Chapter 18 Iris
IRIS
Three hours later, I sit cross-legged on Alexi’s couch, my laptop balanced on my knees while he sprawls beside me with two monitors set up on the coffee table. Energy drinks litter the surface between us—mine, his, ours at this point.
“Show me how you got into the NSA archive.” He doesn’t look up from his screen, fingers flying across the keyboard. “Every step.”
I replay the breach for him, walking through each layer of penetration. He watches my code execute with the intensity most people reserve for porn.
“There.” He pauses the playback, pointing at a string of commands. “You left a microsecond delay between authentication and access. Nearly invisible, but not to someone looking for it.”
My stomach drops. “How invisible?”
“Enough that ninety-nine percent of security teams would miss it.” His green eyes flick to mine. “But if someone’s specifically monitoring for intrusions related to Nightshade, tracking Phantom’s signature...”
“They know I accessed the files.”
“They’ve known since the moment you breached last night.”
Fuck.
“Walk me through your methodology.” He pulls up a clean terminal. “I’ll show you how to move through systems like you were never there at all. No delays, no traces, nothing even I could detect.”
For the next hour, Alexi deconstructs my techniques with surgical precision. Shows me where I’m vulnerable, how to mask packet signatures, ways to manipulate audit logs that I’ve never considered. His methods are elegant and terrifying—the digital equivalent of walking through walls.
“Jesus,” I breathe, watching him demonstrate a rootkit that rewrites its own installation history. “How long have you been able to do this?”
“Since I was seventeen.” He grins. “The family business required certain... adaptations to traditional surveillance.”
We work in focused silence, building new tools to investigate Morrison and Nightshade without detection. Alexi’s creating a distributed network of compromised systems we can route through—digital camouflage that shifts constantly.
I’m cross-referencing Morrison’s known associates when something catches my eye.
“Alexi.” My voice comes out strange. Flat. “Look at this.”
He leans over, scanning the data I’ve pulled up. Financial records showing regular deposits into a Delaware-registered shell corporation. The corporation’s hidden ownership structure traces back through three layers of subsidiaries before—
“Sentinel Operations.” His jaw tightens. “Private intelligence firm. Former CIA contractors, mostly. They handle things the government doesn’t want official fingerprints on.”
My hands start shaking. “They’ve been paying Morrison for three years.”
“When did you start your investigation into your parents’ death?”
The timeline clicks into place with sickening clarity.
“They’ve been watching me.” The words taste like ash. “This whole time, they’ve known exactly what I was doing.”
“Hey.” Alexi’s hand covers mine, stopping the tremor. “Look at me.”
I force my eyes from the screen to his face.
“We’re going to shut them out.” His voice carries absolute certainty. “Together, we can do it. You and me—we’re better than any intelligence operation they’ve got running.”
“Alexi—”
“No.” He squeezes my fingers. “I’ve spent my entire life three steps ahead of people trying to track me. You’ve done the same. They might have been watching, but they haven’t caught you yet. And now you’re not alone anymore.”
The weight in my chest loosens slightly.
“So, we clean house,” he continues. “Every trace, every breadcrumb, every ghost signature you’ve ever left. Then we rebuild from scratch with methods they’ve never seen before.”
I nod, swallowing hard. “Where do we start?”
“Your personal systems first. Show me your current security architecture.”
We fall into synchronized rhythm, passing code back and forth like musicians trading riffs.
Alexi dismantles my firewalls and rebuilds them with quantum-encrypted layers that shift their parameters every seventeen seconds.
I implement his distributed routing protocols while developing new obfuscation techniques that blend our signatures into background noise.
Three energy drinks later, he’s teaching me how to spoof my own digital fingerprint. I watch him work, mesmerized by the efficiency of his keystrokes, the way he anticipates system responses before they occur.
“There’s a pattern in Morrison’s communication logs,” I say, pulling up the data. “Encrypted traffic every Tuesday at 2 AM Eastern.”
“Scheduled reports.” Alexi doesn’t look up from rewriting my packet signatures. “Probably automated. We can use that.”
I start building a parser to intercept and decode the traffic without triggering alerts. Alexi glances over and makes a small adjustment to my code that improves efficiency by forty percent.
“Show-off,” I mutter.
His lips quirk. “You’re the one who just optimized my routing algorithm.”
“That was barely—”
“Twenty-two percent faster.” He saves my updated security protocols. “Accept the compliment, detka.”
The comfortable silence returns. Outside, Boston traffic hums. Inside, we construct digital fortresses that even ghosts can’t penetrate.
My laptop pings—another layer secured, invisible to everyone except us.
“Food.” Alexi closes his laptop with decisive finality. “When did you last eat?”
I check the time—nearly six PM. “Last night. Maybe.”
“Unacceptable.” He pulls out his phone and scrolls through delivery apps. “Thai, Indian, or Italian?”
“Thai. Extra spicy.”
He orders without consulting me.
“Thirty minutes,” he says, stretching lean muscles. His shirt rides up, exposing a strip of skin that makes my mouth go dry despite everything.
I drag my attention back to my screen, pretending to review code I’ve already perfected twice.
“Stop.” He plucks the laptop from my hands, setting it aside. “Your brain needs rest, or you’ll miss something critical.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve been staring at the same function for four minutes without changing anything.” He pulls me against him, tucking my head under his chin. “Rest, Iris.”
The steady rhythm of his heartbeat grounds me. My eyes drift closed despite my intention to stay alert, vigilant, ready.
“This is dangerous,” I murmur against his chest.
“What is?”
“This. Us.” I breathe in his scent—coffee and expensive cologne and something uniquely him. “Getting comfortable.”
His fingers trace patterns on my spine. “Is that what you’re doing?”
“Maybe.” The admission costs me. “I could get used to this. Having someone who understands the work, who moves through systems like I do. Someone who doesn’t think I’m broken for living in code.”
“You’re not broken.”
“Most people would disagree.”
“Most people are idiots.” He tilts my chin up, green eyes serious. “You’re brilliant and lethal and perfect exactly as you are.”
The doorbell interrupts whatever response I might have made—probably something sarcastic to deflect from how much his words affect me.
Alexi extracts himself to answer, then returns with bags of food that smell incredible, spreading containers across the coffee table he just cleared of monitors.
Alexi pulls me back to the couch, settling against the cushions. He combines pad thai, curry, and spring rolls into one bowl, balancing the portions with surprising care.
Then he unzips his pants.
“What are you—”
“Take your panties off.” His voice carries that edge of command that makes my pulse spike. “Come here.”
I should refuse. Should tell him we need to focus on Morrison, on Nightshade, on everything that matters.
Instead, I slip my underwear down my legs and straddle his lap, facing him.
His cock presses against my entrance, hard and insistent. He grips my hips, guiding me down slowly until he fills me completely. I gasp at the stretch, the intensity of being so full while he remains perfectly still.
“Stay just like this.” He picks up the bowl with one hand and the chopsticks with the other. “Open.”
My brain short-circuits. “Alexi—”
“Open, detka.”
I part my lips. He feeds me a bite of pad thai, and the tangy, sweet noodles slide across my tongue. The domesticity of the gesture wars with the obscenity of sitting on his dick, creating cognitive dissonance that leaves me dizzy.
He takes a bite himself, chewing slowly while his free hand rests possessively on my thigh.
Another forkful for me—curry this time, rich and spicy. I swallow, fighting the urge to move, to grind against him. He’s completely hard inside me, and the stillness makes every small shift of weight feel electric.
“Good girl.” He feeds himself a spring roll, eyes locked on mine. “You’re already getting wetter.”
Heat floods my face. My body betrays me, slick arousal coating him as I struggle to remain motionless.
He offers me another bite. I lean forward to take it, the movement shifting him deeper. A quiet moan escapes before I can stop it.
“That’s it.” His pupils dilate. “Feel how perfectly you fit around me.”
I clench involuntarily. His jaw tightens, the only sign my body affects him at all.
More food. His turn, then mine. Each bite punctuated by the growing tension, the wet heat building between my legs, the desperate need to move that he won’t permit.
“Alexi.” My voice comes out breathy. Wrecked. “Please—”
“Finish your dinner first.” He feeds me another bite of curry, maddeningly calm while I’m falling apart.
I take another bite, but my hips shift involuntarily. The fullness, the pressure, the deliberate stillness—it’s driving me insane.
“Stop moving.” His voice carries a warning.
I try. Take another mouthful of pad thai, swallow. But my body won’t cooperate, grinding down slightly despite my intentions.
“Iris.” His grip on my thigh tightens. “I said stop.”
“Can’t.” The word escapes breathless, desperate. I rock forward again, chasing friction he won’t give me.
His control snaps.
The bowl hits the coffee table with a sharp crack. Both hands seize my hips, fingers digging into flesh hard enough to bruise.