Lethal Lover

29. Excerpt Vicious Vows

Inheriting my father’s business means that my life will become even more dangerous.

But I wasn’t prepared for a woman as brilliant at deception as she is.

Micah DeSantis…

Ten years younger and strikingly beautiful.

She’s trouble in a pretty little package.

More importantly, I know I’min trouble when I lay my eyes on her.

In more ways than one…

Beating her at her own game means that I have to cage her.

Micah is going to be my wife whether she wants to or not.

Our evil vows at the wedding seal our hatred forever.

We’re out for blood.

But my heart wants to protect her from forces more ruthless than me.

Especially if our vicious vows turn into a real dark fairytale romance…

Micah

My fingers race over the keyboard as fast as I can go without making errors in my typing. I’ve never tested myself, but it has to be somewhere in the vicinity of seventy words per minute. I can feel the sweat on my temples that runs down past my ears. The adrenaline surge threatens to make my heart explode, but I can’t stop now. One wrong keystroke and they’ll catch me.

“Come one, Micah.” Will, my best friend and cohort in this illegal game we’re playing, sits at his laptop next to mine in the back room of my father’s jewelry shop. We’re supposed to be running inventory numbers for him, but I like to fiddle with some hacking. And by fiddle, I mean move money from other people’s accounts into my father’s in untraceable ways that look totally legitimate.

“I’m trying, okay?” I snap, feeling rushed and panicked. This could very possibly be the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done, and it sort of terrifies me a little.

Okay, so I don’t steal from anyone who doesn’t deserve it. Only the man who has made my father’s life a living hell for at least the past three years, probably longer, though Dad will never admit that. He tries to play nice with the Mob, but this new guy they have in charge is really scaring him. He’s not like the previous leader.

“Fuck, the buffer overflow…”

“I see it,” he responds, clicking away on his keyboard. “They’re in. They know we’re here.” Sweat drips from his forehead and nose as he stares at his computer screen, but even my quick glance in his direction could be deadly for me. One mistake… that’s all it would take.

“Shit,” I hiss, my fingers moving faster. I’ve been doing this for months now, harvesting as much information as I could from their system to find the vulnerabilities and moving money when they least expect it. They’ve never once caught on to me, but they must have a new guy, someone who knows his stuff. “Will! Will…”

“Yeah, I got it,” he says, and I see the string of code he slaps out there to attempt to mask what I’m doing. The deeper we get into this, the easier it is to see when we’re being watched and tracked.

”Micah, dear…” I hear Dad calling my name, and I don’t even look up. I can’t leave this program up with what I’ve done or they’ll be able to track everything I’ve done right back to this location.

“The VPN, Will…” My half-barked order sent his way may mean nothing to anyone else, but we’ve worked together since college doing this. He knows how to cover my tracks. Our private network is being traced, and I’m too busy in the system to make sure they can’t peel back the layers of this onion.

“Got it. Shit, they’re close.”

We work feverishly, hunched over the glowing screens, focused on every single line of code. I have to make these assholes pay for what they’ve been doing. And it’s not just my father, either. They’ve come into our neighborhood with their guns and threats. They make us launder money, distribute drugs for them, and I’ve heard stories about them forcing women into prostitution, though I’ve never been pressured to do that. But then, I’ve been away at college for the most part until recently, only home on weekends to help Dad around the shop.

“Come on, come on!” Will is antsy, and I understand why. The firewalls were only the beginning of our problem. They’ve updated security in their system since the last time we siphoned money. We got nearly a half a million that time. This time, we’re only trying to scab about a quarter million, but we’re racing against someone who knows what they’re doing.

But they don’t know what I know.

“We’re running out of time. They’re gonna shut us out.”

“Shh,” I snap. “I’m thinking.” Even as my brain tries to compute what’s going on, my fingers move faster. “Just a little finagling and… Bam!” I grin like a madwoman as I watch the numbers shifting on the screen, money draining from their account and rolling right over to Dad’s. “That’s how it’s done.”

Will still hovers, as do I. Our job isn’t finished until we back out cleanly and leave no breadcrumbs. They can’t have a single trace of our code left, and we have to cover our IP address. It’s only successful if we don’t get caught.

“Modifying the log files…” My fingers fly faster than ever.

“Deleting our tracks… Shit, Micah, we really did it again.” He sounds positively giddy as he continues to type.

“Did you ever doubt me? They don’t call me lightning fingers for nothin’.” I snicker at him and start to relax a little as I see our trail of dust vanish into thin air.

With Will’s help, I manage to back out slowly and cleanly. We power down the software, and I shut my laptop just as Dad walks into the back room with a box in hand. He looks at me for a split second and rolls his eyes at me.

“You did it again?” he asks, his lips puckering up into a scowl.

I sit a little straighter, no longer intimidated by his disapproval. As a little girl, all he had to do was give me a stern expression and I was reduced to tears. But this is for his good. He just has to trust me on this. I didn’t go to college for computer programming simply to update his computer software. And while I didn’t realize how far the reach of my skill would go or how it would be tested, I’m glad I got the degree I chose. He needs someone to look out for him.

“Hey, Mr. DeSantis,” Will says, offering a wave and wiggling his fingers as he shuts his own laptop. Will, three years younger than me and still finishing his degree, has been my sidekick for a while now. We’re not dating, just friends—since he’s seriously gay—but I’d consider him the closest thing I have to a partner.

“Micah, they’re going to catch you. What will they do then?” Dad sets the box on the small work table behind us, and I pause to look at it. Probably another shipment of jewelry to put into one of the large display cases out front. These shelves are filled with custom pieces he has his jewelers creating for clients and customers, as well as pieces that are being cleaned, restored, or repaired by him.

I slide my laptop off the table and into the padded, black case I carry it in and shrug my shoulder. “Dad, they’re not going to catch us. We know what we’re doing. Besides, they have it coming. They steal, rob, and kill all the time. Just consider me Robin Hood.” I like the idea that I can steal from someone so powerful and wealthy and give to the poor—or my father, who isn’t entirely poor. Not anymore, at least. He has seven hundred fifty thousand dollars in his accounts now, thanks to me. And this business doesn’t do too badly, either.

“I’m worried they will know it’s you. You’re not afraid of them, but you should be.” His firm warning comes from experience. I’ve seen him come home with a black eye a time or two. He knows how they send warnings. They’ve probably threatened to kill him or take me or Nathan, my younger brother.

I stand and sling my bag over my shoulder, crossways over my chest. “Inventory is done.” I lean forward and peck Dad on the cheek, and Will stands to follow me, hefting his own powerful laptop in its case. “If you want, I can open a new account and get the money out of yours. You deserve it, though. You shouldn’t have to worry about them breathing down your neck.”

Ever since Mom died, Dad has spent his life building this jewelry store up to what it is. I hate that a man who knows nothing, who hasn’t lifted a finger to help us, can walk in here and profit off us. And we hoped when the old man died suddenly of a heart attack that they’d leave us alone. But they found a new leader quickly, and his men have been here three times this week alone to collect what they think is theirs. Meanwhile, we’re the ones who take all the risk.

If the police found out we were laundering money through this shop, they’d arrest my father, not the man responsible. I’d like to meet him just so I can give him a piece of my mind, but men like him are untouchable. He’s probably sitting somewhere, holed up with his bitches and a lot of whiskey, smoking cigars and laughing at all the people he micromanages.

“I just want you to be careful. That’s all, dear.” Dad cups my cheek and pats it. “You’re just as beautiful as your mother, smarter than she was. But you’re a risk taker, Micah. You’re going to get caught, and you’re going to have to face the consequences. I’d rather you just quit while we’re ahead. It’s not worth it.”

My heart squeezes in my chest. I love my Dad, but he’s wrong. These people have to pay. It’s totally worth the risk. Besides, I won”t be caught. I’m the best at what I do. I didn’t graduate from some shitty state college. I was Magna Cum Laude at MIT, for Christ’s sake.

“I know what I’m doing, Dad.” I peck him on the cheek again and gesture at Will. “Come on. Let’s go celebrate. After that, I think I can afford the fro-yo.” I wink at him, and he follows me out.

“See ya, Mr. DeSantis!” he calls as the bell over the door to the store chimes.

The sun is hot as our sneakers slap the pavement. He falls into step beside me, and I turn north on Broadway to head toward our favorite ice cream parlor. I have a skip in my step as we walk. The feeling of victory after a race like that always gets my juices flowing.

“So, what do you think we should do with the money?” I ask Will, thinking about how we could help spruce up the neighborhood a little. The woman who owns the pet shop a few doors down from Dad’s jewelry store needs a new awning over the front of her store. Maybe we could do that.

“Not sure what you want to do with yours, but when summer break is up, I have to pay my tuition for my last year. MIT isn’t cheap.” He tugs his computer bag strap over his head so it matches mine, falling crossways over his chest. “I think your dad needs a new hat. The one he’s wearing now has a hole in it.”

I nod at a petite woman who walks past with her toy poodle. She’s polite, unlike most New Yorkers. Will’s astute observation is a bit misguided, though. “Dad wears that hat because it belonged to his father. Poppy had a strong sense of style, and I think Dad thinks wearing that hat will bring him good fortune. So, good luck getting him to wear a different one.”

We strut up to the corner, standing in the shade of the buildings, and I push the walk button on the lamp post. The “don’t walk” signal flashes, preparing pedestrians to cross when the light turns, but a few folks look both ways and scurry across the street illegally, anyway.

“Ah… Well, I still think he’d like a new hat. And I think you need a new computer. That one is getting a workout.” He nudges my computer bag and chuckles, and I turn to roll my eyes at him, and as I do, I hear tires squealing.

I whip around to see a car jerk to a stop near the curb. My heart slams against my ribcage as three large, black-clad men jump out with guns in their hands, pointed at me.

“Fuck,” I hear Will mutter, and I reach for him, but he’s gone, racing up the street like I should be, but my feet are stuck to the ground, cemented in place.

“Get in the car, bitch,” one of the men says, and I think I may vomit.

This can’t be happening.