Chapter Seventeen #2
I snort before I can stop myself. Sterling’s mouth twitches like he’s been waiting for that exact reaction. Lila grabs a fork and immediately starts stealing food off Cam’s plate. “You’re tense,” she observes, not even looking up. “Which means either you didn’t sleep or you did and hated it.”
Cam glares at her. “Oh, I’m sorry. You were in my bed for six hours, and now you’re a licensed therapist? Please, continue psychoanalyzing me. I’m dying to hear your diagnosis, Dr. Fallon.”
“Six hours?” Lila gasps dramatically, clutching her chest like she’s been mortally wounded. “Wow. We’re basically in love. Should I start planning the wedding, or are we eloping to Vegas?”
He points the spatula at her like it’s a loaded weapon. “Eat. Quietly.”
Sterling leans over. His voice is a low murmur against my ear. “This is better than cable.”
I bump my shoulder lightly into his. “You’re enjoying this too much.”
“Absolutely,” he says, a slow smirk tugging at his lips. “It’s nice seeing Cam emotionally compromised for once.”
Cam flips Sterling off without looking. I take a bite of eggs and immediately regret every life choice that led me here. “Cam…” I say slowly. “Did you season these?”
“Yes,” Cam says, shooting me a warning glare that I promptly ignore.
“With what?” I ask dryly. “Spite?”
Lila cackles, nearly choking on toast. “See? This is why I don’t trust men who code. No sense of balance whatsoever.”
Sterling lifts his mug in mock agreement. “We’re fueled by caffeine and bad decisions.”
“That tracks,” I say, taking another cautious sip of coffee. “Explains a lot, actually.”
For a few minutes, it’s just that. Plates clinking.
Coffee refills. Lila is talking too much.
Cam is pretending he hates every second of it.
Sterling is watching everything with that quiet, amused calm.
It feels… good. Almost fragile. For the first time since waking up, I let myself believe this moment can exist without being ripped away.
Cam is the first to break the rhythm. “Well,” he says, stacking plates like he’s building a fortress, “before we all get too comfortable pretending this is a group brunch, we should probably check the systems again.”
Lila groans. “Wow. Way to kill the vibe.”
“I don’t have a vibe,” Cam mutters. “I have anxiety and whatever the hell this is.” He gestures vaguely at the group.
Sterling straightens from the counter, setting his mug aside. “He’s right. We bought ourselves a window for a few days.” His voice is low and steady. “Doesn’t mean it stays open.”
I nod, even though a small, stubborn part of me wants to cling to this—the warm kitchen, the coffee, the fragile illusion of normal. “Okay,” I say. “Let’s not let on that we caught on.”
Cam heads for the dining table, laptops already waiting like they never really left. Lila drags her feet behind us, still yawning. “If I’m doing cybercrime before noon,” she mutters, “I want this shit noted somewhere.”
“You can put it on your résumé,” I tell her. “Special skills: professional menace.”
“Oh, that is absolutely my brand. Put it in bold, underline it, add a little heart next to it.” She glances at Cam with a wicked smile. “Think I should add ‘Cam’s favorite pain in the ass’ in fine print?”
Cam flips her off. “Fine. Just don’t forget the asterisk that says Handle with alcohol.
Lila laughs, but the sound fades as we slowly shift gears.
We fall into it easily. Screens flicker to life.
Fingers move. The room shifts from domestic to deliberate, but the tension stays low, coiled instead of sharp.
Sterling doesn’t hover, but he watches. I feel it anyway.
The way his attention stays tuned to me, not on the code.
Like he’s clocking every breath, every pause, every time my shoulders tighten or ease.
Cam clears his throat, eyes still on his screen. “No new pings. No foreign packets. Whatever crawled in the other night hasn’t tried again.”
“Good,” I say, keeping my voice steady and confident. “That means our system is working. They’re still waiting…watching.”
Lila blinks slowly, one eyebrow raised. “You say that like it’s a win.”
“It is,” I reply. “It means our system held. They’re regrouping…or still looking for a weakness.”
We work for another stretch—quiet, focused, efficient. Eventually, Lila leans back in her chair and spins once, lazily. “I don’t like how calm this feels.”
Cam nods in agreement without even looking up.
I glance at Sterling, our eyes meet for a brief second. “Neither do I.”
Still holding my gaze, something dark and knowing passes between us. “Calm never lasts,” he says. “It just gives you time to decide what breaks first.”
I close my laptop gently, the soft click cutting through the quiet. “Then let it last a few more minutes.” No one argues.
Outside, the day has fully arrived. Light spills through the windows, bright and oblivious.
Inside, we linger in the soft aftermath of breakfast—suspended in that fragile space between what just happened and what’s coming next.
A borrowed moment. I don’t know how long we’ll get to keep it.
But I let myself have it anyway, even if I don’t deserve it.
The crack in the blissful moment doesn’t come loud. It comes politely. A soft chime rises from Cam’s laptop. Just a single, unfamiliar chime that doesn’t belong to anything we’ve built. His fingers freeze mid-motion. Lila notices first. “Uh,” she says, squinting. “Was that a breach?”
Cam doesn’t answer right away. His eyes are locked on the screen as the color slowly drains from his face. “That’s not a breach,” he says, his voice low and unnervingly quiet. “It’s worse.”
Sterling straightens, slowly, standing taller. Alert in a way that pulls the air tight. “Explain.”
Cam swallows hard, eyes still fixed on the screen. “It’s a handshake.”
My stomach drops. “From where?”
He shakes his head, slow and grim. “Not from outside.” His voice drops lower. “From inside the architecture. Like something just woke up.”
The room feels smaller. The hum of the house suddenly feels too loud. Too alive. “That’s impossible,” I say, even as my fingers curl tightly against the edge of the table. “We isolated every layer.”
“I know,” Cam replies quietly, rubbing a hand over his face. “I helped fucking design it.”
Lila pushes to her feet. “Okay, I officially hate this. Can we go back to bullying Cam’s eggs? I was having a great time there.”
Sterling moves closer, stopping just behind my chair. He doesn’t touch me, but the heat of him is unmistakable—steady, solid, grounding. “What does it want?” He asks, his voice low.