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“Right. You’re a brave girl. Lock the door, get back to your homework, and after dinner, we’ll kick some online ass.”
She grinned. “I’m not supposed to talk like that.”
He winked. “Me either. If you don’t tell on me, I’d appreciate it.”
The girl raised a hand. “Give me five, and we’re going to be a hacker team… That kicks ass.”
“But only when Simone’s not around.” He was still a little doubtful about her not knowing about the hacking, but he’d let it ride for now, since it seemed pretty harmless. He knew Rafe wouldn’t be teaching her anything that could get her in trouble, and they were righting the wrongs Brad had put in motion.
“Right.” That dimple appeared again, and she seemed more relaxed as she returned upstairs.
“Good kid.” He said that softly after her before returning his attention to the water company.
Chapter 6
Brad hadn’t beenin the bar all evening, and Simone had a pleasant shift for a change. Then she came home and found Max and Rafe still there. Her heart beat staccato when she came in on them finishing up their work, Gemma in bed, the utilities on, and empty pizza boxes cluttering the kitchen. They’d even saved her some slices. Giving thanks the guys had gotten the power back on, she heated them in the microwave and ate as she chatted with the men, catching up on what they’d done.
Learning that Rafe and Max adored Gemma and thought they were bonding didn’t totally surprise Simone. She’d already known her kid sister and the two of them shared that interest in whatever it was about computers that intrigued people. Once again, the evening ended with Max, and then Rafe, giving her a fiery kiss that melted her heart, if not her panties, and going home, leaving her aching for them and wondering if either of them would make a move. Or how long she’d let this go on beforeshedid.
Relative peace reigned for two days, and then came the next assault.
The next wave of online attacks was far more personal. Simone did have a computer, which she used for email and ordering things from time to time, and when she turned it on, she found an inbox filled with emails. They weren’t spam. They were direct messages and all from men. They were explicit sexual messages. “These are hateful,” she told Rafe and Max.
“They’re from women-haters, as far as I can tell.” He scrolled through them.
“Buncha idiots,” said Max with clear disdain.
“No point in you reading them.” As he read, Rafe seemed to be deleting them. Max was glancing over his shoulder, clearly getting progressively angrier.
She looked over his shoulder. “You both are.”
“Not to see what they have to say. We’re looking for clues to their source. A number of these might be automatically generated, which gives us a way to stop them. Some of the others contain referrals from specific websites. Social media is a great way to gang up on people. If we can find those sites, we can nip this in the bud.”
“I’m glad I’m not on social media.”
Rafe grimaced. “The problem is, I think you are.”
Max grunted.
She frowned. “How can that be? I didn’t open any accounts.”
“Someone did it for you,” said Max.
Simone shook her head. “They can’t. They don’t have my information or…”
Rafe sounded regretful. “It’s easy enough to create a bogus profile, then use that one to open other accounts. He puts in as much real information as he can collect, which is usually quite a bit, then he makes posts that will cause you grief. Then, if he’s really an asshole, he reposts those for you via other media. And from the look of these emails, he must’ve posted some vile crap.”
She was devastated. “It can’t be legal to send some of this. I mean, a lot are disgusting, but some are threatening.”
“They aren’t legal, just hard to stop,” said Max in a pragmatic voice.
“Can you do anything?” asked Simone.
“We can do a lot of things. I just don’t know how effective each one is. I’m notifying the social media providers that you did not authorize the accounts and requesting they shut them down. Max will hop on his laptop and do the same, so we can split them, since there’s Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok to deal with, for sure. Probably more. That will take time, and there might be more we don’t know about. A lot of the emails are probably online friends of your attacker—women-haters he knows as personally as it gets online.”
She shook her head. “I can’t believe that people would be so nasty to someone they don’t even know.”
“I know what you mean. Unfortunately…”
