Last Kiss (Hitman #3) by Jen Frederick, Jessica Clare Read Free Book Online

you distract me, Naomi?” Those narrowed eyes focus on my face.
    I look away, disconcerted. That isn’t the look of appreciation he was giving me earlier. I’ve done something wrong to change his look to one of distrust. Frustrated, I run my fingers along the bill of my cap, soothing myself. My cap is safe to touch. “Computers,” I say, refocusing. “I need a computer.”
    “In that room,” he points out.
    I move to it and sit down. There’s a desk and some chairs and an ugly painting full of colors on the wall, but all I care about is the computer. I flip open the laptop. Immediately, my lip curls. Windows 8. Really? “Kiddie shit.”
    He barks his companion’s name. A moment later, a man comes striding in, his brows furrowed. He says something in Russian, a question, because his inflection goes up at the end of the sentence. Vasily barks out something angrily. The man nods and grabs keys,then heads out the door. Vasily turns back to me. “We will get you better computer.”
    “Oh, I can work with this for now,” I say, taking the mouse in hand and giving it a little shake. It’s like settling in with a pair of my favorite pajamas, having a mouse at hand. “But I’m going to put a new GUI on your computer before I go any further.”
    “GUI?”
    “Graphical user interface. This one is not conducive to running scripts. Plus, you have a lot of bloatware. I need to strip things down to run more efficiently.”
    “Just access deep web,” he says, sounding a bit impatient. “I wish to follow buyer of painting. The longer we take to find him, the colder trail gets.”
    I hear Vasily’s words but I’m ignoring them. Working with an unfamiliar GUI is like trying to work with my fingers coated in ice. I’m already at the DOS prompt, uninstalling his hard drive. We’re going to erase everything and start over. It’s a project. I love projects. “Please keep your backups in a safe location,” I tell Vasily absently as the computer goes to work reformatting. “Also, I have voided your factory warranty.”
    He makes a soft noise that might be amusement.
    —
    Hours pass, and I busy myself with installing programs on the laptop I’ve appropriated. I pick the strongest Wi-Fi signal and tap into it. They’ll never notice I’m in their Internets, stealing their bandwidth. Then I add a few of my other favorite scripting programs and tools that will allow me to move through the web without being traced. I work for hours, fine-tuning and tweaking things to how I like them. At some point, someone hands me a bottle of water andan avocado and cheese sandwich on wheat bread. I look at it for any other colors—I don’t like eating things that are not white, green, or brown—and when it passes muster, I remove the orange cheese slice on the sandwich and eat the rest without pausing in working. Vasily moves about the room, silent. At one point his phone rings and I glare at him for interrupting me with his noise. He leaves the room.
    Then I’m in the deep web and I’m the Emperor. Trillions of bits of data flow at my fingertips, much of it illegal. I’ve never been interested in merely pirating movies and songs. Not when I can take on—and control—darker information. Morality has no play in such things for me. If I don’t know someone personally, I’m not affected by thoughts of them, so I turned my talents to more dangerous information. It’s a game for me, to see how far I can push myself. I control more information than anyone else on the web, and it’s a heady feeling. I don’t do much with the information other than hoard it, but there’s a fierce pleasure in the possession of so much knowledge. I access my server records and do a search for Caravaggio, and easily find the information Vasily is seeking.
    Then, I delete the records from the archive.
    I know after years of being a captive that I am only useful until my job is done. This man knows that I am the Emperor and doesn’t seem to mind it, but