Chapter 4 #2
“I’m on it.” Matteo is the executive vice president of tech, media and cybersecurity at Knight Enterprises.
He knows his shit, even if, at first sight, with his tattoos and signature bracelets and chains, he looks more like a rockstar than a tech whizz.
It annoys Dad so much when Matteo turns up to business meetings dressed like he’s going to a gig.
I see Maya examining him carefully, her eyes large with curiosity.
“This is ... Maya,” I say, hesitating slightly and wondering how I should introduce her, because Matteo has never met her.
He gives her a nod, before taking one look at the laptop under my arm.
“Which of you broke it?” he asks, looking between us.
“I blame it on gravity,” I answer, sensing that Maya probably feels out of her depth, not just being here in the basement of a building she’s not familiar with, but with the likes of us.
Matteo whistles. “Expensive fall.”
I chuckle. “Tell me about it.” I set the laptop on his desk and he gets to work, opening it up, and powering it on. He tilts the screen a few times from side to side, examining the crack.
“Top-tier security build,” he says. “Triple-layer encryption. Custom firmware. Who does this belong to?”
I look at Maya, and she says nothing. “I can’t tell you,” I answer. He looks at me quietly, before turning his attention back to the device.
“Hairline fracture,” he concludes. “You’re lucky.”
“Am I?” This is music to my ears.
“Should be easy enough to fix.” He gets to work quickly, unlocking a drawer, and pulling out a slim external drive and a security token.
He plugs the drive in and starts typing.
“You’re very lucky. Screen’s the only casualty.
Internals are fine. I’ll mirror the drive, bypass the display output, and reroute to a clean panel. ”
“That’s all good, right?” Because tech is so not my thing, and he might as well be speaking Russian.
“Like I said, you’re lucky.” His eyes go to Maya. I glance over my shoulder, she’s standing near the door, meekly, watching us. “Or maybe it’s not you who’s lucky.”
“Maybe.” That’s all I’ll give him. “How long?”
He checks his watch. “Twenty minutes. Thirty if you want me to be gentle.”
“Be gentle, and invisible. The owner can’t know anything’s happened.”
Matteo grins. “Then stop hovering around.”
“Thanks, for doing this, at a moment’s notice.
I really appreciate it.” A year ago, it would have been harder to ask him.
Matteo, Rio and Enzo are our half-brothers, but we’ve been brought up more like strangers; people who share an office space, and occasionally eat together when Dad invites us over, usually to talk business.
But we’ve been spending more time together, meeting away from the penthouse, and we’re all getting on better.
“No problem.”
I head towards Maya. “Don’t worry. Matteo can fix it. Cecil won’t notice a thing.”
She looks relieved. “It can’t be that simple. Cecil’s laptop has been built with maximum security.”
“Like I said, Matteo is pretty smart.”
“I would know. I’ve never met him.”
“You wouldn’t have.” But she’s heard about him. She knows about my father’s infidelity. She knows how my mom died, and she knows what a mess my family was, not only because she could see it, but because of the things I told her.
My father didn’t talk much about his other family, but he told us about them soon after mom died.
Who were they? Where were they?
Didn’t he love my mom?
Jett and Dex were so mad. They couldn’t even be in the same room as Dad for days after that.
As for me, I was sad and curious, but I was too young to make sense of it all.
My brothers were bitter. Their hatred for our father started from there.
We were once a happy family. At least, mom, me, Jett and Dex were, because we didn’t see Dad much.
Our home was filled with love and laughter, but after mom died, the light went out of the Knight Estate.
It all changed when Maya came along many years later.
She was different. Unlike most people, she didn’t treat me like the son of a powerful man.
Maya asked questions, and she would listen she would laugh at my jokes, and she would make me laugh, telling me of the goings on in the house and what the house staff had seen.
Around her, the house seemed less heavy. Less haunted.
She brought light with her, and after years of grief, something I didn’t even realize I was battling with, I found myself gravitating towards this girl who made my heart stir.
But right now, I have questions, because everything between us halted abruptly. I didn’t even see it coming.
“What happened, Maya?” I ask, quietly. The question has been gnawing at me ever since I saw her. The question I asked myself a hundred times during the days after she and her mom left the Knight Estate.
She shrugs, being evasive.
“You disappeared without a trace. Didn’t even leave a note.”
She narrows her eyes at my accusation. “Why do you think we left?” she asks, slowly, watching my reaction.
“I don’t know. I’m asking you.”
She lets out an exhale, like it’s hard just to say the words. “What did your father say?”
“Something about your mom finding another job and that’s why you moved.”
She’s different. Guarded and closed off, nothing like the girl I remember.
She nods.
That’s it? That’s all she’s giving me?
“Let’s meet up and catch up on old times,” I offer.
“Old times?” The distrust in her voice warns me off. Seems like her memories of our past aren’t brushed with the same veil of nostalgia that mine are.
I open my mouth to tell her that I don’t want to just talk about her leaving suddenly—though I want to know why—I want to talk about us. How we used to be. The way she used to look at me. The way she laughed, and talked, and how she was with me.
How I was with her.
We were young, carefree, and increasingly drawn to one another.
But the words stay on my tongue, heavy and unsure. “You don’t want to?” I ask, instead, because I don’t recognize this woman. She’s not as happy as I expected her to be.
“I … don’t see … the point.” Her words are careful. I sense she doesn’t want to hurt me, but at the same time she doesn’t want to offer me hope. She tried hard to dodge me all night, and here I am, in Matteo’s lab, still looking out for her.
“It’s ready,” Matteo calls out.
“That was quick,” Maya whispers.
Too quick. I wish he’d given us more time. We walk over to Matteo. He powers up the laptop, and shows us the screen. “No crack. No data loss. No flags tripped. Whoever this belongs to will never know.”
Maya peers at it, her fingers moving all over the screen as she examines it closely. Then her expression relaxes and she turns to Matteo. “Thank you. I can’t thank you enough.”
He shrugs. “Glad I could help.”
She closes the laptop and slides it back into its padded sleeve.
I exhale, feeling relieved for her. She walks away, obviously desperate to get away.
“Next time,” Matteo adds lightly, “try not to impress women by throwing executive hardware at the floor.”
“I wasn’t trying to impress.”
He lifts both hands. “Just saying.”
“I owe you.”