I didn’t get what Rafa was getting out of this. If I really was some threat to his organization, I didn’t understand why he was helping me. He was betraying his own people. Or maybe not. Maybe there really was a division inside the mafia over the issue of human trafficking.
Or maybe he just knew that I had nothing to do with it and knew absolutely nothing. Maybe underneath those tattoos, that dangerous grin, those muscles, maybe under all that deadly strength, there was a man who genuinely cared.
It didn’t matter, though. I needed to concentrate on my work. I doubled down and got a good chunk of the research over with.
Which was how I found myself staring at the computer screen at one in the morning, tired and bored.
Nothing had happened all day. It was quiet, very quiet, and I hadn’t heard anything from Rafa. Nobody was watching me, or at least that was how it felt.
I couldn’t help myself. It was nagging at me, digging into the corners of my brain. I did a quick Google search, trying to find something about Rafa himself, though there wasn’t anything online. That didn’t surprise me.
I did a few more searches and clicked through some websites. I was looking for any information on the mafia’s involvement with human trafficking that I could find, especially anything that suggested there was a split within the organization. I wanted to find the truth, and I just couldn’t help myself.
I knew it was stupid. I knew I shouldn’t have been messing around with that stuff. But alone in my apartment, typing on my laptop, I felt safe.
I shouldn’t have felt safe.
One thing led to another, and I found myself doing a quick search for the Spiders again. I got nothing, as before, but I couldn’t help myself. I started searching more, going deeper.
That was when my computer stopped working.
Or that was probably not right. It was still on, but the screen suddenly went black. I stared at it, surprised and not sure what was happening. I tried to power it off, but nothing happened.
“Shit,” I said, annoyed. I figured I had gotten a virus.
But then text started to appear.
“Why are you still looking for us?”
I stared at those words and felt a knife of panic stab through me.
I tried typing back. “Who are you?”
A few seconds later, another message. “We’ve been watching you. We know what’s going on.”
I could barely breathe. This was exactly what Rafa had warned me about, and now it was happening. I didn’t know who was messaging me, but I had to assume it was the mafia.
They knew I had broken the rules. They knew I was looking for the Spiders still, despite the fact that Rafa had told me to lie low.
I nearly got up and ran away.
Instead, I typed another message. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“We are the Spiders. We want you to stop looking for us.”
I took a sharp breath. It wasn’t the mafia after all.
It was the freaking Spiders, the people I so desperately wanted to talk to.
“Why are you watching me?”
“Because the mafia wants you dead, and we don’t like when the mafia hurts women.”
“That’s what Dasha said.”
“Dasha was a good fighter. We are angry about what happened to her.”
I couldn’t believe what I was doing.
This was probably the worst possible idea imaginable. I should throw the laptop out the window and pretend like I had never gotten these messages. I should set it on fire and play dumb.
But I couldn’t. Dasha had died for the Spiders. Maybe she gave me up, and I was a little upset about that, but still. She died for the cause she believed in. I was too afraid to even take a single risk for that same cause.
I wasn’t Dasha, and I wasn’t some freedom fighter. I was just a regular girl who had gotten way in over her head. I wasn’t anything special, and I was so afraid that I would be lost forever if I keep pushing my luck.
But they had contacted me. They came to me. I couldn’t turn this opportunity down. So many journalists would kill for this chance.
“I’m angry too,” I typed. “I hate what they’re doing in this city.”
“We’re sorry she put you in danger. We don’t know what she was thinking. But you are in danger, Cassidy.”
“I know. What do I do?”
“We can protect you. We can help. Come to us.”
“Come to you?
“Yes. We can protect you.”
“I don’t know who you are.”
“We are the Spiders. We are women like Dasha.”
“I don’t trust you. Dasha got me into this mess.”
“We don’t blame you for not trusting us, but you are being watched. We can help you.”
I bit my lip, confused. I didn’t know what to do in this situation.