Page 88 of Parker

But as the minutes passed by, the more confident Quinn became that she was safe to move. So she’d movedfast.

And now there was nothing more to do than wait and pray.

This has to work. It has to.

In order for her plan to be a success, three things had to happen. Parker had to see the messages, realize what they meant, and get to her before Victor put a bullet through her heart.

The first two didn’t worry her. Her man was as smart as they came. But that third one…

Please see the messages, Park. See them and come to me. Just like you did before.

Quinn looked at the tiny clock in the upper right corner. It had been an hour and a half since she’d sent the first one, and not knowing whether he’d seen any of them yet was driving her mad.

Inside only, of course. Outwardly, she’d kept the same emotionless expression she’d worn since that gun was fired and Justin took his last breath.

Victor hadn’t wasted any time after that, either. He’d unceremoniously grabbed her arm and yanked her right out of that room, leaving the man he’d just killed where he lay.

After forcing her outside and into his car, the asshole had kept his gun pointed at her gut while the man from the plane drove. Several miles and turns later, Victor had ordered him to pull into the lot connected to the building they were in now.

A stark difference from where she’d originally been held, the three-story flat-roofed lodge was in relatively good condition. But from the overgrown weeds and tilted for-sale sign, the former tourist spot appeared to have been empty for quite some time.

The owners had apparently decided to keep the electricity connected, probably so it would be ready for possible showings. It was also a plausible reason Victor had chosen this particular building.

Computers required power, and for the job he’d ordered her to do, Quinn needed a bunch.

She could hardly believe it when the man had shared his reasons for going along with Justin’s scheme to nab her.

Apparently when they were in prison together, Justin had gone on and on about how she’d set him up, and how he couldn’t wait to get out to make her pay. But in all of Justin’s ramblings, what Victor heard was that his cell mate had a connection to the hacking world.

One that could handle the job he’d been plotting ever since the judge handed down his sentence.

So—to hear Victor tell it, anyway—he’d listened patiently, pretending to care about poor Justin’s bad luck and conniving girlfriend. And little by little, he planted the seeds of what would eventually become a plan to use the user.

Justin used Victor’s connections in the FBI to find where she lived. They waited until they knew their plan was a go, and then Vic’s guy began leaving those toying, terrifying notes.

And when Victor and Justin had everything in place on the inside—courtesy of a dirty guard with an eye for smooth-talking criminals—they managed to escape.

Hacking the system and switching your release dates. Well done, Justin. Well freaking done.

But what Justin didn’t know was, the entire time he’d been using Victor to get to her…good ol’ Vic had been usinghimfor the same reason. Only he didn’t want Quinn to steal for him.

He wanted revenge.

That’s what Victor’s demand entailed. Revenge against everyone and anyone who’d played a part in his arrest and conviction.

The Feds who’d made the case against him. The prosecutor who’d destroyed his own attorney in court. His own attorney for allowing himself tobedestroyed in court. The judge who’d sentenced him to a federal prison.

Victor had a list of names, social security numbers, birth dates…everything she needed to destroy a person’s life. And that wasn’t all.

The final task she’d been given…the one she’d spent the last day and a half pretending to do…

Write a malicious code and sneak it into the software used by Sacred Securities—the cyber security company whose program had been used to catch Victor’s illegal ways. But he didn’t want to corrupt their entire mainframe, as she’d expected to hear.

He wanted her to gain access to their clientele data so he could steal information remotely. And from what she’d been able to see during her pseudo hacking the last sixteen hours—because he refused to let her rest until the job was done—Quinn surmised Victor would potentially be able to steal millions…if not billions.

All while destroying the company he blamed for his downfall.

Lord forbid anyone take responsibility for their own actions anymore.

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