Chapter 18 #2
The pause before she speaks is deliberate, and every muscle in my body coils impossibly tighter as I get ready for worse news.
“Whoever this is, they seem to know the servers aren’t actually connected to the mainframe, that they’re not accessible automatically. The first thing they did was try to control the mainframe to connect them.”
That is something we only do when our clients come in with a data dump.
That’s my brilliant plan to have information be completely secure—it’s actually never connected to something you can hack.
Of course, I also built the firewall this asshole got through .
. . though we can’t know how long it took them. I’m going to be mad about that later.
But the fact that this person knows they have to connect the mainframe to the servers . . . that’s a tell, and it means that I can’t know just how good they are.
Sure, there’s a possibility they’re so good that they found this out after only getting a good look at our code for the few seconds before Carla stepped in, but I don’t think even I’m that good.
There aren’t many people better than me, maybe no one significantly better, but it means this person is someone—or works for someone—who knows a lot more than your run of the mill hacker.
Or any civilian . . .
Another thing to think about later.
“Take over,” I tell Carla, so she’ll keep putting up roadblocks for them when my tablet pings. My little bug has been working in the background, and when I look, I feel my mean smile growing on my face. “Gotcha,” I whisper.
“You got them?” Carla demands.
“No, but I know who they are, kinda.”
I grab my tablet and get to work on shutting him down for good. My bug is in, and it’s working through their pinging signal to find the originating IP, but in the meantime I put in a quick code to have a message pop onto their screen.
You’ll never get through me, and I’ll always be here.
I don’t sign it, there’s no need to give them any idea of who’s speaking to them. They could conclude it’s me, Eli, but I’ll never again tell anyone new that I’m Angelwings66.
They must’ve shut down their whole system because everything stops.
The triumph and vindication of the win dies down around twenty minutes later.
While I talk it all through with Carla, have her get everything back up and make sure Gotcha didn’t make it into the servers—I already know they didn’t but it’s better to be safe than sorry—I let my bug do its thing and have to sigh in disappointment when it comes up with the final result.
They shut it down before I could get their location.
For fuck’s sake.
I’m thinking of ways to tighten up the firewall when I climb into the car and greet an exhausted-looking Austin.
“Thank you,” I tell him with meaning.
“That’s what I’m here for,” he says simply, and that’s when the drop comes.
Lex.
I look up and see it’s already freaking noon. God, that took so freaking long.
“Home?” Austin checks.
“Home,” I confirm, though I don’t know what’s waiting for me, and that, more than anything, is what finally has a permanent scar marking my heart.
I find Lex eating alone at the kitchen counter. Sam is there, wiping down the burner range, but Lex isn’t talking to him. He’s just eating slowly with his face downturned and his shoulders low.
I want to go to him, hug him, but I can’t make my feet move.
Would he accept a hug from me?
God, this is pathetic.
“Lex.” I force his name up my throat.
He whirls around and for one blissful second there’s nothing but love in his eyes.
But then it’s gone.
Maybe not gone gone, but definitely overshadowed by . . . annoyance?
I don’t want to cry.
I know I don’t get to cry over this, but the relief of seeing him here, of that fleeting glimpse of love, is enough to overpower my self-control.
My eyes fill while I breathe in deep to keep the tears from falling.
I know I can’t guarantee how this conversation will go. I can’t just assume he’ll forgive me and we’ll move on, but I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure my conversation with Tucker never gets out, that it never comes back to bite Lex in the ass.
“Where were you?” he asks, and his voice—clipped and serious—warns me that I need to get my shit together and fast. My mouth needs to work with me here and put out words that will fix this mess and not make it worse.
I can’t let this get worse, even though I already have.
Facing the sudden absence of warmth in him is too much already.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out quickly, and grip my fingers tight to stay in the moment, stay locked in. I let out a strong burst of air, knowing I might’ve gotten the first, most important thing out, but there’s still so much I have to say. “I know it was wrong of me to talk to Tu—”
“Eli,” he snaps, and stands as my name echoes in the kitchen. Of course . . . we’re not alone.
I trust Sam.
I believe Lex trusts him too.
But this information is a burden, not a privilege.
I raise my palms in surrender, in understanding, and step forward. “Okay. What’s for lunch?” I pull out the stool next to his, sit down, then look at Lex until he seems to deflate and also takes a seat.
Sam turns and offers me a kind—if just a little forced—smile. “New York strips, asparagus, and mashed potatoes.”
“A classic for a reason,” I quip, desperate for some levity.
“Want me to put a plate together for you?”
I nod. “Please, and can you take some to Austin too? He’s been awake for too long.”
“You got it.”
I reach for the water jug and fill up a glass, while I mentally choose the right words to answer Lex’s question without saying anything I shouldn’t.
“I was up all night,” I start out, with a deliberate casualness. “There was an emergency at the office and I haven’t eaten in who knows how long.”
There, that’s a normal thing to say, right?
Lex won’t look at me, but I hear the concern in his voice when he asks, “Is everyone okay?”
“Yes,” I assure him. “It took a long time, but everything should be fine now.”
At least once I make some improvements to our firewall—the one that was already the best in the world.
I mean, it did its job, I was notified the moment it was breached, and so was Carla at the office, and even though I still don’t know exactly how long that took Gotcha, I know it must’ve been a few hours at least, maybe half a day.
There’s always going to be a crack in the seal, though, and I need to find it and patch that fucker up.
That can all wait for now, though. I don’t see how Gotcha would risk it again anytime soon, but if he does, at least I know I can beat him.
Sam slides a full plate toward me, and after finishing up with the last pan, puts another plate together and leaves to take it to Austin.
I count to twenty, then risk it again.
“I’m sorry, Lex.”
He releases a heavy sigh. “I know you are.”
“I’m gonna talk to Tucker, make sure no one ever finds out.” Even if I have to threaten the only other friend I have, that’s a small price to pay, I think?
Lex nods once but then shakes his head. “I need to be the one to talk to him.” He sounds so dejected, so absolutely done with it all, and I can’t blame him, but hope rises when he straightens and offers me a barely there smile.
“You need to sleep, though, and once you’re rested, we can actually talk about this. ”
“But—”
“No, Eli. There won’t be any more screaming matches.
And for the record, I’m sorry for how I reacted last night, for shouting, for not giving you even a second to get a word in.
I can promise now that I’ll do my best to never let that happen again, but we have to really talk about it, and we can’t do that when you’re about to fall on your face from exhaustion.
So go up to your room and sleep, and I’ll clean up here. ”
He lifts my plate and goes to the sink, and I . . . well, I owe him a rational, honest conversation where all my neurons are available, don’t I?
He’s not wrong.
So I nod.
I go to my room.
And though I doubt my capacity to shut my mind off and sleep . . .
Exhaustion wins.