“WhenYouWereYoung”—TheKillers
“Well, holy shit. I might’ve found something.” My fingers flew over the keys as I pulled back layer after layer of information that didn’t make sense. I downloaded most of it because I knew someone who might understand what I was looking at.
About a week ago, a guy who called himself Vladimir hired me to help find his sister. The authorities couldn’t find anything that showed she was actually missing, since she’d gone on vacation and wasn’t supposed to be back yet. They believed she simply didn’t want her brother interrupting her trip, but he was convinced she was tied up in some bad shit.
It wasn’t something I normally did, because I wasn’t that good, but we’d met in a dark web chat room I’d been hanging out in for years. It had been a good source for small jobs. My heart had gone out to him. I didn’t question how he’d gotten in, because that wasn’t something you did in there.
I’d hit a lucky break the other day, but it had been a total fluke. When I was checking her credit card history, something seemed off. I started digging. Somehow, I tapped into a business that operated as a shell corporation for a few sketchy investments, some intellectual property, and several ships. There was money regularly transferred into the account from various other accounts and then disbursed into a single offshore account. Tonight I found out the shell corporation also owned several private islands in the Caribbean.
The reason I was looking at all was because she had said something to her brother about meeting a guy who was a lot older but had a lot of money. He had reportedly taken her on a luxury vacation. The clues Vladimir had were minimal and had led me on a wild goose chase at first. Then I figured out the older guy’s name was a bogus identity that was listed in connection with the shell company. He actually worked as a car salesman.
After everything had downloaded, I made notes on what little I’d found that might help and sent it to him. I wasn’t sure how much further I wanted to go with his missing sister, because it was getting way above my knowledge base. As far as the other files went, I planned to reach out to another contact to see what he made of them.
After I sent off the email to Vladimir, I poured my fourth glass of wine and started another search.
As I finished the last of the cheap wine, I scrolled through what had come up. Though it seemed crazy, the proof had been in front of me. Living and breathing proof. If I’d questioned it, his calling me Lila reinforced it.
“Of all the places I could’ve moved, I had to go to the same fucking area as Lucian Donovan Stone. Jesus help me.” I shoved the computer away and buried my face in my trembling hands. Self-preservation screamed that I needed to pack my shit and move.
The problem was my traitorous heart—because the thought of intentionally leaving him again ripped me apart worse than the bullets that had pierced my chest eleven years ago. My fingertips slipped into the V-neck of my shirt and traced the scars hidden under tattoos. Every cell in my body screamed for him, and I didn’t know what to do with that.
Simply seeing him set off a shifting in my chest. As if the broken pieces of my heart that I’d so haphazardly shoved back together were trying to click back into place properly.
I uncurled the fingers of my other hand and stared at the bold print on my palm. I’d been taken aback when he said it was his brother’s birthday party that night, because Lucian hadn’t had any siblings. It made me wonder if after he got out of prison, he found siblings he didn’t know about.
Until I looked up the address. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I muttered.
Lucian was a member of the Royal Bastards MC. I’d encountered them a couple of times since moving to Iowa, and they were intimidating to say the least. The Lucian I knew didn’t know how to ride a motorcycle. Also, I didn’t understand why he’d want to be a part of something that had a big stigma of being a gang. It seemed like it would be a bad idea, but I’d encountered a lot of shit over the years that told me to never question a thing. Yet to question everything.
Me: I need you to call me
Ryan: In the middle of something. You okay for about 30 minutes?
Me: Yes
It was insane that the only person I really considered a friend was a man I’d never actually met. Ryan was my case agent in WITSEC.
I’d been put in protective custody after the attack on my family. After all, I’d plainly seen the men who shot and killed my parents. Someone like Luis Trujillo wasn’t a man who would let me walk away if he knew I was still alive.
My father had a lot of enemies, it seemed. To this day, I hadn’t figured out what his connection was to Luis Trujillo. The only thing I knew was that they took all my father’s files and his laptop. No one ever said why. The only thing I could figure was my dad had something on him.
It was easier to let the world think I was dead and put me in witness protection since Luis wasn’t able to be tried, meaning I couldn’t testify. The thing is, that wouldn’t have mattered to Luis. He was the type of person that would’ve had me killed to tie up “loose ends.” Meanwhile, I was initially babysat, then lived my life in hiding for over ten years while Luis greased palms in Mexico to avoid extradition.
It fucking sucked.
They sent me through school to be a nurse, but I ended up hating it. It was nothing like being a veterinarian, like I thought I wanted to do as a kid. Initially, I worked as a traveling nurse because it fed my lost and wandering soul. After too many bad patient experiences, I quit. I found I couldn’t handle losing patients. I’d done a little waitressing, some bartending, and I’d worked several other jobs before I finally became a self-taught piercer. With that and the light hacking, I could travel to deal with the restlessness that came with not knowing who I was anymore. As long as I stayed dead, there was no reason for them to look for me. At least that’s what we hoped. So far, it seemed to have worked.
The only other friend I would say I had was another person I’d never actually met. They went by the name Juggernaut. We never exchanged real names, but in one conversation he’d let it slip he was a guy. That’s really all I knew about him, and he didn’t know a lot about me. He knew me as Scarlett O’Hara.
I’d met him online in a shady-as-fuck chat room that I’d figured out how to enter my first year in hiding. No, I wasn’t a hacker per se, but I had been bored. Entertaining myself, I found I had an aptitude for computers. Since the law couldn’t seem to find my parents’ killers, I thought I might be able to.
Then I’d done some sketchy shit to make money over the years. Little things like going in and changing grades. Or doing electronic surveillance for women who thought their husbands were cheating. Posting exposing shit on their social media accounts. The worst I’d done was emptying the bank accounts of a rich prick who had molested kids. I donated it all to every kids’ program I could think of.
In a way, it was how I thumbed my nose at the law, since they couldn’t find a way to bring Luis to justice.
I logged onto my computer running a Linux TAILS operating system and connected to the coffee shop next door’s Wi-Fi network. Following all the steps I’d been taught, I opened up a virtual machine using virtualBox, then went through a VPN in combination with a proxy server. Once I was in the Tor browser, I sent the message through to Juggernaut. All the things I knew to protect myself—most of which I’d learned from him. I shouldn’t have to worry, but I always did.
Me: I need some help