Finding Ace (Book 3)

Chapter 8. Hacking

Aria

Benny thanked me as I sat a cup of coffee down in front of him and stood behind him. Benny sat in front of the laptop and brought up my email.

"See." Benny pointed at the screen.

I read it from over his shoulder. I sighed in frustration. How could I have missed it? "God, Benny, I'm so sorry," I muttered.

"They have no idea that I sent you this shit. I should probably hack in and delete it," Benny explained.

"Good idea," I said. "Make sure they don't know where to find us, either."

"They won't," he promised.

"Do you think you can hack into the cameras that are in the building?" I asked.

Benny sighed. "It'll take a while. To be honest, though, I don't think you should go back until I've looked through all the footage."

All of the guys watched us. I moved away from Benny and sat down on a couch beside Austin.

"He's right. We should see how much we can find out about them first. Let Benny do his job. You know damn well if Ace is here, Benny will find him," Austin said soothingly.

"Clearly, the Chinese had something to do with Ace, too," I muttered. "What all happened, Benny?"

"The Chinese were upset. They told us they weren't taking the deal. They tried saying we were ripping them off. Ace and I told them if they didn't like the price to find it elsewhere. We left got on the private jet. All I really recall is the pilot saying the engines stopped working or something. When I woke up, I was in that room you found me in. They tortured me for information. For the longest time, I didn't give them shit. Then they were about to kill me, so I decided to give them false information," Benny explained. "They also found me useful for hacking into things."

"Wow," Dad huffed. "What else?"

"I hacked into their emails. I started sending you those emails a few months ago. Not trying to come out right and say it was me because I didn't want to take the chance of one of them seeing it." Benny ran his hand through his hair in irritation. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. As I said, I haven't seen Ace at all since the crash. I had asked about him. They just laughed and walked away. For all I know, he's dead, Aria. I'm sorry, but you might have to accept that we may not ever find him. God only knows what they did with him."

"We could grab one of them and torture it out of them," Austin said and grinned widely.

"Let's see what Benny finds first. Being irrational about this situation isn't going to get us anywhere. As a matter of fact, if we don't watch our moves carefully, we're all going to be missing next, and who the fuck is going to find us?" Luis grumbled.

"I agree with Luis," Dad said.

"Okay, fine. Nobody is going anywhere until Benny finds some shit out. Okay?" I huffed in irritation.

They all quietly agreed. The only sound in the room after that was Benny's fingers moving across the keyboard.

After a while, my dad decided to lay down. Abel and Luis chose to play a video game. Austin went out the back door with a joint in his hand. Joey sat beside Benny to watch him work. It was hard to wait. I waited so long already to even get this far. It felt like we were at a dead-end again.

At least we have Benny back — I reminded myself. It's better than not having either of them. After several minutes, I decided to follow after Austin. I probably needed that joint as bad as he did. On my way out, Diego and Miguel were at the counter talking. I caught enough of the conversation to know they were talking about Ace. They wanted to find Ace too. It had been hard on everyone.