All the loaded weapons in the room made Yael nervous and she had to force herself to keep doing the job she was paid to do, the job that meant she belonged in this room, with these federal agents, chasing this monster.

Terror was visible in every strained line of the captive’s face and body.

Yael’s mouth became so dry it was difficult to swallow. Anya Baker was a brilliant young chemist who could have gone to school anywhere on a full ride. Instead, she’d chosen to live with her mom and dad and attend Rice University. This past summer Anya had interned with the FBI’s Houston office. She’d disappeared three nights ago after visiting a bar with friends.

Anya’s parents were worried sick. From what Alex Parker had told Yael, they had every reason to be.

Yael’s heart pounded and she knew she needed to dissociate herself from the fact it was a real woman on the screen, one who’d recently woken up, looking absolutely petrified, after being kidnapped by the freaking psychopath who went by the moniker Evi1Geni-us. Yael wiped her sweaty palms on her favorite black jeans. She couldn’t think about Anya Baker as a real person. If she did, she wouldn’t be able to focus on doing her job. Instead, she mentally shifted to gaming mode where she needed to win at all costs to take this bozo down.

Tim Theriault, a new hire at Cramer, Parker & Gray, pushed awkwardly through the heavy door with a tray of beverages from a local chain.

“Not in here,” a scary female Asian American FBI agent name of Ashley Chen told him tersely. “Put it in the break room.”

“But other people will take them…” The guy trailed off under Chen’s steely gaze.

“Do as Agent Chen says,” Alex told him without moving his eyes off his monitor. “Then get back in here and help Laura.”

Evi1Geni-us flaunted his dirty work via the dark web. Every three months, Evi1Geni-us kidnapped someone—random or targeted they weren’t sure yet—and auctioned off their method of torture and death to the highest bidders.

Choose Your Own Murder Adventure.

Yael’s colleague and best friend Laura Bay was tracking the cryptocurrency—or trying to as it was in multiple currencies being routed through more than one crypto exchange.

“I’ve got something,” said Alex Parker.

All heads swung in his direction. Her boss’s specialty was cellular communications although he was scary good at almost everything. Yael loved her boss. She also loved his smart, gorgeous wife, and their cute-as-a-button baby daughter.

“In Houston?” Ashley Chen was the most aesthetically perfect person Yael had ever encountered in real life. Chen was also crazy good with computers, which proved the world really wasn’t fair.

Yael had once been considered exceptional when working with code and tracking people over the internet. Nowadays, with the new crew she hung out with, she figured she was slightly above average—but the crowd she hung out with now were exceptional.

Yael side-eyed the scrolling code on her screen even as she watched Alex nod in response to Chen’s question.