Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Naz swept his thumb across her cheek. “She’ll talk for you.”
Roz was literally the only person Penny cared to talk to on a personal level, now. Anything beyond giving a few words to police or her therapist, and Penny shut the fuck down. She also didn’t have a problem meeting Naz’s gaze on the few times they met, but she wouldn’t say a single word to him.
Not even hi.
“Okay, go play with my brother,” Roz said, patting him on his cheek.
Naz chuckled. “Play, right.”
She could believe that.
He didn’t mind letting her.
After all, the second Roz had told him about one of her last meetings with Penny before they left England where the girl explained a network of people were involved in this ... thing that victimized Penny, well, time started ticking down.
Naz was about to really get started.
Some people just deserved to die.
Roz didn’t need to know that, though.
For now.
New York: Part 2
Naz POV
“Are you fucking serious?”
“If you’re going to hover over my shoulder,” Naz snapped at Luca, “then do us both a favor and fuck off somewhere.”
“Naz, this is—”
“The only reason I came over to your place is because I couldn’t very well get my system up and running without Roz watching me do it. I don’t want her to worry about this. Got it?”
Luca paced behind Naz’s chair as several PC screens came to life in front of him. On his lap, the laptop was already booted up and ready to take a trip onto the black web where he knew with a few clicks and the right keywords, he was going to find forums.
“Give me a username,” Naz said.
Luca rolled his eyes and glared at the ceiling. “This is stupid.”
“It isn’t. And you’re going to help me round them up.”
Like pigs to the slaughter.
Naz didn’t add that part out loud.
“Do you realize how large these networks are?” Luca asked. “They span continents, Naz. So what, you pick off a few of them here, and then what happens you come across a fucking video of some little kid in Asia somewhere being—”
Naz let out a sound that ached when it came out of him. “Then, the next time I am in Asia, I will take a side trip.”
His friend cursed a blue streak under his breath. “You are inviting in trouble. If those fucks attention wasn’t on you or us before, they will be now. Is that what you want—when you have kids, do you wanna go on the dark web and find pictures of them being distributed because they’re a target? I hear two hearts inside each other, depending on the color stamped on the picture, means which gender they prefer. They’re pretty cool with listing the ages of preference right beside it, too.”
That made Naz hesitate as he found a forum called Little Dreams. Sickness welled in his gut because that was a lot more than he wanted to understand, but he had a feeling that wasn’t even the tip of the goddamn iceberg. Once he went down this rabbit hole, there was going to be no coming back from it—a picture of a kid as a target would be the least disturbing thing, to be sure.
Did he really want that?
“And what happens when they figure it out?” Luca asked. “What happens when they start putting it together than the man in the forum is the one hunting them down?”
“I actually like the sound of that, so don’t use it to discourage me.”
They were animals.
He didn’t mind hunting them like one.
“My point is, which you completely fucking missed, is that they’ll go underground,” Luca said.
“More than dark web forums and secret networks that even we don’t know about?” Naz returned.
“Exactly, Naz.”
“I hear what you’re saying.”
“Do you? Do you really? Because if you put me or mine in danger for this, I will gut you. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you.”
And he understood that, too.
“Good. Make sure of it.”
Luca turned to leave the secondary office space Naz had set up in his friend’s home as a backup just in case, for some circumstance or another, he couldn’t use the one in his own place. Naz spoke up to say one thing before Luca could leave entirely.
“Her father is a multi-billionaire,” Naz said.
Luca hesitated. “What?”
“Penny. Her father is a billionaire from Jersey. Made his money through an investments company that worked overseas. You mean to tell me that some fuck from down the street on these forums have the kind of connections and money that man does to network like her father would? I bet ... I bet it’s a tiered thing, Luca. On the lower end, you’ve got people distributing the porn—videos, pictures, or whatever. And in the middle, you’ve got those who are a little better off, and maybe they have something to offer.”
Naz twisted that word because saying what it really meant made him want to fucking puke. Still, he continued on to drive the point home, adding, “They’re the people the lower fucks who can afford it are going to, and the top tier? They’re the ones using the middle of the spectrum when they find something specific ... and I wouldn’t doubt for a second that they have their own—” Naz made another noise under his throat. “Like Penny ... like Penny, Luca.”