“Malik, the guy who drove us here. Who’d you think I was talking about?”
“Oh.” Trudy moved her arm off of me and started to twiddle her fingers together, probably her nervous tick. I didn’t know Trudy well, but I liked her so far. She seemed trustworthy and I recognized that she’d gone above and beyond to stick her neck out for me thus far. “He seems alright. I think we’re safe with him. So that’s good,” she said.
“I was thinking something more risqué than that, but alright, whatever you say.”
Trudy turned to me, a frown on her brow. “Let’s just stay alive for now, okay kiddo?”
“Yes, agreed. Let’s not get dead.”
Trudy laughed, patted my head, got up and turned to face me again right before she reached the door. “Get some rest, if you can.”
I closed it behind her and locked it out of habit. I didn’t know why I always locked the door, but it was a habit from my childhood. My mom’s overprotective and overbearing nature created all of these neurotic little habits.
I sat on the edge of the bed, in the foreign space wondering why I couldn’t just mind my own business. My mom always said my curiosity would get me into trouble, and here I was, with a bounty on my head put out by none other than the world’s most notorious crime boss.
Ever since I was young, I’d had an obsession with finding out things that I had no business knowing, now it had all caught up to me. I was in a strange house, in the middle of the woods, with three strangers wondering if I’ll even be alive tomorrow.
It had never been easy for me to trust anyone, other than my mom, there really wasn’t anyone to trust growing up. I wasn’t even sure if one of those two burly, mean-looking men wouldn’t come in here during the middle of the night and slit my throat. I felt so helpless, unable to really take control of anything, weak, defenseless. I needed a keyboard instead of just indulging in feeling sorry for myself. I always felt power and control when I was online. In that space, I had clout, I had cred, I wasn’t so helpless when I was virtual.
A knock on the door startled me out of my thoughts. I shot up off the bed and rushed to the door, not really sure why I felt so uneasy with two giant strong guys in the house, supposedly looking out for me. I slowly opened the door and spotted Rafa, who I knew as Ragnar, leaning against the wall. He looked like a buff Harry Styles, bright green eyes, big and awestruck, yet slightly jaded like someone who both loved and was tired of the world and what he saw in it. He was standing there casually, legs crossed, hands in his jean pockets, looking like a cool rockstar.
“S’up,” I stammered. My mouth had gone suddenly dry and my mind was incapable of forming anything else.
“You want to run some code with me or what?” Rafa said. He pushed off the wall and walked toward me methodically, his long legs moving with purpose and precision. I was sure there was nothing that man didn’t do without putting thought into it.
“Ummm, like something you’re working on?”
He shrugged. “Sure, I got a malware system I’m trying to crack for the feds if you’re game.”
I felt a jolt of excitement course through me. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to touch your stuff?” This guy was a live wire. From what I knew of him online, he was a huge risk-taker and not afraid of anything. If he worked for the feds, I’d love to see what kind of hardware he was set up with.
“You’re not allowed unless I tell you that you can. Right now, you could help me with this program and show me what you got. You interested or what?”
I walked out of the bedroom and shut the door behind me. “I’m so excited. I get antsy in the real world. I was just about to open my laptop.”
“I know what you mean, but you really shouldn’t be logging in under any alias”
“Says the man who just asked me to run code on his system.”
He barked out a laugh making me realize Rafa was even more
attractive when he smiled, I didn’t think that was possible but apparently it was.
“You’re logging in as me. You actually think I’m crazy enough to give up your whereabouts to the Gabrielli family?”
I stood there, a little star struck and speechless. Ragnar was a legend, super low profile, so nobody really knew who he was, but he’d been credited with taking down some of the largest sex trafficking rings from Japan all the way to the United States. I was face to face with hacker royalty and he was about to let me log in as him and use his precious name.