Chapter 6
Brie
The tiny jewelry store bag weighed me down as I pushed open my apartment door. Scarlett and Malcolm followed with the rest of our purchases—five shopping bags that contained my entire cover identity as Mrs. Brie Stone, network specialist and newlywed.
“Stop overthinking,” Scarlett said as she slipped out of her shoes. “I can practically hear your brain spiraling from here.”
She was right. I’d been counting doors and footsteps since we’d entered the building. Eighteen steps from the elevator to the first door. Twenty-five steps to my door. Numbers made sense. Numbers didn’t require me to pretend to be married to my best friend.
“I wasn’t—” I started, then gave up. “Fine. But this is a perfectly normal response to being thrown into fieldwork with four hours’ notice.”
Malcolm kicked off his own shoes and followed Scarlett down the short hallway. “For what it’s worth, you’re handling it better than I expected. No pacing yet.”
“Give me five minutes,” I muttered, following them toward my bedroom.
“Suitcase?” Scarlett dropped the bags she’d been carrying onto my bed, looking at the scattered items I’d left behind when they picked me up.
“Right.” I headed for the spare bedroom, where I kept the things I never needed, and quickly returned.
“Toiletries, chargers, adapters,” Scarlett said, already organizing the items on my bed into categories. Then she headed for my closet, grabbing things willy-nilly. Honestly, she knew exactly what she was doing. “You’ll need comfortable shoes for walking the facility, sandals for the resort areas…”
“She had us fully packed last night.” Malcolm positioned himself in my big comfy reading chair, apparently designated as moral support while Scarlett handled logistics. “I’m looking forward to staying at the resort while you do all the hard work.”
“We’re her backup, Malcolm.” Scarlett pulled a black dress out of my closet—something she’d bought me for my birthday a couple of years ago. Which I’d never worn. “This will work for any formal dinners—”
“No way.” I swiped it from her hands, tossing it toward the laundry hamper in the closet.
“Network specialists don’t pack little black dresses for work trips.
” I grabbed my favorite graphic T-shirt from my dresser—the one with a math joke on it—and a comfortable pair of jeans.
“These are what Brie Stone would wear. Comfort over style. Function over form.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me. The same one Mum and Emmett used.
This particular brow raise meant: Don’t test me, little sister.
“You’ll need to go along with things while you’re there.
Don’t try to be invisible—that will draw more attention.
Be pleasant but unremarkable. Competent but not exceptional. ”
“Everyone working at Mnemis will be exceptional.” It was the most secure data center in the world. How could their employees be anything but exceptional?
“Calibrate to whatever’s around you,” she said. “Just don’t be the smartest person in the room.”
Malcolm chuckled. “She probably will be, though.”
“So long as no one realizes it.” Scarlett took the T-shirt I was holding, folded it far better than I could, and placed it on top of the others. “Make friends and allies—people you can leverage.”
“Making friends isn’t my strong suit.” Computers made sense. People were complicated variables with unpredictable outputs.
Scarlett kept talking. “You observe, you piece together patterns—something you do naturally—and you find the intel we need. But you don’t show off.
You don’t correct people when they’re wrong unless it directly impacts your mission.
You become background noise while your brain does what it does best.”
“Analyze everything,” I said, “but keep it quiet.”
“Exactly.” She pulled out a pair of comfortable flats. “Think of it like running a diagnostic program in the background while maintaining a simple user interface up front.”
That made sense. If something went wrong in a diagnostic, I’d dig into the details and figure out what was going on. If it simply ran, I’d barely notice what it had done.
“And when in doubt…” She reached into one of the shopping bags, pulling out something black and lacy. “Fall back on the honeymooner cover.”
The negligee dangled from her fingers, all stretchy lace and completely see-through. My face went hot—actually hot, like someone had redirected all my blood flow to my face.
“I was hoping the lace was for you,” Malcolm said with a smirk.
Scarlett didn’t even glance at him as she folded it and placed it in my suitcase.
I immediately grabbed an oversized hoodie and threw it in, covering the offending garment completely. Better to pretend it didn’t exist. The whole marriage thing was just a cover, anyway.
Although Will and I would be sharing a room.
Don’t think about that. Focus on the packing.
My phone buzzed. Will’s name appeared on the screen: You okay? Need help packing or anything? I can come by.
I typed back quickly: I’m good. Scarlett’s packing for me
Three dots appeared, then disappeared, and reappeared.
Then three laughing emojis.
Great. Thanks, Will.
“We’re not done yet,” Scarlett said, placing another T-shirt in my bag. “Stop working.”
“It’s not work. It’s Will. Making sure I’m not having a complete meltdown.”
She sighed and put a hand on my upper arm. “Rav’s already on the island. You know he’d pull the plug on this entire operation if he thought you’d be in real danger. And Will… he’d never let anything happen to you. You know that, right?”
I nodded. She was right. Of course, she was. We were talking about a mission, and she was always right about those.
But it didn’t change the fact that my stomach was a complete jumble of nerves.
Next, Scarlett pulled out a box of condoms from one of the bags. “These go in the toiletry bag.”
“Scarlett!” The heat flared in my cheeks again. When did she pick those up?
“You’re posing as newlyweds. That requires protection every bit as much as it requires the negligee,” she said, folding a beach cover-up. “It’s about the details, Brie. Anyone snooping through your luggage needs to believe the cover completely.”
“No one’s going to be snooping through our luggage. We’re network specialists, not spies—” I caught myself. “I mean, we’re pretending to be network specialists who aren’t spies.”
Malcolm chuckled. “You’re going to need to work on that.”
“Use the decades you two have spent getting to know everything about each other. No one would question that you’re a couple.”
“I guess.” Except I knew it would help. How many people had already assumed we were a couple over the years?
“Your past works in your favor. It makes you a better partner for Will than Ashley ever would have been.” Scarlett rummaged in another bag. “Where’s that bathing suit?”
“The facility is underground. I won’t be lounging on a beach.”
“You need to go outside every day.”
“I’ll wear shorts.”
“And you’ll be staying in Freeport before you go to the island.
” She held up the blue bikini she’d bought at the mall.
“The team normally goes out the night before a significant job to relax and remember why we do what we do. You should do the same. Go to the beach or the pool. Added benefit: It sets up your cover for any other employees who might be at the same hotel.”
“Will’s going to laugh when he sees me in that thing.”
“Why?” Malcolm asked. “You’ll look fantastic.”
I didn’t have a body like Scarlett’s, let alone her confidence.
At least, not when it came to my body. My brain, sure, but that wouldn’t be the part of me showing off in the bikini.
“Will’s seen me through my awkward phase, my ‘I only wear black’ phase, my ‘I live on energy drinks and forget to eat’ phase.
I’ve never been the kind of person who lounges by pools in tiny swimwear. I’ll look ridiculous.”
“It’s a costume,” Scarlett said, adding the bikini to my suitcase. “The key is acting natural when you’re in any costume. You and Will have incredible chemistry as partners. You just have to signal married on top of that, which requires a costume.”
Malcolm made a sound that might have been agreement or amusement. When I looked at him, he was studying a book on the table next to him, with apparent fascination.
“Speaking of which,” he said too casually, “you two must have developed some effective shorthand over the years. Any inside jokes? Shared experiences that might help sell the marriage?”
“We have plenty of those.” I grabbed socks from my drawer, counting pairs to keep my hands busy. “Like the time we stayed up forty-three hours straight trying to crack an encryption protocol. Or when Will convinced me to help him rebuild a Tandy TRS-80 from scratch. Or—”
“Have you ever kissed him?”
The socks fell from my hands. Heat flooded my face—worse than the negligee, worse than the condoms.
Scarlett threw a pillow at him, which bounced off his head and into his lap. “Malcolm.”
“I’m just asking,” he continued as he tossed it back onto the bed, while winking at my sister. Was he really flirting with her at a moment like this? Of course he was. He couldn’t stop himself when she was in the same room. “It could help with the cover. If there were ever anything—”
“There wasn’t.” I bent to retrieve the socks, grateful for the excuse to hide my face.
“You’ll be fine,” Scarlett said, and something in her tone made me look up. She was watching me with the protective big-sister expression she’d perfected when we were kids. “You know why?”
“Because I have no choice?”
“Because you’re brilliant. You analyze, you adjust, you overcome.
It’s what you do.” She picked up the jewelry bag from the bed.
“And because the hardest part of any cover is making the relationship appear real, but you and Will already have a foundation for that. All you’re doing is showing a piece of yourself you usually keep hidden. ”
She pulled out the ring box, opening it with a small click.
The gold band sat nestled in white velvet, simple and unassuming.
A young tech couple’s practical choice. Nothing romantic about it.
Not even an engagement ring with an ungodly diamond that would spin around on my finger anytime I started typing too fast.
“Try it on,” Scarlett said. “You need to get used to wearing it.”
The metal slid over my knuckles. It sat there, foreign and strange, like a variable in the wrong equation.
“How does it feel?” Malcolm asked.
“Like costume jewelry.” Except it didn’t. I twisted it around my finger, watching the light reflect off the surface. It was surprisingly beautiful in its simplicity.
My phone buzzed again. Will: Car’s here. See you at the airport.
I stared at my phone in one hand and the ring on the other. What was I getting myself into? In less than thirty minutes, I’d be on a plane with the team, heading toward a mission I wasn’t trained for, pretending to be married to my best friend.