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Yet with Nishia, she didn’t see the shadows that constantly tried to pull me over to the dark side and finish turning me into one of the monsters I’d spent so many years ridding the world of.
Her fingers splayed across my back, and she seemed to snuggle against me, making herself more comfortable.My voice soothed her.My touch was like a sedative that calmed her, and before long, I felt her go limp against me as she fell asleep on my chest.
Carefully, I guided her back so her head was on the pillow, and I tucked the covers up to her chest.Gently, I stroked the hair away from her face and mopped up the last of the tears still lingering on her pale cheeks.Once I was confident she was sleeping deeply and peacefully—at least for the moment—I walked over to the window and flipped through my contacts until I came to the one I’d never used before, but was there just in case.
When Mila married Lyric Thornton, he brought with him a crazy-ass family that could easily rival our own.But his family matriarch was passionate about getting abused women and children the help they needed.When Emmie Armstrong and my mom had sat down for a chat, Sanctuary grew one sponsor stronger.
With the money that my mother had inherited from a family who had planted the seed in her mind to start a safe haven for abused women, Sanctuary could do a hell of a lot of good.But not even money could buy some connections.Once Emmie joined the team as a silent contributor, it had opened up an entirely different world.One that not even Anya Vitucci’s connections could match.
Anya’s had been gathered by instilling fear in the people who owed her favors.Emmie’s were from networking with celebrities—and collecting secrets from powerful people, ones that could topple their world to the ground if she dared to whisper them to the right people.And she sure as fuck knew all the right people.
With Anya and Emmie working with my mom, we were able to get the women who came to us for help not only an education and skills to assist them in obtaining jobs that earned an actual living wage, but also completely new identities.A person who showed up at Sanctuary left with a new name, background, and social security number—all legally obtained and impossible to trace.
The latter was made possible because of a member on Emmie’s payroll.
Mieke Carmichael.
Finding her information that was stored in my phone in code—something she insisted on—I hit connect and waited for her to answer.
“Sup, biker boy?”Her slight Southern accent greeted me.
“How good are you at tracking serial numbers on—”
“I’ve hacked places that could get me life in a federal prison,” she interrupted me, sounding insulted.“Tracking serial numbers on anything—anything—is something I can do in my sleep.What do you need?”
Glancing over at Nishia to ensure she was still soundly sleeping, I quietly told Mieke about the chip the ER doctor had taken from her arm.It had been turned over to Ben, but he’d sent me a picture of the device, so I had the serial number and a few other details to go along with it.
“Send me the picture,” Mieke instructed without hesitation.“And if you have the address of where your girl lived in NYC, I can get more cyber information on her and her family than Nova.”
“Who said Nova was—”
She made a displeased noise in her throat.“I’m in the low-income housing database as we speak.Her IP address is all over the place.I’m erasing her digital fingerprints right now, but please tell her to either call me next time she needs to find something on the web or at least get someone with more abilities than she possesses.Stupid fucking housing system needs to update its security.I might do it for them and then send a bill to the governor of New York.”
I heard rapid clicking, and then another annoyed sound left her.“Nishia Cohen.Date of birth… Aw, she just had her nineteenth birthday.Blood type, O negative, and looks as if she donated regularly.Good for her.”
“You can see her blood type on the low-income housing site?”I asked in disbelief.
“Nah, my dude.I can multitask.I’ve got her medical records up as well.I have like six screens open at all times.She doesn’t have a driver’s license, but her state-issued ID does say she’s an organ donor.Father…not listed.Hold up a sec, let me check out Mommy Faye’s digital footprint nine months before sweet Nishia was born…”
More typing and annoyed sounds ensued.I did what I did best, stayed quiet and listened.From what I could hear, Mieke didn’t like anything that she was uncovering.
“I think I can narrow down paternity to two different men from what I’ve gathered so far,” she finally said fifteen minutes later.“It took a little backtracking because Faye wasn’t exactly social media savvy, but she was tagged more than she posted twenty years ago.Potential Daddy Number One is some drug dealer.Currently serving life for a number of felonies.Potential Daddy Number Two is…” She paused and then grumbled something to herself.“Jack, what do you know about your mom’s background?”
“This isn’t about my mom,” I snapped.
“Easy, biker boy,” she soothed.“This is a legit question that has to do with the current situation.”
“That means you obviously know about my mother’s past.She grew up thinking some motherfucker was her biological father.The bastard killed her mother by beating her to death, but not before she got a shot off that sent him to hell in the process.My mom inherited all of his money, and his brother and father tried to marry her off to a rival of my family back then.They kidnapped her, but they didn’t realize how important she was to my dad.The old man died of a heart attack during interrogation, and the brother didn’t last much longer afterward.”
“Did you know there was another brother?”she asked as she kept clicking away on her keyboard.“He was younger, sixteen or so, at the time grandpa and big brother passed.”
“No, I wasn’t aware.And I don’t really give a fuck.”
“You should,” she said lightly.“Because he is Potential Daddy Number Two.”
“Fuck.”
“Agreed,” she hummed.“I’ve tracked the microchip that was in Nishia’s arm to the manufacturer.Don’t ask how I did it, because I can’t tell you or we could both be facing jail time if they find out I hacked their system.”
