Page 119 of Pressure

He was quiet for a minute. “Let the security team take you home, please.”

With a sip of her drink she contemplated his request. “I can do that,” she finally murmured. “Be safe in Colorado.”

She punched the end call button before he could say anything else.

When she finished her drink, she wandered the club and observed the play going on. As she watched a Dom wrap his hand around a subs throat and press her against a wall with a savage kiss, her heart constricted. Would she ever work things out with Lance? Did she want to?

“Marissa?”

She turned to find a woman standing behind her. It took a minute to recognize her. “Lana? I didn’t expect to see anyone I knew way back when. How the hell are you?”

The woman smiled and opened her arms for a hug then stepped back. “Wait. You’re not a hugger, are you?”

Marissa grinned and shook her head. “Nope. It’s good to see you, though.”

“What’s it been, five years?”

Marissa nodded. “Something like that.”

“I know you had some drama with your Dom at the time, but I was sad when you stopped coming to the rope play nights with us.”

Marissa grimaced. “I regret walking away from everything. Do those still happen?”

Lan’s eyes lit up and she nodded. “Sure do. We moved to a cool new warehouse space with some bad ass hard points instead of meeting Bethany’s living room though.”

Marissa whistled. “Fancy. Well let me know what I need to do to be vetted so I can visit sometime. I miss rope. I’ll need to knock off some of the rust, but I’d love to get into it again.”

The sub in front of them cried out and Marissa turned her attention to the scene again.

“I’ll do that. It’s a lot of the same people and I know we’ll all still vouch for you.” The woman’s eyes shifted to a man in the corner and gave him a little wave.

“I should get over there. We agreed to play tonight.”

Marissa nodded and patted the woman on the shoulder. “It was great to see you again. We’ll talk soon.”

Alone again, she surveyed the dungeon and felt a twinge of sadness. Being here alone without a partner was definitely not as much fun but it still felt good to be among people who thought like she did.

As she watched a Dom expertly wrap Lana in rope, something clicked. Forcythe was on Lance’s radar five years ago which meant he would have a lot of old associates. Maybe she should go back to five years ago and hunt some of them down.

Feeling energized to get straight to work, she headed for the exit.

A driver in dark jeans and a black polo stepped out of the SUV. “Miss Sullivan, Mr. Moss asked us to take you home.”

She gave him a tight nod and slid into the back of the vehicle.

It was late, so traffic wasn’t heavy, and they had her home in twenty minutes. She bid them goodnight and unlocked her door.

Settling at her tiny kitchen table that mostly served as her tech station, she fired up her system and went to work digging into Sebastian Forcythe five years ago.

She knew he was a self-proclaimed opportunist. He had nothing against Lance, just saw a chance to make money selling privileged data to a competitor. But how did he get the data to begin with?

On a whim, she logged in to Moss Tech and tested her credentials. They were working. It made her smile despite the fact that Lance’s lack of trust still irritated her. He was trying to make it right.

Where would he store data from five years ago?

She searched for archives or something that would give her a clue.

A search for Forcythe brought up an internal memo from three weeks after Lance called the cops on her.

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