25. Blake
25
BLAKE
In the confines of the stock room, my hand clasps the intruder’s neck in one swift motion.
“Blake! Let him go!” Georgia-May’s voice cracks. “I’ll explain.”
I barely hear her over the rush in my ears, my focus narrowing on the man before me. “What are you doing following my girlfriend to her changing room, Mr. Cartwright?”
The shock that crosses Georgia-May’s face at the mention of the name is impossible to miss. I scoff, bitter realization slicing through the fog of my anger. I’ve trusted her without question, yet now, her secrets unravel before my eyes, stretching all the way back to her dealings with Hartley Marine. She hasn’t been forthcoming.
“Huh…” My voice is thick with sarcasm. “You claimed Christian Cartwright was just a friend who embellished your resume, boosting your chances with the Hartley Marine contract. Yet you’ve never actually met your so-called manager at Obsidian Moon, have you?”
“You met him?”
“You knew I conducted background checks on you. I’ve followed every single lead about you.”
She turns to the man, asking desperately, “You’re Christian Cartwright?” But thanks to me, his throat is too preoccupied to answer her.
“So tell me, Georgia-May, who is this man to you?” My grip on his neck tightens, my demands for the truth driven not just by the sting of betrayal but because, despite everything, I care too much to let any deception pass unchecked.
“To me, his name is Cristo, Sebastian’s friend. Now, let him go!”
Her words make my head spin. All of a sudden, everything seems to link back to Sebastian. A knot forms in my stomach, a premonition of deeper trouble lurking beneath the surface.
She presses on, “Let him go right now, Blake. We need to get to Hartley Marine. We have to talk to Rob and Clay! There’s a flaw in the code I provided them, something that might connect back to Bertram.”
Shit!
Fury courses through me. I shove the man away. Cristo, Christian, whoever he really is.
“Don’t think you’re off the fucking hook! I’ll hunt you down whenever I fucking choose. Do you hear me?” I throw the threat at his retreating figure. As he scrambles away, anger tightens my chest, pulling me in directions I can barely understand.
I tell Georgia-May, “Button up your shirt!” The idea of that man catching even a glimpse of her cleavage irks me. Then I haul her by the arm, leading her quickly out to the garage. Without a fuss, she’s in the car, and we’re peeling out of the parking lot, speeding toward Hartley Marine.
As the city blurs past, I dial Rob. “What should they do, Georgia-May?” I demand, ready to relay her instructions.
“Tell Thomas to take the program offline,” she exclaims.
“I hear that,” Rob’s voice crackles through the speaker.
“We’re on our way!” I end the call, my thoughts racing. Earlier, Rob had hinted at Bertram’s forces advancing toward the U.S. Perhaps her mistake had sparked this escalation.
“I’m sorry, Blake,” Georgia-May murmurs.
I shake my head, rejecting her apology. “What exactly did you do, Georgia-May?”
“I…I might’ve used Sebastian’s old code. I didn’t mean to. It just happened.”
“You used your dead boyfriend’s code? And attempted to sell it to Hartley Marine? You told all of us it was all your work!” My voice rises involuntarily. Patience has deserted me. This is more than an oversight, more than feelings between the two of us. She needs to understand the depth of my anger.
“I didn’t mean to! And please, don’t remind me that Sebastian is dead,” she snaps back.
She had dedicated time to the project, so her decision to integrate that code suggests one of two things. Either she was careless, or she subconsciously believed that what belonged to Sebastian inherently belonged to her as well. It’s a deep-seated influence, one that cannot be easily erased by anyone, not even by a new love.
And Coco? She called me ‘daddy’ a few times. My God, that sweet voice. Sure, it was an innocent mistake, but I’ve got to face the truth. Her heart always reaches out to Sebastian, her real father. And me? I’m just a bystander who’s had the privilege of being in that little girl’s life.
But then, there is another possibility. A cold edge creeps into my tone. “Did you lie to me about your boyfriend?”
She stammers, and I’m not about to bail her out. My voice hardens, “Does Sebastian even exist? Is he truly Coco’s father? Or does Cristo have a connection to her?”
Georgia-May spins around, her eyes blazing with indignant fury. “How dare you!” she explodes. “Sebastian is Coco’s father—the man I loved, my boyfriend!”
Her declaration leaves a heavy silence as I focus back on the road. The stakes loom larger than ever, yet I’ve never felt so diminished, so small.
She explains further, “Cristo helped me create a new identity, and yes, he set up the fake contract with Obsidian Moon.”
Despite the turmoil inside me, I find myself believing her. “Then what’s with the ring? Why the tears? Was he proposing to you? His friend is dead, and now he wants to claim his girlfriend?”
“Stop, Blake! You’ve got it all wrong!” she snaps. “I told you Sebastian and I were engaged. The ring was just a surprise, that’s all.”
“What else aren’t you telling me, Georgia-May?”
“Before he died, Sebastian messed with Bertram’s system. He’s been slowly tearing it apart, even from his grave,” she reveals.
I growl in frustration. “How bad is it for Hartley Marine?”
“We need to fix the issues with my code first. I can’t tell how bad the damage is yet. I swear, I never meant for any of this to happen.”
Georgia-May has always been full of surprises, mostly wonderful ones, but this revelation hurts. After she opened up about Sebastian that night, finding out that she hid this feels like a betrayal. Now, it’s not just about us. It’s about Rob and Clay, too, the very people I swore to protect long before she came into my life.
When we pull into Hartley Marine, Rob and Clay are already on site, pacing the floor with lines of worry marking their faces. We gather around Thomas, Hartley’s IT director, who looks just as harried.
His voice carries a mix of fatigue and alarm as he starts, “We’ve been fending off hacking attempts into our systems since last night—all of them coming from Europe,” he admits, wearily adjusting his glasses. “I didn’t see the pattern at first, but after your warning, it all makes sense. These attacks are linked to the code Georgia-May developed, which I activated to enhance the navigation systems of a few test yachts.”
Georgia-May crumples, her hands covering her face as if to ward off the grief threatening to engulf her. I stand there, my own heart aching for her, yet disbelief gnaws at me. How could I have been so blind? The very issue I had so casually dismissed—her fucking dead boyfriend—now extends its tentacles over everything. It’s an insidious threat, and I’m powerless to stop. I’d underestimated the depth of his influence, and now we’re all paying the price for my oversight.
“Calm down, Georgia-May,” Thomas says, a cautious note in his tone. He then pulls a chair over for her to sit beside him. “The good news is, the code is still isolated. It was live, but it hasn’t interacted with any of our other operational systems.”
Guided by Georgia-May, Thomas brings up the questionable segments of code on his screen. The rest of us lean in as she takes control of the keyboard, her fingers moving quickly.
“I thought this protocol was entirely my own design,” she admits, a frown creasing her forehead as she scrolls through line after line of code. Moments later, her shoulders slump slightly as the realization of her error dawns on her. “I see now where I went wrong,” she murmurs, pointing out the flawed sequences that mirrored those she’d inadvertently borrowed from Sebastian.
Georgia-May’s middle finger stabs at the down arrow key repeatedly, her eyes flying up and down the screen, searching for something. Then she stops, darting between monitors as she edits, tests, and re-edits a segment of her code. “I swear, I didn’t even realize I was using it when I did this,” she explains with desperation.
“So what can we do?” Rob asks, his tone stern and demanding.
“We can’t just delete the code. Doing so might trigger an embedded fail-safe within the malware. If the malware detects tampering, it could activate a secondary routine designed to spread itself further. We need to reverse the changes methodically,” she replies, her hands trembling slightly over the keyboard.
“Wait!” Thomas interrupts, his eyes widening as he catches something on another monitor. “I think Bertram has managed to deploy a cloaked subroutine, something that’s bypassing our detection algorithms. We’ve gone offline, but they’re still breaching our defenses. I need my team to verify the integrity of our live systems.” He rushes to another desk, frantically dialing his team.
The color drains from Georgia-May’s face as the gravity of Thomas’s discovery sinks in. “I’m so, so sorry, Rob, Clay…Blake,” she stammers. “I never intended to put any of you at risk.”
The room thickens with tension, the situation looking increasingly dire as they grapple with the realization that their security measures might not be enough to stave off the intrusion.
Unable to stand the pressure in the room, I find myself backing away. This is too much. Before I say things I might regret, I step out of the room, the sounds of debate and discussion fading behind the closing door.