“Right,” I say, swallowing my panic. I was hoping to have a few hours alone in the house, at least. “You’ll need me back at the Nest, then?”
“Not right away,” he says, “I want to go for a run before we head out. Been slacking since you got here. It’s hard to get out the door to run a few miles when you got a sexy woman in your bed.”
“At least we’ve been finding other ways to stay active,” I smile. A long run, huh? That should do the trick. As long as he’s gone long enough for me to do a little prying.
“Be careful,” Leo warns, chomping down on a thick slice of bacon, “I don’t want to have to sweep all this delicious food to the floor so I can have my way with you right on this table.”
I shake my head, grinning like a lovesick kid. But that’s what Leo makes me feel like, after all. Even amid all this impending chaos, I can’t help but be charmed by him. Taking in the sight of him, shirtless across the breakfast table, one thing becomes abundantly clear. I can’t say goodbye to all of this after only three days.
I just can’t.
Leo takes his time with breakfast, fraying my nerves even further. I’m wound as tight as a spring by the time he finishes up and goes upstairs to throw on some running clothes. I turn down his offer to help with the dishes and give him a kiss, sending him off to log some miles. At long last, the front door closes behind him, and the security system arms itself. I watch him jog down the driveway and around the bend, holding my breath. Finally, he disappears from my sight. The house is all mine.
I dart through Leo’s home, heart in my throat. I can’t think about what I’m doing for more than a second, or I might lose my nerve. I find his office, a sunny room on the second floor I’ve never stepped foot in before. To my immense delight, Leo’s laptop is open and unlocked. His desktop is unguarded, all of his information an open book for my perusal.
“Thank god,” I mutter, settling down before the computer. Now my work can begin.
I open up Leo’s email inbox and start scrolling frantically through his messages. I don’t have to search too long before I start coming across the infamous emails—the ones Kassie warned me about. A dozen such messages have arrived in the past few days, all from different email addresses. My jaw drops open as I read them. Each is more damning than the next, and each contains some sordid tale about a dreadful wrong committed by Dante’s Nine against the Devil’s Wraiths.
One message claims that John Baxter has been stockpiling arms for a hostile takeover of the Wraith’s Nest. Another says that Chuck and Kip have been frequenting the Playpen, trying to woo the dancers away in order to tank the Wraith’s business. Yet another claims that the Nine are planning to rat the Wraiths out for prostitution and drug running if they don’t cede some territory around Vegas. Each of the messages is wildly untrue, but just plausible enough to be troubling.
The worst of the messages is about Sam, my late bearded companion. I remember his kind eyes so vividly as I read an anonymous account of how Declan has been telling anyone who will listen that Leo murdered Sam. The email describes the rumors in infuriating detail: Declan’s supposedly been claiming that Sam knew Leo’s sister Emilia as a kid, maybe had a fling with her, and that Leo took Sam out because of some spiteful grudge. It’s absolutely absurd.
“Let’s see who you fuckers are, starting all this...” I mutter, scanning through all of the different email addresses.
It doesn’t take much work to figure out where an email has arrived from. All you have to do is identify the IP address of the sender. Different computers have different IP addresses, and those can tell you who owns the device. I set to work tracing the dozen emails back to their sources, and a strange pattern starts to emerge at once. Each individual email is linked to the same IP address. Each one of these messages was sent from the same computer.
“What the...?” I breathe, double checking my findings. There’s no doubt about it. One user has sent all these outrageous emails. But who is this fucker, and what is he up to?
I jump about a foot in the air as I hear the security alarm start to beep. I glance at the clock on Leo’s desktop and gasp. Jesus, how has an hour gone by already? With quivering fingers, I close out of all the windows I have open and charge out of the computer room. I fly to the top of the stairs, peering down to find Leo in the entryway. His face is flushed and satisfied, but the corners of his lips turn down when he catches a glimpse of my expression.
“You OK, babe?” he asks, taking the stairs two at a time to join me upstairs.
“I’m...Um...” I stammer. Is it time to tell him what I’ve been up to? No. Not just yet. I need to figure out who’s been sending these emails first. “I’m fine. Just waking up, still.”
“Well hurry up,” he laughs, “I’m gonna hop in the shower, and then we can get going. Sound good?”
“Oh. Sure,” I say, “Do you, um, mind if I hop on your computer for a second? Want to check in with the rest of the world.”
“Sure thing,” he says, kissing me on the forehead, “Knock yourself out.”
I wait until he’s disappeared into the bathroom and fly back to the office at once. I’m racing with the clock, now, and so close to solving this once and for all. My fingers fly over the keyboard, pulling up page after page of information. It’s surprisingly easy to pin down a name attached to the offending IP address. But in no time at all, I’ve got it. I stare at the unfamiliar name, completely at a loss as to who it might be.
“Michael Lorenzo?” I mutter, tasting the name on my tongue, “Who the hell is that?”
No time to find out now. The shower shuts off in the other room, and I close out of my open windows once again. I hurry to meet Leo out in the hallway. A pulse of lust cuts through my panic as he sidles toward me in nothing but a towel. Goddammit Kelly, focus, I chide myself.
“All yours,” he says, laying a hand on my arm.
“Thanks,” I say weakly, “I’ll just be a second. Then we can go.”
“Sounds good,” he replies, as I skirt past him into the bathroom.
I close the door sharply behind me and turn on the shower once again. Locking the door, I pull my cell phone out of my pocket. Thank god for having far too much access to the internet. Perched on the edge of the tub, I pull up my phone’s internet browser and punch in “Michael Lorenzo, Las Vegas, Nevada”. At once, results start popping up, and I scroll through them with eager, vindictive interest. It takes a while to touch on anything good, but no one’s safe from their own internet history. Now I’ve got him...