Page 44 of Trick
“He is, that’s why I like to give him shit.”
My phone buzzed on the coffee table, and an email notification flashed on the screen. My heart sank at the sight, and Trick grabbed it, cursing under his breath as he read the name of the sender.
Your Soulmate.
He tapped the screen, bringing up the request for my passcode, then held out the phone for me. I stared at it for a few seconds, then slowly shook my head.
“You do it,” I mumbled, reciting the six-digit code.
He entered it, then swiped and tapped until he found what he was looking for. His jaw clenched and his expression hardened as he glared at the screen.
“Sonofabitch.”
I took a deep breath before whispering, “Let me see it.”
Trick leaned closer to me and tilted the phone so I could read the screen.
“Why are you ignoring me? Are you trying to punish me? You know I love you, and I’ve missed you so much. I didn’t mean to hurt you. You promised we’d be together, ‘til death do us part, but you lied. You should have kept your promise. ‘Til death do us part.”
“That lousy, cheating, motherfucking asshole!” I fumed, jumping to my feet and pacing the length of my living room. “I should have keptmypromise?Me?” My voice took on a shrill tone that I wasn’t proud of, but I was too pissed off to care. “I’mnot the one who fucked my way through half of Allegheny County!” I whirled around, waving my hand for emphasis, and almost clocked Trick on the side of the head.
“Woah, calm down,” he said, rearing back to avoid my flailing arm. “Just – ”
“Calm down? Seriously? I’ll show you calm, Jase Patrick. Just watch how calm I am when I – ”
He reached for me and clasped his hands around my biceps to halt my furious pacing, then rubbed his hands soothingly up and down my arms.
“I know you’re pissed, and you have every fuckin’ right to be, but I need you tocalm down,” he emphasized when I opened my mouth to give him an earful, “so we can call Bull. We need to give him access to your account, right now.”
I took several long, deep breaths in an attempt to get my fury under control. Trick gingerly pulled me into a hug, and my anger started to subside as his arms enveloped me and held me tightly against him. I breathed in the scent of leather that lingered on his shirt, along with something I’d come to recognize as uniquely him.
“You’ve got this, darlin’,” he said softly.
He pressed a kiss to my temple, then rested his cheek against my head for a minute before releasing me and taking a step back.
He took my hand and led me back to the couch. Pulling his phone out of the inner pocket of his cut, he called Bull.
“I’ve got you on speakerphone, and Lauren’s here with me. She just got another email from that asshole, and it veered off the rails real fuckin’ quick. What do you need from her to access her account?”
“Damn,” came the gruff response. “Lauren, I’ll need your username and password, then I’ll be able to see any emails as they come in. I’m gonna have you send him a message with an attachment, so I can sneak in malware which will give me backdoor access to his system. Unless he has some epic firewall protection going on, he won’t even know it’s there.”
“A Trojan horse,” I said, having seen something about that on one of the police dramas I liked to watch on TV.
“Exactly, honey. I’ll send it to his regular account since I think he’s more likely to open something from you on that one, rather than the soulmate thing. Is there anything you might need to send to him regarding your condo sale, something he would assume is a legitimate document?”
I had just the thing. “My lawyer told me to send Beau a list of any personal property that I wanted to collect. I took everything that was important to me already and just planned to leave the rest behind, but Beau doesn’t know that.”
A low, rumbly laugh echoed through the phone’s speaker, and Trick gave me a wide grin.
“That’s perfect. If you can type something up quickly and leave it in your drafts folder, I’ll add the malware to theattachment and send it off. Then as soon as he opens it, I’ll be able to see every keystroke, every password, his encryption software, all of it. We’ll nail the fucker’s ass to the wall.”
“Thanks, Bull. I’ll send it over in just a few minutes, along with my access info.”
I got up and retrieved my laptop, then created a word document listing the couch that Beau and the Boobalicious Bimbo had used for their selfie, along with the end tables, the rug, and the fancy as hell espresso maker that I’d bought when we’d first moved in. I never used it, but Beau loved it and it would piss him off if he thought that I wanted it back.
I opened my email and cackled to myself as I composed a message that I knew would push his buttons, then attached the list and saved it all as a draft.
“Done,” I announced with satisfaction.
