MATE AND HIS LOVER 9

#8 Pay you with my body?

Daisy wakes up with a purpose today. She has to sort out her financial situation.

After Nate and Frank leave the house — which Daisy noticed they seem to be doing rather too early these days, and return very late at night — Daisy opens up her laptop on the dining table.

The money she had stolen from the Stantons is programmed to auto transfer randomly between different overseas account, in order to prevent Liam from tracing it.

Liam is also a hacker, like Daisy. He was brought into the Stantons gang five years ago, to lend her a hand.

Daisy was instantly impressed with his talent and decided to mentor him. Liam became the next-in-charge to Daisy in the tech work for the Stantons.

Liam is also around the same age as Ian Stanton and Daisy, and the trio got along with each other. However, Daisy's relationship with Liam was not close enough to call each other friends.

It's the same way with Poppy for Daisy.

Daisy has a lot of friendly acquaintances from during her time with the Stantons, but none of them can be labelled as friends, except maybe what she had with Ian.

But that was broken in the most brutal way for Daisy.

Daisy now knows Liam must be pulling every trick in the book to try and get back the money, and track her whereabouts. Both of which she can't allow at any cost.

Daisy was confident with just setting up the money in a transfer expedition, and it would also be easier for her to withdraw them later if they remain together.

But after seeing Ian at Poppy's place, Daisy's confidence has withered down.

She had already made a mistake once and exposed her initial hideout. If she makes a mistake this time around, she could lose all the money, or worse, get caught.

On her laptop, after tracing the money through a private network, Daisy locks in on the sum — it's now at a mid-sized bank in Hong Kong. She breaks the amount before redepositing each portion in a different bank.

Even though it'll be a hassle for her to piece together the money later when she's ready to withdraw, for now, doing this brings her some peace of mind.

Once the deposits have completed, Daisy turns her attention to job-hunting.

With the stolen money still tied up, Daisy needs to make some on her own that she could use to find and set up her next hideout.

She browses the same dark site she had used before, but this time she looks for a bigger client than a suspicious girlfriend.

A corporate gig is up.

Not that many hackers can pull this one off. With less competition, there's a high probability Daisy can score this one, and the pay can fund her next-safehouse-hunt generously.

The only problem is she will need to go to Mexico for a day.

Daisy closes her eyes, leans back on her chair and thinks. It's only for a day — it may not be a big risk she thinks. She can use one of her fake passports, and she can also inquire her old contacts in Mexico for a possible safe house in the country.

Daisy looks back at the screen and sends her pitch.

Early morning next day, Nate, Frank and Drey are in Nate's house, drinking coffee and eating the toasts Daisy had made before.

"This is too good," Drey says, chewing and moaning.

Frank sighs. "It's been a few days, and we still haven't even come close to locating a single rogue from Croway."

"On the other hand," Drey says, "Patrick and his men haven't found one either. We're still in the race. By the way, Nate, where is your mate?"

Nate doesn't know, until the front door opens and Daisy comes in while taking off her earphones.

"Where were you?" Nate asks.

"I went for a walk. You guys aren't the only ones who exercise you know." Seeing Nate and Frank leaving for and returning from their training sessions made Daisy feel like a slob. So she had decided to take up morning walks.

"You call putting one foot in front of the other exercise?" Nate asks.

Daisy stops and puts up her hand over her waist. "I do other exercises too. Come to my room. I'll show you."

Drey chokes on his toast.

Nate takes his coffee mug higher in his mouth to cover more of his face.

"Thanks for the toasts," Frank says.

Daisy looks at the basket. It's empty. "The way you guys keep eating my cooking I should start charging you."

"I should charge you first for freeloading in my house," Nate says.

"Can I pay you with my body?" Daisy says.

"I don't accept shoddy goods," he says.

"Oh, burn," Drey says, congratulating his friend.

But Daisy's attention is no longer on the conversation. She got a text regarding the corporate hacking job she had pitched for. She gets inside her room and closes the door.

"Looks like you hurt her," Frank says.

"Like she's someone who would get hurt by something like that," Nate says, while also wondering if he was out of line.

Due to his growing attraction towards Daisy, Nate keeps his interaction with her as minimum as possible.

However, another part of him wishes for more time with her.

His training, and now his assignment to find and bring in the rogues, keep Nate, for the most part, away from his house.

In whatever little conversations he'd had with Daisy so far, all Nate could deduce was that she is stubborn and likes to tease him. He doesn't know anything else about her.

Nate also wonders what Daisy thinks of him. There was this one time she asked him if he had a girlfriend, but Nate doesn't know if that was her teasing him again or if she was genuinely curious about him.

It's hard for him to tell anything about Daisy, because when Nate and Frank are home they notice that Daisy chiefly stays in her room.

The constant stream of keystroke sounds coming from her room is the only way they know she's awake. Sometimes those sounds come at night. She types faster than Nate could think.

Even though Daisy keeping to herself is exactly what Nate had wished for — so their secret could stay safe — without knowing himself, Nate yearns for Daisy's attention.

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