Page 27 of How to Hack a Hellhound
“Are you going to take what’s being offered, Liam?” he asked, leaning down but not quite meeting my lips.
All I had to do was lean up and I’d be kissing him. I would be able to taste him, feel his body against mine. But it was… wrong, somehow. He didn’t usually call me Liam; I was his creepy stalker, and I liked when he called me that.
“You’re very good at being a sex kitten, but I prefer my hellcat with teeth and claws,” I said, looking into his eyes. “I won’t take anything from you, Quinton. I’ll give you whatever you want, though.”
He dropped the smirking, sexy face, and searched my eyes. I’m sure they were still burning, but I couldn’t help that. Usually I could, but he was so close, and so warm, and he smelled so good—like dark chocolate or a fancy cup of coffee, sweet and bitter—and my hellhound wanted to roll in the scent of him.
He leaned down and pressed his lips to mine. I let him take the lead, our mouths pressing together lightly. He licked against my lips, and I opened for him. His tongue darted out to meet mine, but he kept the touches gentle, little teasing touches that made me ache for more, yet I followed his lead.
I was hard and aching from the taste of him. He was divine.
He eased up and pressed his forehead to mine. I breathed in deep, basking in his scent. It was a little sweeter now, but that hint of dark chocolate bitterness was still there. It was lovely. I liked my sweetness with a bit of bitter in it.
He leaned back, smiling at me. This wasn’t the sex kitten smirk or the hellcat with claws, though. He looked fond.
“Did you just sniff me?” he asked.
I shrugged. “You smell good.”
He laughed at that, a real, genuine, laugh, and got up off my lap. “Ok, Creepy Stalker, let’s go do some research about the bad guys.”
Having Quinton in my office was satisfying. I’d even offered him food and drink, and I never ate or drank in my office. I would have let Quinton, though.
He had texted Aiden to let him know where we were going, and he’d responded with a selfie in the woods on a trail. I’d probably need to talk to Aiden about his personal situation at some point, but I was monitoring things, and I didn’t think there was any cause for concern there yet.
“So you can’t just, like, track them down through their address or whatever?” Quinton was asking, watching as one program ran through emails on one screen and another program ran through social media on another screen.
“Their IP address? Most humans are just a little tech savvy, and they conduct their business through online chat rooms, or even in chats on games. The human police catch a decent number of them, and they’re constantly setting traps up for people who do that,” I answered.
“But our guys are more than a little tech savvy?” Quinton asked. “Do they use, like, the darknet or whatever?”
I smiled. “The dark web is really just overlay networks. That means you need authorization or specific software or configurations to access it. Yes, illegal activity occurs on it, but lots of companies use overlay networks as well. It’s all a part of the deep web, which just means it isn’t searchable with something like Google. Your online banking is technically the deep web.”
“I’m on the ‘deep web,’ huh? Cool,” he laughed. “So somehow shit is harder to trace on the deep web?”
“People who are really good at illegal online activity use something like Tor, which is an onion router.” He looked confused, so I explained, “It encrypts user data and sends it onto another relay, or node. So basically, it’s like layers in an onion, and each layer encrypts the data and sends it on. Although not totally impossible to track, it’s extremely time consuming and difficult. Then there’s the fact that people use VPNs to mask their IP addresses. Smart people are very hard to track, and thisorganization is an established ring that probably has someone giving them directions on what to do, so their people are not doing stupid shit.”
“Unfortunately for us,” Quinton groused.
“Yes, but fortunately for us, individual peoplearestupid, and they do things which inevitably leave a trail,” I said, pointing to a picture of James currently on the one screen. “They use social media, they take pictures with people who suddenly no longer go to the club after a few months. Are some of them legitimately just not out clubbing? Sure. Are some of them victims of human trafficking? Unfortunately.”
“Wow. So, you’re like, what, checking all his socials for people who are missing?” Quinton asked.
“Yes. I’m also using facial recognition software to cross reference the camera feeds for the club with missing persons and people who default on their rent and are served eviction notices. Plus I’m cross referencing social media that has gone dark with people who are friends online with anyone from the club.”
“Holy shit. This really is the batcave. You’re totally like Morgan Freeman. Or maybe I’m Morgan Freeman?” he asked.
I had no clue what he was talking about, and I looked at him, raising an eyebrow.
“We’re totally watchingThe Dark Knight,” he told me.
I smiled. “I would enjoy watching a movie with you.”
“You’re such a dork, Creepy Stalker,” he laughed.
I wasn’t sure why I was a dork, but the affectionate way he said it made it more like a compliment than an insult. I turned back to the computer, which was starting to give us matches of possibly suspicious people.
Quinton and I spent most of the afternoon going through them, listing them and recording his impression as well as the feeling I got from their internet footprint. Quinton was completely impressed with my “technology superpower,” as hecalled it, although I did explain that it was difficult to judge much without doing a deepdive into their online presence. We had a lot of people to go through, though, so it was surface checks for now. Which meant if they pinged my radar, they could be involved in human trafficking, or they could just be mildly shitty human beings.
