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Mason runs a hand over his face. The cut above his eyebrow is bleeding steadily but he doesn't seem to have noticed. "They know where we live."

"They knew before tonight. The image on the screen…" I stop. Breathe. "They've been watching us for a while. Tonight was a message."

"Stay away or you won't be breathing," Declan says.

"Yeah, something like that."

"Are we staying away?"

I look at him.

He already knows the answer.

"No," I say.

Mason lets out a quiet breath, it’s half in frustration, and half in resignation. He already knew the answer but asked anyway.

I reach into my waistband and pull out the guy’s phone. I hold it up, and the room goes quiet.

Mason stares at it, then at me, and then back at the phone again. "Is that…"

"One of theirs." I look at it and turn it over. The screen is locked, but the hardware is real and the network connection is live. Whatever is on this device: contacts, messages, and location history is more than I had twenty minutes ago.

"You picked his pocket," Declan says. It’s not a question.

"While he was sitting on my chest hitting me in the head." I look at Mason. "Yes."

Mason's expression does something complicated. Then he shakes his head slowly, the way he does when something is both deeply stupid and genuinely impressive in equal measure.

"Cain taught you well," he says.

I look down at the phone in my hand.

"Yes, he did,” I say.

***

I don’t think my body has ever hurt this much. No, that's a lie. I’m sure Cain almost killed me when we first started training with him.

I throw the phone on the table, and drop down into the chair, closing my eyes as I breath through the pain. I could have gone to the bathroom to see the damage, but there’s no need to see how fucked up my face looks, I can feel it. Lifting my t-shirt up, I already see the bruises on my ribs. Fucking great.

Staring at my screens, I see the blank screen, and I wonder how to fix this. How did they get into my system? I close my eyes and lean back for a moment, breathing slowly through the pain.

Three things are going through my head at once.

The phone, how they got into my system and how I know I have to stay away from Sadie to keep her safe.

I can ignore Sadie, be the prick who had sex with her and then never connect with her again. Fuck that makes me a dick, but that’s the only way I can keep her safe. They had pictures of my family, none of her, which is good because they don’t know about her.

Ignoring her is the only way.

That’s my problem solved, now I need to move onto the next.

The phone. I pull my specialized toolkit out of my drawer. It’s the one I use when I need to get into my hardware rather than through it. I push the pain my body is in deep down, as deep as I can get it.

Mason is saying something behind me, but I’m not listening.

My left eye is swelling now, I can feel the pressure of the socket, the heaviness of my tissue swelling from the hits. My ribs are worse when I sit still rather than when I'm moving, which is my body's way of telling me to keep moving. I’m going to find these fucking assholes, and I’m going to kill them.