Page 82 of Shadows of Obsession
I'm coming, Luna.
Chapter 28
?
Luna
I shake my head. I probably look like a bobblehead, but it can't be. Roman doesn't have a twin brother. I've searched everything public about him, and nowhere does it mention a twin brother.
Maybe he doesn't trust you enough to tell you such a secret.
"Does Roman know?" I ask, looking him straight in the eyes.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the woman who fixed my shoulder approach him. She has ebony hair, hanging down to her lower back, and almond-shaped eyes. Her olive skin is sprinkled with freckles across her cheeks, just like mine.
"That I exist?" he asks,and his voice brings me back to why my neurons are having an existential crisis right now.
I nod and continue assessing him. If Roman were the leader of a motorcycle gang, this is how I would have imagined him. If my boyfriend has that finesse and aristocracy that covers up his violent side, the man in front of me has no mask.
With him, the demon is in every reflection of his gaze, in every strand of hair hanging across his forehead, and clearly in the way that his grin spreads across his face while he studies me. This is how I think deer feel when they enter a panther's radar.
"No, although I sense the long-awaited meeting will be soon," he tells me and gestures for me to sit on a couch.
"I'd prefer to stand and to know why the hell I'm here," I say, and somehow my voice is more impatient, more confident.
I don't know if my brain saw those gray eyes and instantly relaxed or if I simply have a death wish, but I feel anger and I can't control it.
I was run off the road, I don't know if Sergey is still alive, I think I have a fractured rib, and my shoulder was at a completely unnatural angle thirty minutes ago. I have reasons to be fuming, if you ask me.
"Max, you're wasting time," the woman tells him as she sits at a computer and starts typing rapidly.
"How much time?" he asks, his gaze still fixed on me.
"Maximum two hours, I'd say," she answers, and I look toward her. What the hell are they discussing here?
"Luna, I need your help, and I won’t take no for an answer."
His whole face and tone have changed. His voice is softer, more charismatic, and he tries to make his features appear relaxed, but just like with Roman, I see every twitch of the demon on his face.
When he sees he's getting no response from me, he frowns and crosses his arms over his chest. The corner of his lips turns slightly upward, a sign that I amuse him.
"At your former job, you worked for ErestonLabs, correct?" he says, and the question is more of a statement, so I nod affirmatively.
"I need you to get into their system and deactivate a device." He says it as if he hasn’t just proposed I kill someone right now.
ErestonLabs deals with internal cardiac defibrillators. Basically, when the patient's heart rhythm is irregular andthe device senses the patient might suffer a heart attack, it intervenes through an electric shock.
"I don't work there anymore," I tell him, trying to avoid the fact that I haven't said no to his idea from the start.
If I went to a therapist, I'm sure it would take them time, after several sessions, to recover. The truth is few things shock me anymore, and that's a sad realization. The Luna from a few years ago would be appalled by how many things now seem normal to me that once would have freaked me out.
"No, but your digital signature is in the system," he tells me, and I try to understand how he knows this.
When an employee leaves the company, ErestonLabs doesn't delete signatures permanently. They do what we call a soft delete, meaning they're moved to a separate database table but they still exist.
When an operation like a deactivation is attempted, my fingerprint is necessary.
"That's why you need me," I exhale, and the realization drops like a lead ball in my stomach. "You can't add signatures to the system, but you can use existing ones. But the problem is digital traces will remain. They'll know it was me," I say, trying to state the situation as calmly as I can.
