6. DANYA

I turned my apartment over, looking for a bug. Someone had been in here, not including my uncle. Someone had been through my things, and now they had a view inside. I closed the blinds before becoming destructive.

The stuffed material from inside the sofa was now torn into shreds on my floor. It looked like it had been snowing chunks of yellow. But there was no listening device in there.

This was the final straw. The last thing I needed was to be known as the son who had his apartment bugged. My father would never forgive me. Not like he'd forgiven me for anything. I was responsible for the money being stolen, although not true, and I had been the gay son, again, not my fault.

It would've been unwise for my uncle, Arkady, to leave a listening device, even if he thought he was doing something for the family, I wouldn't allow myself to be spied on.

There was nothing in the stuffing of any of cushions. It was already bagged and ready for the trash. I checked the cupboards, the lamps, the outlet sockets. I was searching in places I had used to store my own devices. If I needed to get in their head, I needed to know exactly what they would do.

Beads of sweat travelled my face and stained my clothes with dark patches.

I stripped into a vest and a threw on a pair of gym shorts. I hadn't started on a bedroom yet. My bedroom was my sanctuary, it wasn't part of my business, it was the pleasure room. The mattress was imported, the fabrics were expensive; they weren't taking away this pleasure.

My phone buzzed on the kitchen countertop.

It was them.

—Your blinds are closed.

—I can't see the cactus.

That might've had something to do with the fact I'd pulled the cactus from the pot as one of the first places I wanted to investigate. It was a peculiar request, so there must've been something to it. But there wasn't, and so, I'd ruined a perfectly good cactus.

—Your help is on the street. Heading near your apartment building.

—Call it a gift. And treat it like one.

I didn't like playing games. Unless I was the one in charge, but when I was the one being played, I wanted to flip the board from the table and have all the little pieces fly into the sky. Goodbye to playing the game when you have no board to play on.

But I was curious. And maybe they were right.

There was a gift.

The boy.

The little squirmy boy who'd wiggled out of my arms.

I admired his tenacity. I wouldn't have fit in through the tiny hole anyway. But after seeing his collection in his apartment, I wasn't so sure about his tiny hole.

He was walking slow, staring at his phone. He wore the same clothes, and I caught a glimpse of his face. I knew for certain it was him. And this time, I wasn't letting him get away.

I threw on a hoodie and a pair of black leather gloves. And waited in the shadows of the doorway at the apartment building. In a scrunched handkerchief, chloroform; a small amount to knock him out.

And—

One arm around his neck, I pulled him into the entrance of the building and placed the damp handkerchief over his mouth and nose until he became limp. That was a good boy. He wasn't fucking me around this time.

I got him.

At the far end of the entrance of the building was the elevator. And since the boy was sleeping now, I could hold him against my body and act like I was taking care of a drunk friend. But nobody saw me, so the act was only for the elevator camera.

I took him to my apartment and tied him to a chair.

He had several IDs inside his backpack, and a computer. As well as a couple other bits I didn't care for.

Most of the IDs in his possession said his name was Sutton. That was the name on the bank receipt. Other names were Christopher, Marcus, and Theo. Each one a different state, and each one with a picture of him. I compared them to his sleepy face.

It didn't take long for me to throw a large glass of water at his face and wake him.

Gasping for air and writhing on the chair. I chuckled to myself. I knew it wasn't something he wanted to see when he first opened those bright eyes, but it made my day to finally get him back into my possession.

He let out a few false starts of what he was saying before ultimately giving in to gasp for air.

"Spit it out," I laughed. "I got you now. Look at you. You're mine."

"I—I—"

"It's your unlucky day, and I suppose my lucky day, I don't know how else I can tell you this, but I don't think this will end well," I said. I lowered myself on my knees and looked at him, forcing him to make eye contact. "Is that ok with you?" I laughed, as if I was asking for permission.

"I didn't—I didn't—" he continued to flounder, searching for something to say, but there was nothing he could say, unless it was the truth.

"What? Tell me what you want to say." I snapped my fingers in his face.

He tried to push himself from the bindings around his legs and arms. "I'm not the person," he said. "I didn't take anything."

"You said you did."

"Yeah, I lied." He strained himself, pushing against the rope.

"Well, if you say you lied about that and that you lied about something else then I don't know what else to believe because maybe you're also lying about this, maybe it's a lie within a lie, and you're lying right now!" I smacked both my hands off my incredibly thick thigh muscles. A small boom of sound as my skin tingled from the smack.

I watched his head spin. I rarely used chloroform, but when I did, I loved to see the look on the little confused faces that went back and forth.

"No, that's—that's—not what I'm lying about it."

I honestly didn't know what to expect, or what to believe from him. He'd evaded me once. I could only assume he would try and get me to undo the binds on his body for some reason or another. "Forgive me if I don't think you're not full of shit," I said, slapping a hand off his knee this time. "But I want the answers, and I want the truth, and I want them all to be told to me right now and if I don't get those answers, and if I don't get everything, then I don't think I will have much opportunity to keep you around. Do you understand?" I asked. "Do you—and I want you to answer me, ok!" I became aggressive and growled as I spoke. "Do you understand that your life hangs in the balance of me doing everything I can to get my family to trust me again?"

His eyes were going around and around. He didn't know what to say. There was nobody here for him to consult with. He didn't have his laptop, and he definitely didn't have an escape plan. I'd removed all of that from him, and because I'd done such an action, he was stuck.

"I—I understand," he mustered out. "But—but I don't know who did it. That—that is serious."

"I think you're full of shit," I said, standing and walking away. I wanted to know if the person or organization behind those texts had an eye on my apartment. I twitched the blinds, trying to be inconspicuous as I looked to the building opposite, and to the other building at its side. Back when the apartment was purchased, I had researched places people could see into my apartment from, I needed to know the vantage points, of course.

"Please," he begged. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you it was me. I—if I took that much money from you, do you think I would've stayed in the city? Do you think I'd be stupid enough to stay somewhere I could get hurt?"

It had been my thoughts as well, I mean, it was stupid for him to have this happen. But he also had a point. He seemed like he knew what he was doing, and for what it was worth, any hacker worth their salt wouldn't have made it as easy as it had been for me to find him. But I also wanted answers on who he was, and what he could do for me.

"You make valid points little boy," I said, walking back. I grabbed my phone to see if they'd messaged me. I wondered who was on the other end of it, and why they wanted me to find him, or worse, kill him, because that was the only reason, I could think of them for having forced me to come face-to-face with him—again.

"Let me help," he said. "Don't hurt me."

"Firstly," I said, snapping my fingers in his face. "I asked you a question last night. And I want an answer for it. What is your name?"

There was a long pause with hesitation. I wondered if he'd forgotten it, or if he was calculating something. "Sutton," he said. "You've seen my ID."

"I've seen several of them." I nodded to the mess I'd made on the floor with the contents of his bag. "So, Sutton is your name, your real name? Or is it like one of those stage names, I know that you hackers sometimes go by stage names, or no—what is that word?"

"Screen name," he said. "No. That's not a screen name. Sutton is my real name."

"Ok then, Sutton. I wasn't sure how much I liked the name as it clung to my tongue with two T sounds. "I visited your apartment again today, you see, I'm friendly with the police."

"You did?"

"Yes, and I saw your little collection of big toys, get it, little and big." I chuckled to myself. "Anyway, I don't know what to believe about you, except, you are a hacker, and you are a liar, and—you probably know more than you're letting me believe."

Boys like him were my weak spot. Maybe this person on the phone knew that. Maybe that's why they put me in his path. I'd be blinded by his looks and sass, and maybe even impressed by his collection of toys.

Sure, I was all three. But I'd never let my personal interests get in the way of work for my family, and if they knew he was here, he'd already be dead.

"If you help me," I said. "I can help you."