Finding Romeo

Chapter 19

(Romeo POV)

By the time I woke up again, the windows were shadowed with the darkness of the night. My body was still extremely sore and covered with bruises and my eye was still swollen to point where I could only see blurry objects through the open slit. At least I felt more rested.

I leaned my head back and stretched my arms out over my head, sighing heavily. My mind wondered to Talia as my eyes landed on the computer that Luka had dropped off.

I wasn't used to being given anything, even if it was a replacement for something someone else had broken. He would probably need something in the future in return for it, but I still found myself pulling the computer out of the bag.

My heart stopped and my aching jaw slackened in shock. I felt my hands start to shake and my breaths came in quick gasps.

If I could speak, there would be a solid line of curses flowing from my mouth.

This wasn't a cheap computer like what I was used to, it was MacBook Air Supreme Ice Edition with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 1066MHz and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics. And as if the insides weren't impressive enough, it's front housing was made from a single sheet of platinum with a 24 carat gold apple logo.

I mean, holy fucking shit!

I sat the computer down on the crates that served as the coffee table as my hands shook. I was standing and pacing the room, running my hands through my hair before I could even think about what I was doing, looking at the computer as if it was a both a smoking gun and a tempting jewel.

If I stripped it for scrap, I could eat for years. It was one of the most expensive kinds of computers in the world, costing around $200,000 new and would cause any computer geek to have a heart attack.

Which was just about what I was doing.

I didn't know if Luka knew what he had just dropped off at my house, but this wasn't good at all.

As a hacker, my fingers itched to touch the computer, to experience the speed of a laptop of that caliber.

But, there was no way I could use the computer, let alone accept it. If I did, I would be eternally indebted to whoever had given it and no matter how much I was starving for food or for Talia, there was no way I would do that.

Never again would someone have that control over me.

Never again would I be used for my skill.

I needed to get into contact with Luka again and try to give it back. I would rather not have a computer at all then this and it pissed me off that whoever had given it to me would be trying to bribe me. That was no doubt what this was. There was no way anyone would give a computer of this value to someone without expecting something in return.

I heard the front door open and my pulse thumped loudly in my ears. Even though Jack was very unlikely to know the value of the computer, I still didn't want him seeing it. It was like a disgusting item that I needed to keep hidden until I could get the chance to get rid of it.

I felt nervous even touching the box as I shoved it back into the bag and slid it inside one of the crates. Not necessarily out of sight, but more unnoticeable then it just sitting out in the open.

My hand twitched as I shoved it into the holey pocket of my jeans and I took deep breaths to try and calm down.

Jack walked into the room and I stilled, trying to not act like anything was wrong. "I got you a job, boy."

I wondered if one of the water lines had broke again while I had slept, we couldn't afford the equipment to fix it and I doubted that the pottery clay I had found in the dumpster and used last time would work as well again.