Page 4 of Pressure

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Thursday morning, Marissa drove across the state border into Colorado feeling hopeful. After a few days with her sister relaxing, she was ready to face her meeting with Elijah Barrett and the cyber security expert at club Solitaire. She’d done some initial digging to see if she could breach their system on her own but hadn’t tried very hard. It seemed like a solid system, but she wouldn’t know what their problems were until she’d done a deep dive into the code and back end of it.

As she drove up the mountain where the old ski resort sat, she felt some nerves begin to arise. Sure, she was just going to sit in an office and talk about next steps, but she hadn’t set foot in a BDSM club for five years. She hoped she got a chance to look around.

When she pulled up in front of the massive structure, she put the car in park and closed her eyes. After a few minutes of deep breathing, the butterflies settled, and she stepped out of the vehicle.

A man she recognized to be Elijah Barrett stepped onto the porch.

“Miss Sullivan?” he asked.

She gave him a nod and a bright smile. “That’s me. Nice to finally meet you, Mr. Barrett.”

“Come on in. Russell says you’re good at what you do and fixed some issues for him a while back.”

“I helped him out with a few things. We met when I was volunteering as an instructor for a summer coding camp.”

Inside the lobby, she looked around and smiled at the very subtle hints of kink. To the untrained eye it just looked like a beautifully decorated hotel lobby. But she spotted the small statues on either side of the double doors that undoubtedly led to the ‘good stuff’.

“We’ll set up in the conference room. We’re still waiting for Lance.”

She froze at the name Lance but shook her head and forced herself to follow Elijah. It couldn’t be the same person.

Inside the spacious conference room, Elijah motioned for her to sit in one of the enormous office chairs that surrounded the table.

“While we wait, let’s go ahead and get some paperwork out of the way,” he said as he set a folder in front of her.

The top page was an NDA which she readily signed. It was likely she would come into contact with sensitive information about people, and the NDA offered some protection for that information.

The next few pages outlined a simple contract. The number at the bottom under compensation was a lot bigger than she was expecting.

“Really?” she asked as she stared the number. “Fifty thousand? That’s more than I make in six months.”

Elijah just leaned back in his chair and smiled. “It’s important to us that this job be done right and with care. We’re willing to pay for that.”

She read through the contract one more time. It would be better to have a contract attorney look it over, but everything seemed pretty crystal clear to her.

She picked up a pen and read the last few paragraphs again as her hand hovered above the signature line.

The door flew open. “Sorry I’m late everyone.”

The hair on the back of her neck stood up at the sound of a familiar voice. A voice she hadn’t heard in years.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Barrett,” she whispered as she dropped the pen. “There’s been a terrible mistake. I need to go.”

She stood, afraid to turn around and see the ghost from her past. But she forced herself to do just that.

“Marissa?” Lance said, his eyes wide with surprise. “You’re the one they hired?”

“It would seem that way. But I’m not taking the job so don’t worry. I’ll be on my way now.”

Elijah quickly rushed to the door, blocking her from leaving.

“What just happened?” he asked. “I take it you two know each other.”

Lance laughed. “You might say that. We were engaged until five years ago.”

She noticed he didn’t say why they broke up.

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