Page 68 of Red Hunt

I took those stairs to Milli’s apartment two at a time. Blake had told me she was okay, but until I could verify that with my own eyes…until I could see she was okay in my presence, I wouldn’t believe it.

I stopped at her doorstep. Peter kissed the top of her head before he turned toward me. He crossed the room, gripped my shoulder, squeezed, and then left. Milli sat on her sofa like I’d seen her so many times before, her big eyes on me, open, vulnerable. Then she stared down at her hands and there was a sudden dropping sensation deep inside of me. I’d known she’d been timid before, suspected she’d suffered abuse. But in my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have imagined the terrible things she’d gone through. Couldn’t get the picture out of my head of her looking at me with so much hatred.

“I’m sorry.”

Her head shot up, and she looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.

“What for?”

“Everything.”

She smiled.

At least she could smile again even though I stayed put in the doorway to her apartment. “You shouldn’t have seen this.”

“I hacked your computer.”

A flush of adrenaline swept through my body like too cold water drunken too fast. “You did what?”

“I hacked your computer. I do that sometimes.”

“You hack computers?”

“Or forums, or dark websites. Stuff like that.”

I couldn’t believe what she was saying, then my eyes fell on her notebook—not your usual fancy unit someone would use for surfing the web but Grade A stuff. Stuff only a gamer would use, or a programmer, or a hacker. But how would someone like Milli even know stuff like that? Why feel the need to hack into things?

“I recognized the filename. Those dumb bastards don’t rename the files they’re circulating.”

This took my breath. Dizziness made my ears ring, and I gripped the door frame. She’d known. She’d known that copies of those videos of her were still out there. “Oh, dove.” It was more a groan, ripped from a place deep inside. A manifestation of the pain, the agony I was feeling for her.

“Usually, I never watch them, though. Try to forget they’re even out there.”

Fuck.

I stood there, frozen in place. Didn’t know what to say or do. I wanted to hold her but didn’t dare move. But my mind ran a mile a minute, and suddenly it was clear as day, the reason for her becoming a hacker.

“You’re hunting them.” It wasn’t a question. I’d never been more sure of anything in my life.

She nodded. “Me and my team.”

My eyebrows shot up. Her team? What the fuck? I shook my head. Never in a million years would I’ve guessed that of her. Milli and I were obsessed with the same damn thing. Even that part of her fit into my life perfectly.

Astounding.

Or did she know? Did she target me on purpose?

“The Greyhounds… It’s my way of fighting back. My way of taking control. Usually, I’m handling it much better. But finding that clip on your computer…thinking you were one of them…it caught me off guard and dumped me back into that darkness.”

My breath got caught in my chest. She hadn’t known about my work…or my involvement with the Greyhounds, for that matter. I had to come clean about all of it, but how devastated she must’ve felt when she saw, what she found.

“I’m so sorry.”

She chuckled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m sorry for threatening to cut you open.”

I shrugged. “You had every right, having found what you did. Having believed what you did. Even if you’d killed me, I couldn’t fault you for that.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “But you would be dead.”

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