Chapter 27
The house in Canada didn’t feel like a home. Andrea did, not the structure. Stepping into my apartment in Seattle, though, comes with a strong sense of homeyness. Our apartment, actually.
Maria Carmen’s hip replacement went well, and we waited for her to wake up before hitting the road. Andrea might have wanted to stay for a couple more days, but just like me, she realizes time is of the essence. So, she didn’t complain or argue and hopped into the car that drove us back to Seattle.
“Hey, Iris,” Andrea greets with a smile once we’ve dropped our suitcases by the entrance.
“Hello, Andrea. I missed you. It has been a long time since I last saw anyone.”
“I missed you, too, girl. I’ll catch you up soon.”
“Can’t wait to hear it.”
“I’m here too,” I say, a little offended that my AI hasn’t acknowledged me yet.
“Hello, Alexander. Welcome home.”
I turn to Andrea, giving her back a graze to claim her attention. “I will reinforce Iris’s security system first, so we’re sure no one’s coming for us while we’re here.”
“Good idea. I’ll set up a secure connection on my laptop and start digging to find dirt on Becker. Maybe I’ll call Oli, let him know to be vigilant, too. He helped me with the heist, after all. He’s like five percent Nammota at this point.”
“I found no traces of his involvement when I looked at all your work. I think he’s safe.”
“Okay, good. That’s one less person to worry about,” she says, offering me a sheepish smile.
I turn on my heels, about to head to the hidden door, when she stops me with a hand on my shoulder and, “Lex, wait.”
When I face her, her hand slides to my neck instead. She tugs gently, and I follow her silent will and lower to let her kiss me. After our lips part, I remain right here, my forehead against hers.
“I love you,” she whispers. “Thank you for everything.”
“I love you too, freckles.”
“How about once we’re rid of all this mess, we have the most ordinary and boring life ever?”
“That’s actually a great idea. Our lives have been eventful enough as it is.”
“Definitely.”
We exchange another kiss, longer than the first one, before getting on with our duties.
It takes me about two hours to reinforce Iris’s security.
I already hacked into the building’s cameras when I originally set her up, so that wasn’t something I had to work on.
I did, however, tap into the city’s CCTV feed and add the entire block to her system.
She’ll scan the faces of every passer-by, cross-examine them with criminal databases, and alert me if one of them comes close to the building.
In the event that it happens, she’ll then hijack the elevators, giving us enough time to react and plan an escape or lock ourselves in the safe room.
Before I move on to the rest of my tasks, I check with Andrea, finding her sitting cross-legged on the couch, typing on her laptop. She has changed into something comfortable—a sleeveless shirt and basketball shorts. Both mine.
“You’re getting anywhere?”
“Not yet. I saw you were working on Iris’s security feed, which gave me an idea. If we could tap into the security feed of Becker’s New York penthouse and his other residences, we might find something interesting. Or hear things, you know?”
“That’s a good idea. How are you approaching it?”
“I found the contractor who installed it and the on-call service he uses for security. As you can imagine, it’s tight and nearly impossible to get in.
I’m looking into his teenage kids right now, as our way in.
I don’t want to alert Becker’s team, since they must be on edge after the recent cyberattack, so I’m aiming for his kid’s close friends instead.
Hacking into the emails and socials of his son’s best friend was ridiculously easy.
That idiot has variations of ‘bigtiddies69’ for everything,” she explains with a deadpan.
“Right now, I’m working on a Trojan horse I could send Becker’s son through one of those accounts, which would give us access to the household’s connection and thus, the security feed. ”
Impressed by how clever and careful she’s being about it, I offer her a nod. “Do you need help with anything?”
“I think I can handle it alone, but if you want to take a break, I’d love to learn from the master himself.”
“The heist you pulled was bigger than anything I’ve ever done,” I humbly reply. “You’re the master in this case.”
“Your humility is noted, baby, but I only managed because I used your old work.”
She pats the cushion next to her, inviting me to join her, and I immediately comply. I sit close enough for my thigh to be under her folded knee and look at her screen while she continues working.
Much like her coding at work, she’s efficient, organized, and meticulous. I quickly gather that she’s making a fake website for some entertainer that Becker’s son is a big fan of. She’s purposefully making it hard to access from a smartphone to ensure he’ll open it on his laptop.
“How will you get him to download the Trojan horse?”
“I was thinking of a downloadable sample of the artist’s next song, and piggybacking it, the virus.”
“How will you procure that next song?”
She switches to another tab and presses play on the YouTube window that opens. Something electronic and loud that I wouldn’t even consider music starts playing. I can’t tell if it’s the poor quality of her laptop’s speakers or the music itself, but it’s … not good.
“I can do that in ten minutes,” Andrea explains, unimpressed.
“And you can probably do better with nothing but pans and a wooden spoon. Is that really what the youth listen to these days?”
“The youth?” she repeats with a giggle. “Remind me, how old are you again, Grandpa?”
“Too old, it seems. Can you stop it? It’s overwhelming.”
She pauses the “music” and returns to the window she was working on.
As I suspected, I’m not of much help. It looks like she knows exactly what she has to do, and there’s very little I would change.
It’s fascinating to see how her mind works.
Sometimes, she does exactly as I would. Sometimes, she surprises me by taking a simpler, more efficient route.
And sometimes, she takes detours, but before I can say anything, she always reaches her goal.
Three hours fly by in a blink, and her stomach rumbling with hunger takes us out of it. “Ugh, I need to refuel,” she says, closing the laptop.
“I’ll see what I can cook.”
“You want to cook?”
“Yes, why? Would you like to order in? Bring back the old habits?”
“I mean … you can cook if you want, of course. But I’m also fine with ordering some food.”
I scan her thoroughly to figure out what she really wants. What’s her genuine preference. I know her too well not to realize what’s on her mind. “Burger King. That’s what you want.”
“Jesus, have you learned how to read minds or something?!”
“Only yours, my little raccoon. I’ll get our old phones. You can use mine to order whatever you’d like.” She’s practically dancing with excitement when I walk away.
Getting our dinner delivered allows us to work a little more in the evening. Andrea joins me with our food in the hidden room, and we put her work to the test, seeing if it’ll be enough to get into Becker’s security feed.
“Let’s sleep on it,” she suggests a little after midnight. “We can’t mess it up, and I’m sure Becker has strong antivirus software on every device around him, given how many times we went after him. We can’t mess it up, or he’ll tighten his security even more.”
“Good idea. I’m exhausted.”
When I twist to see her, I find her staring blankly at the screen, lost in her thoughts.
“What are you thinking about?”
That snaps her out of it, and she meets my eyes. “Nothing, I just … I was thinking of how we woke up in a tent yesterday morning. It feels like so much longer has passed.”
“Do you miss it? The carefreeness of Canada?”
“Some part of me does, yes. But … we were living in a delusion, weren’t we? It was amazing and unproblematic, but this reality was always in the background. We were always coming back to it.”
Something sad passes over her face, eyebrows twisting with what resembles remorse. I first think it’s about what her grandmother went through, but I realize I’m wrong when she continues.
“I wish it could have been enough. You and Canada. I know I would have been enough for you, and you could have stayed there for the rest of our lives. If I had to pick you over anyone else, I’d do it, but I’d be miserable. I feel terrible for needing more, Lex. More than you.”
“Don’t. Don’t feel terrible about it. I’d probably feel the same if I had a loving family like yours, and a blooming social life.
I’m a creature of habit. I like my routines, but I can always adapt to a new one.
You’re right, Canada would have been enough for me.
But I don’t, nor will I ever, blame you for needing more than that. ”
“So, you don’t think I love you any less because of it?”
The way her voice trembles tells me that, as ludicrous as her worry is, she’s been thinking about it for a while. Maybe before her grandmother was attacked, even.
I turn my chair to face her fully, doing the same with hers, and frame her freckled face with my hands. “Andrea, my love. You risked your life for me twice. Twice. From this day forward, there’s nothing you could ever do or say that makes me think you don’t love me enough.”
“You mean that?”
“How could I not?”
I slip a finger into the sleeveless shirt at her shoulder and tug it enough to reveal her healed scar. I lean in to give it a loving and adamant kiss, passing all of my fervor and adoration for her. “I’m forever indebted to you, Andrea Walker. And I’m yours for as long as I breathe.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”