Chapter 26 #2
“Okay,” he says finally. “I’m pulling the full headers first. This tells me the real route it took—what servers touched it, whether the ‘from’ address is real or spoofed, and if it’s bouncing through something dirty.”
He clicks once, then again, and a window fills with dense, ugly metadata.
I shift in my chair, trying not to track the movement of his forearms as he leans closer. “And if it’s… bad?”
His eyes flick to me, then back to the screen. “Then we treat it like something meant to get inside your life.” He types another moment. “Which is exactly what it is.”
This time, I’m out of my chair and leaning over him. “What do you mean? What is it?” My eyes scan the screen full of things I don’t understand.
“See this?” he says, tapping a line with his finger. “It’s not just an email. There’s a hidden payload attached to it—think of it like a little program wearing a costume.”
I lean closer, putting my hand on his shoulder.
“Is it a virus?” I ask quietly.
“A remote-access implant,” he corrects. “If you open it on your laptop, it can give them a way in—full access to your machine. Whatever permissions it can claw.”
My throat tightens. “But Northstar—”
“Northstar’s IT probably has safeguards on the corporate network,” he says.
“But that doesn’t protect everything you have open.
Email. Notes. Drafts. Anything synced locally.
And it doesn’t protect you when you’re on your home Wi-Fi.
Once they’re inside your laptop on your Wi-Fi, they can start sniffing the rest of what’s connected. Any device on the same network.”
“What would they want with that?” I ask.
“Anything they can use against you. Blackmail you with or hold against you,” he says coldly.
My blood turns cold.
“Like what?” I ask, my voice rising in panic. “Like, like nudes? I don’t have anything like that on my ph—”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says.
Before he can speak, I push away from the table. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter? There’s nothing else. What else could they use against me?” My voice is practically at a yell now. “What TV shows I stream? W-What places I call the most for takeout? What are they going to do with that?”
Antonio’s hand closes around my forearm before I can work myself into a full spiral.
“Elsa,” he says calmly. “Breathe.”
I yank in a breath that feels like it sticks in my throat.
“More,” he says and stands behind me. He puts his hand on my chest. “Right here. Breathe.”
His palm sits warm over my sternum, and his other arm bands around my waist to hold me back against him.
“In,” he murmurs against my hair. “Slowly.”
I force air into my lungs, and his hand rises with it.
“Out,” he says. “Again.”
He stays just like that, directing me to breathe until the hitching breaths ease. When my panic attack is finally under control, he doesn’t let me go. And I don’t ask him to.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
“Don’t,” he says immediately. “Don’t apologize for having a normal reaction to something insane.”
I close my eyes for a second and let my weight sink into him, hating how good it feels and needing it anyway.
“You’re okay,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
He says it like it’s a fact, and it helps ease the fear eating me up inside.
“Okay,” I manage. “Okay.”
“Good,” he murmurs, and his mouth brushes my hair—not a kiss, not quite, just the faintest touch of breath and heat. “Stay with me.”
I nod once, eyes still closed, and when I open them again, the room comes back into focus in pieces—the laptop screen, the email, the ordinary kitchen that suddenly isn’t ordinary.
“Tell me the rest of it,” I say.
“I’m not sure—” he starts.
“Tell me,” I say. “I won’t freak out again. I promise.”
His arm tightens around my waist a fraction, then eases.
“It’s not just the information that’s currently on your phone,” he says. “It’s the programs they can access. Like location services. The microphone. Your camera.”
My camera. So, even if I don’t have nudes… if I leave my phone somewhere in sight while I shower…
“They can turn my camera on?” I ask. “Won’t it show or alert me somehow?”
“They can. On your laptop too,” he says quietly. “You might notice or you might not.”
My stomach turns.
“Newer phones have indicators,” he adds. “A little light, a dot, something that tells you the camera or mic is active. But if they’re good, there are ways around the obvious, or they don’t need it on for long. A second is enough. A screenshot is enough. An audio clip is enough.”
I swallow hard. “So they could… listen.”
“Yes,” he says. “They could turn your phone into a bug if they get in far enough.”
My hands clench. “How do I stop it?”
His arm tightens once around me. “That’s what I’m here for,” he murmurs. “Do you trust me to do that?”
I barely know him.
I feel so safe in his arms.
“Yes,” I whisper.
The word feels like a confession. A sin I don’t want to stop committing.
I feel his chest move as he breathes, slow and comforting, against my back.
“Okay,” he says, quietly. “Then let’s take care of this email, okay? I’m going to send a failure-to-deliver mailer-daemon email and attach a counter program to it. That way, we can see what they’re up to.”
As much as I don’t want to, I stop leaning against him and straighten in his arms. He takes the hint and releases me from his embrace. I miss it already.
I step away and turn to face him.
“Won’t they be able to detect it the same way you did?” I ask.
He steps back to the table and the laptops. “Maybe,” he says and sends me a smirk that makes my heart flip-flop in my chest. “If they’re twice as good as I am.”