26. Myles #2
“But he’s alive?” I press.
“Yup.” He busies himself with wiping off his neck and hands. “Did I get it all?”
I nod.
He shoots us a grin and pulls his sweater off. “I wonder if the people who do our laundry ever get tired of scrubbing blood out of our clothes, or if they just accept that it’s a part of life here?”
“Probably a bit of both,” I tell him.
“You said you got information?” Jax says before Jace can go off on another tangent.
“Yuppers.” He lumbers over and plops down on the settee across from us. “You two are as nauseatingly adorable as Killer and Felix.” He shakes his head. “But anyway, back to what I learned.”
“Are you waiting for an engraved invitation to speak?” Jax asks dryly when Jace doesn’t continue.
“Nope, just pausing for dramatic effect.” He looks at me. “I imagine the name Cipher means something to you?”
My brain glitches out again as it feels like all the blood drains from my face and pools in my feet.
“Cipher?” I croak.
“Like his gaming friend?” Jax asks sharply.
Jace nods.
“What does he have to do with any of this?” Jax asks.
“Remember how you couldn’t figure out how Jensen knew about the charity job you did?”
I nod.
Jax told me that Jacob’s real name was Jensen. He also explained the link between Jensen and the man who orchestrated the hit on Felix and how Jensen ended up on campus.
The only part of the puzzle we haven’t been able to figure out is how the orchestrator knew about me and my particular skill set.
“And how you thought that you fucked up when you found the blackmail files and that’s how they tracked you?”
“Yeah,” I say slowly.
“Turns out, you didn’t fuck anything up, and Jacob got the information from his boss, who got it from a source close to you.”
“Cipher?” I whisper.
“Cipher, a.k.a. Hunter Maxwell.” Jace nods. “The one and only.”
“How…”
“I’m going to have to do some digging to fill in some of the blanks with the story,” Jace says and kicks his feet up on the coffee table.
“Those guys were very willing to talk when they realized I was dead serious about skinning them alive if they didn’t tell me what I wanted to know, but they didn’t know everything I wanted to know. ”
The casual way he says that should freak me out, instead it makes me glad to have him in my corner.
“From what I could gather from their babbling, it seems your boy Cipher saw an offer on the dark web looking for information about the identities of the people who did your charity hack job. Guess the payout was worth it, because he squealed like a pig in a mud bath.”
“How much was the payout?” I ask before I can stop myself.
“Ten K.”
My jaw drops. One of my best friends sold me out and put a target on my head for ten thousand dollars?
“Yeah, I’m insulted for you. Dickhead should have known he could easily squeeze ten times that out of the fucker for that kind of information.” Jace shakes his head ruefully. “But he’s the leak. He’s the one who told the big bad, who told Jensen, who used it to blackmail you.”
“But what about the Kings?” I ask. “You said I wasn’t the reason they were able to track me.”
“Nope.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pack of gum. “Do you remember that system you built so your boy Cipher could access his property manager’s files and download all the records when he was being threatened with eviction last year?”
My stomach drops. “I remember.”
“He gave Jensen a copy of that in case you decided to snoop around in the Kings’ system,” he says, and he looks genuinely sorry.
Since it’s Jace, I have no idea if he’s actually sorry or just wants me to think he is because it’ll help me feel better, but it doesn’t matter.
The fact that he cares enough to pretend means more than it probably should.
“Of course he did,” I say bitterly.
The system I built for him was just a slightly modified version of my basic pre-built that I use for easy hacks. Their security system would have flagged the similarities between the one I made for Cipher and the one I used to hack them the second I ran it.
“Did he at least get paid for betraying me again, or was that a freebie?”
“He got paid. Not sure how much, but I’ll find out once I go through his financials.”
“So all of this shit happened because one of my best friends decided to sell me out and kept playing me like a fiddle this entire time.” I shake my head. “Now I understand what happened earlier.”
“What do you mean?” Jax asks at the same time Jace says, “What happened earlier?”
“He was acting weird before the power went out,” I tell them.
“Got all uppity about me spending time with you and kept asking where you were and just being a dick. Then he had a tantrum and logged off. Echo told me he was asking her about the deepfakes and Jacob before I got online.” I huff out a bitter laugh.
“Even after that, I still didn’t believe that he was part of this.
I thought maybe he was blackmailed into it like me and he was somehow involved because he was trying to save himself, but that asshole just wanted money.
He sold me out and betrayed me for ten Gs.
That’s what five years of friendship meant to him. ”
Jax rubs my back in soothing circles.
“I have an idea that might make all this a bit easier to swallow,” Jace says, and the gleam in his eyes tells me that whatever he’s about to say will probably be diabolical.
“What’s that?”
“You know how you retired your old hacker name, the one you did that charity job, and the other jobs you think I don’t know about, under.” He shoots me a smirky grin. “I’m thinking that it would be pretty poetic if we revived that name and made it look like it’s been his all along.”
The corners of my mouth tip up in a smile. “Go on.”
“And we could embed a calling card into the code when we plant it into his system and blast that all over the dark web and see if anyone bites.”
“And if they do, they’ll assume he’s the one who did the hack jobs,” I say, unable to hide how much I like his plan.
“Exactly.” He grins. “And I can guarantee that someone will find him and they’ll enact their revenge on him. Once they do, everyone will assume you’re dead and no one will ever look for you again. Two birds, one stone.”
“Your brain is both terrifying and fascinating,” I tell him, grinning like a moron at how perfect his plan is.
“It’s a fun place to be.” He pops a piece of gum out of the pack and tosses the rest to me.
I catch it and thumb out a piece. “Gum?” I offer Jax.
He smiles and shakes his head.
I toss the pack back to Jace and pop the piece of gum in my mouth.
“I need to call Echo,” I tell Jax. “She has to be freaking out because of the power failure, and I need to tell her about Cipher. I don’t think he’d ever hurt her or put her in danger, but then again, I thought the same thing about me and that turned out to be a giant lie.”
“Come on.” Jace stands and waves for me to follow. “You can use my computer to call her. If my brother can let you go for a few minutes, that is.”
Jax shoots him a flat look but releases me.
“I’m going to go to your dorm to get some of your stuff,” Jax tells me as I stand.
“My stuff?” I ask and head over to Jace’s desk.
“Your phone, some clothes, your toiletries, laptop. Whatever else you need.”
“But…” I look between them.
“You thought Jax was gonna let you go back to your room tonight?” Jace cackles and flops down in his chair.
“Hell no, little bro, you’re going to be staying here for the rest of the weekend at minimum.
We might know the who what when where and whys of all the shit that’s been going on, but we still have to make sure the threat against you is over and do it in a way that doesn’t bring the whole school down on us.
” He pats the seat of Jax’s chair, which is next to his.
“Now sit that pretty little butt down and let’s call your friend before she loses her mind. ”
“Are you sure you don’t mind if I stay here?” I ask Jace.
“Of course not.” He hands me his spare headset.
“It’ll be like having a slumber party. But just a warning, I’m a deep sleeper, but I will react with violence if I get woken up because you two can’t keep your dicks to yourself.
If you’re gonna bone while I’m in the room, then be silent, or you’ll have to face my wrath at having my beauty sleep interrupted. ”
“You don’t care if we do… that while you’re asleep?”
“Nope, because I won’t know about it if I’m asleep.” He bumps his arm against mine playfully. “Can’t give a shit about something if I don’t know it happened.”
“Is this a twin thing, or a psychopath thing?” I ask. “I can’t fault your logic, but that’s definitely not the position most people would take in your situation.”
He laughs and taps on the space bar to wake up his computer. “Probably both.”
Jax comes up behind me and gives my shoulders a tender squeeze, then leans down to brush a kiss over my sore temple. “Is there anything else you want me to get from your room?” he asks softly.
“No.” I turn my face, eagerly searching out his mouth for a kiss.
He obliges, and I’m grinning like a fool again when he pulls away.
“Here.” Jace slides his keyboard in front of me. “I’ll go grab you some pain meds and ice for that bruise while you talk to your friend.”
“Thanks.”
He shoots me a grin and pats my shoulder as he stands. “It’s over. Just a few more loose ends to tie up, but all this is finally over.”
I nod as the reality of that hits.
It’s over.
After months of turmoil and fear and thinking that it would never be over, it finally is.
“Thank you,” I say to both of them. “For everything.”
“Don’t thank us.” Jace’s smile is soft and full of affection. It’s the same smile he gives Felix, and that warms something inside me. “You don’t thank family for stepping up. That’s just what we do.”
I nod, my throat tight with emotion. I already knew Jace thought of me as family, but after what he did tonight, and hearing him say it now, cements it as truth for me.
Jace gives my shoulder another squeeze and heads away from the desk.
Jax sits in his vacated seat and pulls me in for a deep and lingering kiss that’s as soothing as it is arousing.
“Ready to call Echo?” Jax asks and motions toward the computer.
“Yeah.” I slip on the headphones. “Better do that now before you kiss me again and I forget all about calls and Jace’s rule about being quiet.”
Jax’s grin is full of heat and promise as he leans back against the chair. “Don’t you worry about that,” he tells me. “The walls are thin here, but the shower will give us all the cover we need later tonight.”
My cheeks flush warm as I turn my focus to Jace’s computer and off my incredibly hot boyfriend and the promise of shower time fun.
Who would have thought that the worst betrayal of my life would lead me to finding the one person who not only makes me feel seen and safe, but who also accepts me for exactly who I am, quirks and weirdness and all.
Jax might not be a traditional boyfriend, and life with him will never be boring, but none of that matters as long as he keeps choosing me the way I will always choose him.
He might have started out as my stalker, but now he’s my everything, and I know he’ll always be there to protect me and love me in his own way.