reached out to take his hand again. When he looked down at her, she saw his anguish that he'd failed her.

"It's okay, Dylan. I was an idiot to go there with him. You'd tried to warn me."

"Are you kidding me? Don't you dare act like any part of this was your fault. I know what happens in that warehouse. I know what he's capable of."

Curiosity prompted her to press them. "What does go on in the warehouse?"

Lukus answered. "He's running several legal online sex rooms and phone lines. They are pretty hardcore, stretching the boundaries of consent, but as best we can tell, they aren't illegal. I have reason to believe those are just a front to cover his illegal business. My tech guru is tracing the money, but Davenport is smart. We need help from the inside to find the kind of dirt we need."

Something in the way he said the word 'inside' alarmed Hannah. "Why don't you just go to the police? I mean, if he is threatening your fiancée, they should arrest him, right?"

"If only it were that easy. He's good at covering his tracks and even better at finding people's weak spots and capitalizing on it. I'm assuming he has something on you that kept you from going to the police yourself?"

She wilted under Lukus's stare and decided to tell the truth. "I haven't had very good luck with going to the police in the past. I decided it would be easier to just disappear." She looked up at Dylan. "I'd take you up on your offer to help me and Connor get away from here if you were serious."

Before Dylan could answer, Lukus interjected again. "There is nowhere you can go where he can't find you if he wants to. Do you want to look over your shoulder for the rest of your life? Be afraid to let Connor play outside, for fear Davenport will find you? No. The only way to be free of him is to put him behind bars or, better yet, six feet under. Now think, what else do you remember?"

Her heart pounded in her chest as she debated her next move. Her decision made, Hannah stood and crossed to her freezer, reaching in to remove the leather journal she had nabbed from Jake's home office. She took it out of the frosty plastic bag and placed it in front of Lukus before returning to her seat.

The three of them sat frozen, the men both staring at her, waiting for an explanation she didn't want to give.

"I was an idiot," she said at length. "That's the journal he had me translating data from when I was at his house. I wasn't thinking when I took it. Of course, he knows I have it. He'll never leave me alone until he gets it back, and since I've experienced how he punished me for doing nothing wrong, I kinda want to avoid seeing how he decides to punish me for stealing that from his house."

Lukus's whistle confirmed what an idiot she was, right up until he spoke. “First, don’t call yourself an idiot again. Davenport is evil, but he’s smart as hell. We’re all doing what we can to get him neutralized and this might turn out to be the big break we need.”

While Lukus reached to open the journal, Dylan moved into action. "Do you have any luggage? How about boxes? I'll help you pack," he said.

Hannah sat rooted to her chair, watching Lukus leaf through the pages of the book quickly before glancing up at her. "You have any ideas on the coding system?"

"A few. I think the two letter codes are locations, and the numbers represent people or products. The lengths he is going to keep the information private alone tells me it's something illegal. At first, I thought it might be drugs."

Lukus calmly asked, "What made you think that?"

She hesitated, looking up at an agitated Dylan. "Because he drugged me when I was at his house."

Dylan was pacing around the small apartment like a caged animal searching for his prey, while Lukus pressed her calmly in contrast. "Did you lose consciousness?"

"Unfortunately, no. It made me lethargic. Like I was seeing through a tunnel. My ears rang, and..." She had to look away from Dylan as she finished her sentence. "It was like an aphrodisiac. My brain hated what was happening, but it was like I couldn't control my body."

"Motherfucker. Dead. I want him stone-cold dead," Dylan snarled.

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