Page 91 of Exploited

Rose sighed. “I do worry about you, Hannah. Always have. You know that.”

I felt a little sick to my stomach.

“Stop it, Rose. Just stop it,” I snapped, needing to end this conversation quickly.

“Han—”

“I have to go. I have a date tonight.” I had to put that out there. Remind her of who I was. Of who I’d never be to her.

There was silence.

“Rose? Did you hear me?”

“Yeah, I heard you. Though I must say I’m surprised. I didn’t think that heart of yours was capable of feeling anything,” she replied nastily.

“I’ve got to go.” I didn’t want to talk to her anymore.

“Hannah, watch your back.”

“Is that a threat?” What was Rose’s angle?

“If that’s what you think, then so be it. But we both know you can’t trust anyone.”

“Yeah, I guess we both learned that the hard way.” I heard her sharp intake of breath.

“Yes, we did.” I squeezed my phone in my hand so hard I thought it would break.

“I’ll do some digging on my end. See what I can come up with,” Rose offered.

“Why? This isn’t your problem.”

“You’ll always be my problem,” Rose spat out, and then the line went dead.

I dropped the phone onto the table, deeply unsettled.

My instinct was not to believe anything Rose told me. Our history led to wary mistrust. She had said I was in danger of being found out. But how did she know this?

I had to get to Mason’s. I had to get dressed. I had to pretend I wasn’t losing my shit. But I had to do something else first.

I sat down at my computer and opened up a VPN tunnel, then started searching. I scoured the deep Web for Hannah Whelan.

And found nothing.

Not a single damn thing.

But that didn’t mean there wasn’t something out there. I should get Toxicwrath on it. See if he could find anything.

Just not right now.

Tonight I had other things to do. Other plans to put in place.

Always the goddamned plan…

I felt like a ticking clock. Time was running out.

What if Rose was making it up, just so she could weasel her way back into my life?

And what if she wasn’t?