Page 66 of Conceal

The large man’s dark eyes flash just a hint of surprise before they go steely again.

Peering into the bag, his neck flushes a little red as he takes in what I’ve brought her. Lingerie, cock rings, dildos, and at the bottom, a laptop, new in its case. Or at least it looks freshly bought.

“You know, what every blushing bride needs during her honeymoon?” I tease the big man. He’s just uncomfortable enough to shove the bag back into my hands.

He steps aside and ushers me inside. When Hannah called, asking for this favor, I knew I would say ‘yes’. I’d been at the wedding with my brother and saw how wrong it all was. That wasn’t an arranged marriage; that was a hostage negotiation. Tatiana is not here of her own free will, and that doesn’t sit right with any of us. Hannah couldn’t go herself, obviously, and while I’ve left the mafia operations to Angelo, people still know who I am in the Italian circles.

Us girls have to stick together.

He leads me down a dark hallway and knocks on a door before announcing, “Miss, you have a visitor.”

After a moment, the door cracks open, just an inch. Jesus, she’s a prisoner here. When Hannah reached out, we didn’t know what to expect. So I flash her what I hope is a warm smile. She has no right to trust me, but she needs to.

I hold up the bag. “Wedding presents,” I say cheerily.

The door opens slightly wider.

“I’m Nikki,” I say, reaching my hand out and taking hers in a brief shake. It’s awkward, but how do you exactly say “the Colombian mafia princess reached out to the Italian mafia princess to help the Bratva mafia princess escape.”?

I slip through the door and let her shut it behind me.

Quickly, I put my finger over my mouth, motioning for her to be silent. I dump the bag out onto her bed, pulling out the box the laptop is in. Beneath it is a false bottom, so I slide that open and pull out the sensor Axel showed me. Flicking it on, I scan around the room for any bugs or hidden cameras. When it doesn’t beep, I flick it off again and sigh in relief.

I sit on her bed and show her the laptop.

“My boyfriend set this up to have its own Wi-Fi router and built a software that will connect to the home Wi-Fi and run letter and number combinations until it finds the correct password. Once you’re logged in, you’ll be able to remotely access the home computer. Luckily, Giovanni’s as stupid as he looks, and you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for.”

Stunned blue eyes blink at me for a moment before I’m wrapped up in her arms. She’s taller than I am, so the move lifts me off the ground.

Once she sets me down again, she swipes at grateful tears.

“How have you been holding up in here?” I ask, genuinely concerned for this woman. I was in her shoes a few months ago, but had an army standing behind me to get me out of marrying this weasel. But Tatiana has no one, it seems.

She nods. “It’s been okay. I was depressed for the first week, but I think I’m ready to get out now. I want to go home,” she says, her voice soft and small.

I rest my hand on her arm in understanding. “You have friends now. If this doesn’t work, we’ll find another way. I promise.” I could ask the MC to ride for me again, but we had the element of surprise at the church. Storming an armed guard at a house would be suicide.

But, I made a promise. If this didn’t work, we’d figure something out. Sneak her out in a laundry basket or something.

Women aren’t pawns to benefit men. Not only do we deserve to live our own lives, we deserve to be worshipped. Anyone who looks at a woman as something to be used up and spit out deserves an early grave.

We chat for the next few hours. She confesses that she has three men on the outside waiting for her. I tell her about my guys, and how Axel’s probably still listening in through the button camera. She tells me about her dreams of wanting to own an art gallery and about a cabin she fell in love with. I invite her to the shop to get a tattoo when she gets out, and it turns out one of her men, Mikhail, was actually a regular with us. Small world.

I give her me and Axel’s phone numbers in case she runs into any issues, and give her another hug before leaving her, knowing I’ve just made a friend.

Chapter forty-two

Tatiana

Armed with a shiny new laptop, I sit cross-legged on my bed, laptop in my lap. There’s one notepad icon in the center of the background with “Read Me” underneath it, so I click on that one first.

I heard there was a princess in need of rescuing. Luckily, this is the kind of stuff I love. In the Documents section, you’re going to find a .exe software called Run Me. This will connect to every Wi-Fi within a three hundred-foot range and will run a brute-force password tester. Once it successfully connects to the Wi-Fi, it will create a virtual twin of every computer and phone connected to the Wi-Fi.

This means you’ll be able to see it all and manipulate anything, without it changing anything on the devices themselves.

It may take a while, but I hope you find what you’re looking for

-Axel