Yael spotted something in the script, scrolled back up the screen, leaned forward and typed in a few more commands. “I found the proxy server he’s using.”

“Can you trace it?”

Yael glanced at the HRT guy who was now leaning forward in his chair with a look of fierce concentration on his face. She could smell the piney scent of his skin and a trace of something sweet and metallic that made her recoil when she realized what it was. Gun oil.

He caught her reaction and raised a brow.

Damn. He was handsome as hell and probably knew it.

“It’s probably better if you don’t speak.” Her voice was gruff.

Humor twinkled in his eyes. “You sound like all my ex-girlfriends.”

“And your boss.” The tall, blond HRT operator who seemed to be giving the orders quipped with a forced grin.

Rather than looking annoyed like most men she knew would, the operator sitting next to her gave her a slow smile, and then pressed his thumb and forefinger together and dragged them across his lips.

It was obvious these men were trying to lighten the grim mood that had settled over everyone in the room, but hard to do that when a woman was being tortured online for paid entertainment and it was Yael’s job to find the torturer.

She went back to her data, painfully aware of the man at her side but concentrating on the inflow of information despite the distraction. She didn’t like being on anyone’s radar. She liked to be unobtrusive and forgettable. And she absolutely hated guns. Ironic, considering she now worked for a security firm.

His black-clad knee briefly brushed hers as he shifted position but he didn’t seem to do it on purpose. There was a lot of him and not a lot of space underneath her table. A quick glance at his face showed her he wasn’t paying her any attention. His focus was glued to the screen and he looked as if he wanted to crawl inside her monitor and throttle the sick bastard responsible for all of this.

If only it was that simple. Except…if it were, she wouldn’t feel so safe, so removed from real-life consequences when she was online—a sentiment this Evi1Geni-us guy probably related to in spades.

Evi1Geni-us relied on his ability to cloak his identity while committing his heinous crimes. Anya was depending on all of them to get past his defenses and expose him—to save her, and then lock up her attacker where he couldn’t hurt anyone else ever again.

It didn’t take Evi1Geni-us long to strip Anya completely naked. The woman was bleeding from where the shears had occasionally snipped her flesh.

Yael’s stomach rolled. She couldn’t imagine enduring Anya’s fate.

The HRT operator shifted again, clearly uncomfortable with what was happening onscreen.

Join the club.

“What happened to your arm?” she murmured, unable to stop herself even as she kept one eye firmly on the code.

He held it up. “Snapped my ulna and radius helping someone down some stairs. Boss wouldn’t pass me for active duty even though I’m as good with my right hand as I am with my left.”