Serena POV

The room was silent as all three men expressed different emotions.

One angry, one confused, and one thinking.

"Who's Lance?" Jason asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Her ex-boyfriend that she dumped before she came to Italy," Spencer says looking at the blank screen with a hand under his chin.

"So you're fine with your ex-boyfriend being tortured?" Jason asks and all eyes snap to him. "Sorry. So this Lance guy has no idea where you are?"

Massimo was quiet as he stared with eyes of fury at the screen.

"Nope," I say and look at the screen again. "Even if they trace my phone since he was calling and texting me, it's showing my location somewhere in Idaho."

"Idaho?" Spencer asks with a smirk on his face.

"If they choose to track my phone they can have fun in the state of miles and miles of corn."

"What should we do about the video?" Spencer asks looking between Massimo and me as if he were unsure who ask.

Knowing who has the real power here, I look over at Massimo to see him already looking at me.

Did he expect me to give the order on what to do?

I opened my mouth the speak but the door bursts open.

We all look over to see Joyce's heavy breathing as she scans the room before standing straight.

"What is it?" Massimo asks coldly.

"You have to see this..." She says breathlessly as she walks over to us holding her phone out.

I arch my eyebrow as I take hold of her phone. Massimo comes beside me and watches the small screen.

It was from the ring camera outside of our apartment.

We watch as three men stand in front of the front door. They look around before one kicks the door in.

"Recognize them?" Massimo asks. I rewind and pause on the three faces.

"Ricardo's men. Not high ranking so he must have expected me to fight back," I say and look over at him. "He didn't expect them to make it back."

My eyes look back down and scan over them for a moment. I point at the screen where there was a small reflection against one of the men's chests.

"Cameras. So Ricardo has visual proof that I was there before sending higher-ups."

"It gets worse," Joyce says putting her laptop on the desk. I set her phone down and turn to the new device.

Massimo taps the mouse and a new screen appears. Our apartment.

The door bursts open before the three men enter the apartment.

They start breaking everything and flipping stuff over. Looking for anything that would be helpful.

"Click the screen until it gets to her room," Joyce says and Massimo does.

"You put a camera in my room?" I ask looking back at her. Her face goes pale at my deadly stare. "Dude I changed in there."

"Sorry," She mutters but I roll my eyes and go back to the screen.

The camera was hidden in the corner right above the door, showing my full room.

The men were more careful as they looked through my stuff for a while. Massimo fast-forwarded it a few minutes before playing.

One of the men flipped my mattress before cutting it open. I felt myself stiffen slightly as I watched the screen.

They pulled out papers, a stack of cash, my fake IDs, and my gun.

The video stopped as they seemed to find the camera and smash it.

Massimo hands the laptop to Joyce.

All eyes were on me as I stare blankly at where the screen was seconds before. I hear movement in the room before the door closes.

I could feel Massimo's warmth radiating off him as he stood beside me.

"What was on those papers?" He asks in a soft voice. He must have seen me stiffen and knew it was important.

"Most were tabs I was keeping on Ricardo. Where he was sending his men or planning to," I say with a shrug as I turn to him. Joyce and Spencer were still in the room but Jason must have left.

"What were you doing with them?" Massimo asks.

"Sending them to the police."

The room was quiet as they all looked confused.

"Look, I want to stop him but I refuse to dirty my hands any more than I already have. My soul is condemned to a special place in hell as it is. The police handled them and interfered in many business deals."

"How were you getting this information?" Spencer asks and I roll in eyes at how slow they were.

"You think Tomas was the only hacker?" I say with a bored expression. "A girl can have multiple experiences.

"So you have been hacking directly into their mainframe?" Spencer asks with a shocked expression.

"Well yeah, I was the one who helped Tomas build it," I say as an idea pops into my head. My eyes snap to Massimo. "And that's how we will contact Tomas."

I look at Joyce's laptop and she hands it to me without question. Placing it back on the desk, I pull a chair up and begin typing.

They all watch in confusion as my hands fly across the keyboard as screen after screen appears.

"They won't track it back here will they?" Joyce asks.

"Nope. The only one who would be able to would be Tomas and he wouldn't rat me out," I say as my eyes fly to the screen.

I hesitate for a second as I see a message in the code. He detect me before I was fully in.

'Scarlet? Is that you?'

When I see that, I pause.

"Scarlet?" Massimo asks.

"It was my nickname he called me."

I typed back. 'I have a request for you'

We watched the screen for a few seconds in anticipation.

'You know I will do anything for you.' He typed.

'I am working with someone and we plan to take down Ricardo. Are you willing to help?'

"Straight to the point I see," Spencer says and I send him a hard look. "Sorry."

'I have been waiting for the day you would ask. Where are you? Are you safe?'

'I am safe for now but I can't tell you where I am just in case. I am out of the states though so he won't find me. What I need from you is to be an insider. You hear and see everything. I need to know when we have an opening to attack and if they find us.'

'I can do that. We need a safe way to communicate. It's tricky to keep finding the message in the code.'

"Do you have an extra disposable phone?" I ask looking at Massimo. He gives me a perplexed look before snapping out of it and nodding.

I nod my head before looking back. 'We have a safe line. I can hide our location when we talk. Do you have a way to sneak away to not get caught?'

'Do you even know me? Of course, I have a way to sneak around.'

A smile appears on my face before he keeps typing.

'878-468-1589. We need a meeting time.'

'2am eastern?'

'I will speak to you then. Please stay safe.'

'Maybe its you who doesn't know me :)'

With that I remove the tracing of the hack.

I grab a pen off the desk and rip a corner of a paper off, writing the number down.

I turn to them as they watch me with confusion. Maybe they weren't able to keep up with the writing in the code.

"I have a number. We call daily at 2 am eastern time. I will need a line to call him and a way to connect it to the computer so that I can cover our location," I say and they all nod their heads.

I look at the corner of the screen to see it is only eight pm.

"He is going to be our inside man. He will report to me if they track me down or when there is an opening," I say and rub my neck.

When I am met with nods I hand the computer back to Joyce.

Spencer leads Joyce out of the room as Massimo sends them a look.

"You look tired. Let's get you to bed," He says putting a hand out to me.

I nod my head and take his hand as he pulls me out of the chair and down the hall.

My eyes scan blankly around the hall's plain walls before we reach his fingerprinted door.

He steps aside once we reach it and looks down at me. I arch my eyebrow confused but he just nudges his chin to the door.

Confused, I place my finger on the scanner as a blue light comes from below and reads my print. A few seconds later, there is a click.

I look back at him with the same confused look.

"In case of emergencies," He says and I shake my head.

"Sure. That's why," I say with a smirk as I walk into the room. "I'm not even going to ask how you got my fingerprint into the scanner."

"Probably for the best."