Or just not at all.
But one of his men having an issue was one thing.
Another one dragged in?
Man, whoever was doing this was up shit’s creek.
“I watched this one,” Ryn declared. “Start of it was a three out of ten, but I was bored so I let it roll. Totally ended on a bang.” Pause. “Literally.”
Elvira laughed.
Ryn laughed with her.
I chewed my lips in order not to laugh with them and wondered how they could sally forth in such a manner with the suffocating, pissed-off, alpha-male vibe weighing down the air.
“Hattie, could you place any of the pictures this guy sent?” Hawk asked me, muffling the fury in his tone, but just barely. “Did he take stills from porn movies you may have seen and that’s what he sent to you?”
I shook my head at him.
Hawk shifted his gaze.
“Ryn seen the pictures?” Hawk asked Boone.
“Not yet.”
“Show her, see if she can place them,” Hawk directed.
“I’ll get ’em,” Axl said, then he was off.
“Play it again,” Elvira said.
I looked to her then down to my laptop to see the short, three-minute clip had ended.
I reached out to hit play when Hawk repeated, “Vira.”
“What?” she asked.
Nothing from him for a second, then an audible sigh.
Before I could hit go, Axl came back and handed a folder to Ryn.
She opened it, studied what was in it, turned one of the photos over, and went completely white.
Oh no.
“What?” Boone barked.
Barked!
Yikes.
Her eyes drifted up to him.
“Can we talk?” she asked in a strangled voice.
Oh no!
Quick as a flash, he had her hand and was dragging her down the row.
It was safe to say this was not good.
Everyone watched as they had an intense discussion with Boone’s neck bent deep so he could get his ear close to Ryn’s lips.
And this discussion did not go well, and I knew that starting with the muscle that played in his cheek, but also because eventually Boone’s face …
No …
Every inch of his body nearly screamed he needed to hurt someone.
“Oh no,” I whispered.
They came back, and Ryn looked sheepish, Boone still looked murderous and he was walking like his shoulders were a wall of cinder blocks swinging to and fro.
Eep!
Still, he did it again holding her hand.
Sweet.
“Well, some of you know, some of you don’t, and it’s never fun to be outed when you don’t call that ball, but here we go,” Ryn started. “I’m in the life. I had a Dom and he tied me up just like this chick.” She lifted the folder and shook it. “Exactly like this chick. He was not a good Dom and I don’t mean that in the conventional, I-didn’t-enjoy-him way. He didn’t play by the rules in a way that could have been dangerous for me.”
Right.
Before, I realized that I was breathing relatively easy.
Now the pissed-off alpha vibe was suffocating.
But my heart hurt that Ryn experienced that.
“She told me about it,” Boone growled. “I found him, had a few words, shared a few other things nonverbally. Had a few words with some important players in town too so his shit would be shut down. His shit, disregarding safe words, is serious, so the players I talked to assured me that he’d find some difficulties feeding his need. That said, way I left him, I felt sure I taught him a lesson in etiquette. I’m seein’ now I left him with a few questions on that.”
“This isn’t about Hattie, it’s about Ryn,” Axl said.
“Yeah,” Boone grunted.
“He’s fucking with Hattie and me to get to you and Ryn,” Axl went on.
“Yeah,” Boone bit off.
“Ding, ding, ding,” Elvira suddenly, and weirdly, said.
And more weird, not a second later Axl’s phone sounded.
He took the call.
But I looked to where Elvira was looking.
Ryn’s laptop.
The diagnostics were no longer running.
“Yeah,” Axl said. “Yeah.” Pause. “You got a location?” Listening. “Leave it to us. Thanks, Brody.” He disconnected and announced to all, “She’s been hacked.”
“Fuck,” Boone clipped.
“I’m so sorry, Hattie,” Ryn said.
“Why?” I asked. “You didn’t stalk me.”
“Brody doesn’t have a location yet,” Axl kept going. “We need to get on that.”
“Dude’s name is Laszlo Kovack and I know where he works and where he lives,” Boone supplied.
Both Boone and Axl looked to Hawk.
“Go,” he bit out.
Boone turned to Ryn and Axl looked down at me.
“You stay here until Sly gets here or you hear from me, okay?”
I nodded.
He bent in and kissed me quickly.
Then he and Boone took off, both of them with their phones to their ears.
I thought about Laszlo Kovack.
And what I thought was, I’d like to have a conversation with him about why he played this the way he did.
Not that I wanted him to play with Boone and Ryn.
Just that …I didn’t get it.
“Did he like you?” I asked Ryn.
“Well, we connected, so he was attracted to me,” Ryn replied. “But for me, he was definitely a one and done.”