The words didn’t make sense to her at first. It was just too goddamned unbelievable, but then angry heat flooded her. With a shaking hand, she opened the attachment and there it was—a screenshot of the information she’d entered when she’d joined the site. Her name was listed as C. L. Benning, the name she used on her credit card. And her address was there plain as day. Luckily, because it was a screenshot, her credit card just showed up as dots in a jpeg, but what the fuck did it matter when someone was literally advertising her home address?
Her eyes skimmed to the bottom. Below all the information was a short list.
Safeword: Watermelon
Wrong.
Likes: Toys, Edge Play, Anal, Bondage, Rape Play
Scene request: I would love to be taken captive by surprise.
Her stomach dropped and her skin went cold.
That wasn’t her list or her request. She’d never filled out that portion. She wouldn’t have. Someone had doctored this and sent it out.
Christ.
BigMan had acted like a psycho, but he’d thought she’d been the one to initiate. He’d thought she’d made a goddamned request. Whoever had done this could’ve gotten her raped.
The back of her throat burned and she was trembling again. What if this note went out to other men? And what if she wasn’t the only one affected? Who the hell would do something so sick?
She scrolled up to see where the email had come from, but it was the admin address from within Hayven, the same one that announcements and updates came from—which was also the same address she was supposed to use to contact customer service to make a complaint.
Fuck. If she sent in a complaint, it’d go straight to whoever had hacked the damn thing in the first place. But someone needed to know what was going on. God only knew how many people had been doxxed and put at risk.
She hit Print on the email for evidence and then signed out of William’s account. She opened up the main site for Hayven and went to their Contact page, knowing she’d probably be led through some winding trail of customer service via some faraway country, but she was surprised to find the site was owned and operated by a company with a Dallas address—Restless Games, Inc.
She’d never heard of them, which was strange since they were local, but maybe it was a start-up. Knowing that the servers that held her private virtual world were housed that close by gave her a dart of anxiety, but if the company was in town that at least gave her hope that she’d actually be able to talk to someone who could get this fixed quickly.
Because this shit needed to get fixed. Now. The fact that a company that was responsible for such intensely private personal information hadn’t caught this yet pissed her off. The email had been sent to William days ago. How could the company not realize their system had been compromised?
She scrolled down. There was an eight-hundred number and the address. She jotted down both. It was just past four A.M. so she wouldn’t get an answer now, but at least she had a plan of attack.
Attack.
She rubbed the chill bumps from her arms.
Time to check the locks one more time.
Thirty more reps. I can do thirty more.
Hayes Fox dropped into a one-arm push-up and breathed through the burn in his body. One. Two. Sweat dripped onto the mat he’d laid out in the garage. The temperature outside was already climbing into the eighties even though it was barely six in the morning. But the heat didn’t bother him. He’d grown accustomed to uncomfortable conditions a long time ago and relished the level of intensity it added to his workout. If he was thinking about the heat and the exhaustion in his body, he wasn’t thinking about other shit.
Seven. Eight.
He always defaulted to old-school rock for workouts, so Guns N’ Roses’s “You Could Be Mine” blasted from a nearby radio, thumping hard along with his heartbeat.
Nine. Ten.
The music turned down.
He didn’t look up. Eleven. Twelve.
Expensive black shoes came into view. “Good morning, Rocky. Are we going to run steps next or maybe drink some raw eggs?”
Hayes kept going. Up. Down. “You wouldn’t be able to keep up, Muroya.”
A drop of his sweat splashed onto Ren’s shoe. Ren moved out of the way and then swiped the drop with his finger. “You’d be surprised what I can keep up with.”
His best friend’s tone was smug, but there was a current of something underneath that made Hayes falter in his count. Fuck. He dropped down onto his forearms and knees, breathing hard. He didn’t need this right now. After a long night of no sleep and a racing brain, he wanted to get lost in a mindless workout. “Did you need something?”
“I need lots of things,” Ren said cryptically. “What are your plans today?”
Hayes looked up to find Ren leaning against the wall, already dressed for work in a bright blue T-shirt, gray sport coat, and dark jeans. His inky black hair was styled just haphazardly enough to look like he hadn’t styled it at all. He sipped his coffee and gave Hayes an expectant look.
Hayes rolled onto his back, sat up, and grabbed a towel from a nearby weight bench to wipe the sweat off his face. “My plan is to finish this workout and then spend the rest of the day putting together financial documents for our newest investor. I got your email. Good work last night.”
Ren didn’t acknowledge the praise. Instead, his gaze moved over Hayes’s shirtless form—brief, but enough that Hayes didn’t miss it. His friend was sizing him up. Hayes knew how different he looked now. He’d always kept in shape. But three years locked behind bars had left him with nothing to do but think and push his body to the limits. He’d become a machine. No one fucked with you when you looked like he did. But his best friend didn’t seem to know what to make of this version of him.
Hayes didn’t ask his opinion. He’d promised himself when he got out that he’d keep the boundaries with Ren clear. They were best friends and business partners. Their days of partying, sharing women, and blurring lines in their relationship were done. Hayes couldn’t be that guy anymore.
“Good. Then you can put together those documents at the office,” Ren said with a nod.
“What?” Hayes blinked, Ren’s words dragging the conversation back into focus. “I don’t need the office for that stuff.”
He eyed him. “Don’t care. You told me six months, Fox.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and held it up. “I marked it on my calendar. Today’s the day, my friend. The CFO returns.”
“You marked it on your calendar? Of course you fucking did.” Hayes rolled to his feet. He didn’t need to be having this conversation with Ren looming over him. “I’m not prepared for that today. All the stuff I’m working on is here. None of my old suits are going to fit. I have errands to run.”
Ren pushed off the wall and walked toward him. “Don’t give me that shit. We own the company. You can wear whatever you want. And you can have someone at the office run the errands.”
A cold feeling crept through his chest, frost encasing his lungs. The office. Returning to work. Being in charge of the business again. “Ren, I—”
“Stop.”