The Revenge by Tijan

He was already watching me.

“This can’t come back on Peter.”

Kash’s eyes darkened before he leaned down. His lips just an inch over mine, he said, “It won’t. I won’t let it.” Then his lips grazed mine, a soft nip, and he pulled away. It was a promise for later, probably much later.

He got out on his side.

I got out on mine.

“What do you need?” he asked, as the door opened for us and one of the guards stepped outside.

I was striding through the hallways, Kash having to keep up with me. “I need my headphones.” I was listing everything off. “I’ll use mine if you can grab them, or any with a thirty-six-inch cord. Coffee. Energy drinks. Snacks. I’ll take chips. Anything with sugar. Lots of sugar.” And what else?

I felt electrocuted. I was so energized.

I glanced down at my outfit. I was wearing a dress. I couldn’t hack in a dress.

“Clothes,” I remarked.

“Clothes?”

I pushed open our bedroom door. “I’ll change, but can you grab my headphones and the rest?”

He nodded. “Your father’s office…”

I was already in the closet, tugging my shirt off. “I know where his office is.”

He came to the door, his voice closer. “No, you don’t.”

I paused, hearing a tone in his voice I’d never heard before. The shirt was off and I let it hang from my hand. “What?”

He was taking me in, his eyes almost black. “The office he uses for what you’re about to do is not in the office you’re thinking about.”

My lips parted.

My dad hacked?

I flushed. Of course my dad hacked, but … Peter hacked?

“He still hacks?”

Kash grinned at me, a slow tug from the corner of his mouth upward. “He hasn’t in a while, no, but you get it from someone, you know.”

Another flush. This one I felt on the back of my neck. I knew that, but hearing he still did—it got my stomach doing all sorts of somersaults.

“His office is downstairs. The wine wall in the bar.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s behind there.”

My eyes were like an owl’s and my mouth was hanging open. “Right.” I snapped it shut. My hands went to my pants. “I’ll finish. Let’s meet in the basement.”

The other side of his mouth curved up, and he came over. A finger under my chin. He tipped me up and he bent down. He said, as he always did, right before touching his lips to mine, “It’s nice to have you back.”

A shiver went through my whole body, but I was grinning. It was a good shiver. I replied back, my lips moving against his. “It’s nice to be back.”

He groaned before lifting his head. “I’ll meet you in the basement.”

I grabbed a tank, sweats, and put my feet in some fuzzy slippers. I left the hair and makeup how it was, and at the last second, grabbed my own bag. It housed my laptop, and the headphones were already in there. I found Kash waiting at the bar. He had a few items there, but when he saw me scoping them out, he said, “I’ll get you started, then get the rest.”

Right. That was smarter.

He went over to the wall, removed one of the bottles, and pushed in the wine bottle holder. He stepped back and the entire wall shifted outward, then glided to the side.

There was a hallway behind it.

Kash walked in, put his hand on a scanner, and another door opened.

I was in hacker nerddom love.

Beyond was everything I could’ve wanted in life—except for, you know, Kash. But everything else, hell yes. I went inside.

Kash touched my shoulder, indicating a side door. It had a red EXIT sign over it, and it looked just like the exit doors at a movie theater. “Bathroom is through there.”

Right. Exit meant “bathroom.” Got it.

“I’ll be back with your other items.”

But then I was thinking again, and I rounded as Kash was leaving. “Wait. What about everyone else?”

Kash held his phone up. “I will send everyone away, don’t worry.”

“And you…”

“I’ll be right here.” He nodded to a couch in the corner. “I can work just as well as you.”

I liked that. I liked that a lot.

“What about Matt?”

“He is going to be told to take his friends on a three-day trip.” He smirked at me. “He will get the jet.”

I laughed as he left, and I repeated to myself. “He got the jet.”

I focused on the computers and sat down.

First things first, I had to hack into my dad’s personal computer, and then his system. Again.





FORTY-ONE

Bailey


I had two objectives with where I started. One, the location, and two, the players.

I did what the FBI said they were already looking at, but I was going to do it better. I wasn’t going to wait and get permission from local store cameras. Yep. I hacked ’em. All of ’em. I didn’t feel one iota of guilt. Some of these systems were so easy that I was almost doing them a favor. If they realized they’d been hacked, they would get a better system.

But that wasn’t a justification, because I didn’t feel guilty.

Within an hour, I had two photos of my mother. Two.