The entire ride home, I was feeling euphoric. As I took the drives from under my shorts to put them in a safe compartment of my bag, I still couldn't believe I'd done it. My mission had been successful, above and beyond. I was feeling mighty and great the entire time – in the car, in the elevator, and as we walked to the suite.

Lex was waiting for me in the entrance hall as I entered the suite. The sight of him, this simple reminder that I'd succeeded and wouldn't be deprived of him until the end of times, made my blood sparkle and every inch of my skin tingle. Exhilarated, I dropped my bag on the floor while slamming the door shut, and lunged into his arms. He caught me mid air, a powerful forearm under me and another one on my back. In the same gesture, I wrapped my legs around his hips while my mouth ravaged his with elated kisses.

"You did it," he said between two of my insistent pecks.

"We did it."

Perched up on him as I clung to him like a tree, I allowed my joy and relief to run freely. He didn't seem to mind, though, holding me tightly as he matched each of my kisses in intensity, his face angled up. When I finally pulled away, my hands cupping his face tenderly, I noticed he'd moved us out of the entrance and was now standing in the common room.

I gazed down at him, grateful to be in his arms, to not have lost all of this. "You're amazing," he professed, his eyes full of admiration.

"No, you are. You should have seen how flawless it was. The safe opened without an issue, and then the cloning of the drive was seamless."

After one last and intense kiss on his tempting lips, I unwrapped myself from around him as he allowed me down. Practically running, I went to get the bag I'd dropped and came back with it, jittery with excitement. I took the drives out and brandished them proudly. The long and tedious result of a month of work. Even more than that, if we considered the preparation we'd done back in Seattle.

Lex's face was full of contained excitement when he took them from me. I removed my denim jacket, threw it on the couch, and we both headed to the small office. "I'll check to see if they aren't compromised, and then I'll duplicate it on my server, so we're sure we'll never lose it."

We got to work right away.

Being so close to the finish line made us even more eager to get it done and over with. As soon as we'd have access to whatever laid in those drives, we'd get to strategize and find a way to expose Becker. Lex and I had already discussed this in the past, and we'd agreed that a great revelation for the world to see would be the best way to optimize whatever we'd find. That way, the authorities wouldn't be able to dig their head in the sand and pretend nothing was going on. Also, it would ruin his image in the public's eye forever, and bring a humiliation so great he'd never recover from it.

Lex had taught me everything he knew about hacking a password, so I was working on one side of the desk while he was on the other, facing me. It was a scene quite familiar that brought me back to when we used to work for Kelex. For almost a month, I'd worked with him in his spacious office, sharing a desk just as we were now, slowly but undeniably falling for the man. Our attitude towards one another had changed so much, though, and it showed in the way our legs touched under the table.

Lex must have been just as aware as I was of the similarities, because every time our gazes met over our screen, we exchanged a knowing look. It was still distracting to have it right here, as it had been all that time ago – a year. Especially when he looked both sexy and cute with his glasses.

For the sake of efficiency, we were both trying different approaches. He was going through the basic password hacking protocols, first with the most common passwords and then with a dictionary attack. I, on the other hand, was trying a more personal technique, using my knowledge of Becker's life. Many people out there used words relevant to their surroundings when picking a password, and it was my hope that he fell into that category.

So, whenever I thought of something that might be relevant, I added it to my input list. Then, thanks to a little script I'd created in five minutes, it twisted it in hundreds of possibilities, changing letters into numbers, adding special characters, and switching things up.

So far, I'd tried his birthday, his wife's, her name, then the maiden one... I'd also tried information regarding his daughter, the super yacht he owned that I'd seen pictures of... When it all failed, I then moved on to butterflies, inputting whatever word might work. My tool tried thousands of combinations, all wrong, and I still had nothing four hours after I'd started.

"Are you getting anywhere?" I asked Lex, stretching my neck to glimpse at him.

"No, not yet. You?"

"No... And I'm starting to be hungry," I confessed sheepishly.

"Let's take a break, then. Time to feed the stomach with legs." Before I could take offense, I noticed the playful smirk on his adored face. He removed his glasses, settled them by his keyboard. I squinted my eyes at him while he rose from his desk chair, and watched when he came around to extend a hand for me. "Come on, we can order the burgers like last time."

"Let me just try a few more things," I negotiated, pointing at my screen.

"It'll be there when we come back. This is a marathon, not a sprint. And it's still working on whatever you fed it, so let it do its thing."

He was right; the software was still running combinations and possibilities. I'd just dumped a whole encyclopedia's worth of butterflies and moths' names on it. Given everything it had left to try, it would be able to work for at least thirty more minutes. So, instead of worrying about it, I took Lex's hand and followed him to the living room. He went to order our dinner to the man stationed outside, and came back to lie down on the couch next to me, his head on my lap.

His eyes closed as soon as I weaved my fingers into his dark hair, gently grazing his skull. "I can't wait for all this to be over," he mumbled.

"Same. I'll go out so much when we go back to Seattle. I have so many girls' nights to catch up on. And I miss going to the restaurant. Oh, and the movies. Gonna watch so many movies when we go home, baby. Or even just walk around without a security detail, not scared someone might come for me."

"Sounds quite busy. Will you have time left for me?"

I snorted, looking down at his relaxed face. "I'm dragging you with me for all those things. We fought too hard for our right to have a life together. I'm not letting you out of my sight."

"Love hearing that," he approved with a smile.

As we waited for our burgers, we allowed ourselves to hope, to fantasize about what we'd do once we were back home. Because once we'd get our lives back, we'd catch up with all the time we'd wasted because of all this. We would definitely go out on a few dates together, and a couple of them had to include the arcade place we'd been on for our first one. I already planned on inviting Kev and Shelly, as well as my brother and Kate, for dinner at our place, so they'd all get to know each other.

When the food arrived, the topic changed, and we discussed what we'd do once we would crack into Becker's data. It was essential that we protected the anonymity of the women involved. They didn't deserve to be publically dragged into the mud, which might happen since the world loved to hate on my gender. But maybe once the truth would be out, some of them would come forward, finding comfort and courage in knowing they weren't the only ones. It had taken a hundred women to take Harvey Weinstein down, many of which were international celebrities. While the public might not care as much for a few escorts and nobodies, the justice system wouldn't have the right to ignore them.

Lex and I were both hopeful we might find more than Becker's disturbing tapes on the drives, and whatever fraudulent activity would be there, it might help our cause. Kink shaming the man wouldn't be enough, regardless of how fucked up his actions were. We needed to expose him to the world as a dangerous man.

Once our burgers were eaten, only a couple of fries left on our plates, we headed back to the office, refueled and invigorated. Only God knew how long it would take us to get in, but if we had to keep doing this for two weeks, we would.

Lex sat on his side as I pulled on my chair, and by the time I was seated, he was already back to work, with his serious face and glasses on. Alright, time to get back to being a nerdy vigilante. I shook the mouse to wake the screen, and when it did, the sight instantly knocked the air out of my lungs.

Oh, shit. Holy mother fucking shit.

"Lex!" I screamed, completely flabbergasted.

He sprung up instantly, his brows deeply frowning over his alert eyes, partially hidden by his glasses. "What?!"

"I'm in! Oh my God, I'm in!" Excitement was running all over my mind, so much so that I couldn't even focus. Lex came around to check for himself, and he saw it, just like me. I was past the password, and the home screen was displayed in all its glory.

He was as shocked as I was, but he reacted first, twisting to be in front of me so he could type something. My grin was unshakable as he went through my software to find what had unlocked the computer.

"Catasticta Lycurgus?" he asked, confused.

"Is that the password?"

"Apparently. In one word with capitals."

"It's, uh... It's a butterfly species. Remember that time when I first met Becker?" He nodded. "Well, I told you he showed me one specimen in particular and told me it was his favorite. It was this, a Catasticta Lycurgus."

Still stunned, he went back to his side of the desk, typed a few things on his computer, and then his eyes widened. "Shit, you did it. It really is the password," he breathed out.

After a few seconds of staring at his screen with stupefaction, he came back to me, grabbed my face between his hands, and pulled me in for an intense kiss. "You genius of a woman," he groaned as he pulled away.

"I learned from the best."

He granted me another enthusiastic peck, and then returned to his side, making enough room for me to join him. He had two bigger screens, so it would be simpler to work from his station. For an entire minute, we only stared at it. The moment was so fucking surreal, none of us were really grasping what has happening. We'd expected this to take days, a week... But barely five hours after I'd gotten back, literally an hour after stealing the data, we were in.

Someone was truly watching over us up there.

The computer was very organized, almost in a compulsive-obsessive way. A few files were perfectly aligned in the middle of the screen, and I brought my finger to one of them, thinking it would be a good place to start.

"This one, Chrysalides. Open this one."

He did so, and within it, more folders just as cleanly organized. They were each labeled with a feminine name and a date. The first one was titled Jasmine and dated back to ten days ago. Then Blanche, from three weeks back. The third one was named Lola, and was from about five weeks ago.

Lex thought the same as I did, and he opened the Lola folder. We had to see if this was the video the escort we'd called had told us about, which, given the name and the date, was most certainly it. In that folder, we found a video file and several screen grabs that seemingly came from it. Probably Becker's favorite moments from that fucked up session? I winced at the sight the thumbnails offered, with Lola's bare behind striped with red marks, bleeding in parts. There were also closeups of her face, and the agony on her traits was hard to bear.

That fucking psycho enjoyed hurting women a little too much. We absolutely had to get him stopped. He was a menace to society and to my gender.

Lex launched the video, and it started with a shot of Lola, looking beautiful and untouched. We listened as Becker flirted with her, giving her a false sense of security. He asked small questions at first, but they increased in meaning as it went. About five minutes in, he made her the money offer, asking to hurt her in exchange for double her pay. It was sickening to see how he'd coerced her into accepting, his tone dismissive and light, as if he wasn't a twisted fuck, as if he wasn't about to hurt her so badly she wouldn't be able to sit straight for a full week.

We skipped the undressing parts, and fast-forwarded to the moment she was tied up and helpless. Before it could begin, Lex had the great idea of turning the sound off. We didn't need to hear Lola's screams. He skipped through the video as we both watched with disgusted expressions on our faces. How could someone enjoy abusing a woman like this? She was screaming and bucking, pulling at her restraints, and it seemed that with each scream, Becker went harder. Eventually, he reached his limit and stopped, sweaty, reddened, and his eyes crazed with lust.

Both of us agreed to close the video as Becker fumbled with the opening of his pants. We didn't need to witness more of Lola's humiliation. We understood the general gravity of it. When she'd told us her story, over a month ago, I'd made up images in my mind, which had been quite horrifying already. But what we'd just witnessed was even worse than that. That poor woman...

Those poor women, I corrected myself, seeing the other folders that Lex was scrolling through. "Do you think it's possible some of them retracted their consent and he still continued?"

"Given how mad he looked, I wouldn't put it past him. Fuck, Andrea... You've worked for him for a month, and he's a complete freak."

I hadn't told him about my interaction with Mrs. Reeds yet. The subject hadn't come up, and we'd been rather busy with other things. But after what we'd just watched, I realized it might be better if he never knew that Becker had 'noticed me'. Lex would drive himself mad, thinking of what could have happened to me.

We looked further into the content of this folder, which had two-hundred and seventy-three cases such as Lola's. The dates went back to twelve years ago, and it was frightening to see how many women had fallen victims to his twisted mind. Out of them all, some might actually have been masochists who matched his sadism, but something told me he preferred women like Lola, as he enjoyed the humiliation as much as he reveled in the pain he inflicted. If we could find some of those women and get them to speak up, more would follow, and soon enough, there would be a case opened against Truman Becker.

We closed that folder, deciding we'd come back to it later, and inspected the other ones. The one named Butterflies intrigued me, so I asked Lex to open that one next.

It followed the same pattern as the previous one, but instead of women, it had the names of butterfly species. As I looked at them, sorted from most recent to oldest, I realized all of these matched a specimen on his wall. The last file was the same as the one that had just been added to the collection earlier this week. And the date that went with it was last Saturday, so fairly recent as well.

What the fuck was all of this about?

Maybe none of this was actually about the butterflies he kept. Maybe it was about whatever was in those folders. The tenth one was titled Catasticta Lycurgus, so I pointed at it. If I was right, the woman in it was Becker's favorite – and not the actual, very unremarkable specimen he kept in his office.

Lex double-clicked on it, and just like for Lola and the others, it contained screenshots and a video. But the thumbnails we could see were so much more disturbing than the previous ones, which I hadn't thought was even possible.

While it had only been Lola and sometimes Becker in the other file, there seemed to be people there. Quite a few of them, even. And the woman at the center of it, young and beautiful, with long dark hair and olive skin deprived of any clothing, looked even more damaged than Lola had. With each screenshot, she looked worse, with her face beat up, her skin bruised, and bloody cuts over her body.

"Lex... What the fuck is this?" I breathed out, my guts churning with disgust and fear.

"I don't know... Is this— Could it be a level above what happened to Lola? Same deal, but more intense?"

"I don't know. Maybe? I don't even know how someone could endure what she went through. So how could someone take even more than that?"

"I guess we're about to find out."

Lex aimed for the video file, but the cursor hovered for a moment before he finally clicked on it. Just like me, he didn't want to see what was in there. We'd found Lola's tape disturbing as it was, and this one was likely to be worse.

What exactly had we stumbled on? Were we even prepared to handle whatever that was?