Chapter 22 Feline Firewall
Feline Firewall
The soft glow of monitors danced across the tech office, casting long, shifting shapes onto the walls like shadows from another world.
The fluorescents overhead remained dark—David never used them—and the room, wrapped in pale gold and luminous blue light from his screens, felt like a sanctuary hidden inside a machine.
Lena perched on the corner of his cluttered desk, the smooth surface solid under the backs of her thighs.
The ceramic mug in her hands held too-hot–then-too-cold coffee, now bitter and slightly metallic on her tongue.
Her pulse hadn’t fully stabilized since the water plant debacle yesterday, yet beneath the adrenaline still humming in her veins, something more slippery stirred—unease.
An itch in the back of her brain she hadn’t been able to scratch all day.
That, she rationalized, was why she was here.
Not because she couldn’t stop watching the way David’s fingers moved—fast, precise, his brows drawn together in focused fury.
Not because her stomach flipped every time he adjusted his glasses with the same unconscious efficiency he plied to hack systems around the world.
And definitely not because the idea of returning to the empty guest suite alone made her skin cold in places unrelated to air conditioning.
Zach had ordered her—yes, ordered—not to move around the resort alone after dark. He’d said it with a cold, steel calm that allowed no dissension. ‘You’re not alone, not now,’ a comment that had wormed its way into her soul.
Beneath it all, though, was a small, disconcerting tickle every time she thought of the guest suite. She’d only been staying there five nights now, and already her brain labeled it home. A dangerous word. Dangerous comfort.
She glanced toward the wall monitor framed like a window.
A pretty deception. Natural light bothered David when he was deep in systems—he needed consistency, not sunbeams, he’d told her.
Tonight the screen displayed the beach near the Residence, waves eerily still, the ocean stretched flat and breathless, hiding secrets beneath the mirror of its surface.
Another curse slipped from David—a hiss, but sharp enough to cut.
“Talk to me, Genius.” Lena lowered her mug to the desk behind her. Her fingers itched to reach out, to smooth the worry line knifed between his dark brows.
He didn’t reply right away. “The network’s got ghosts,” he muttered finally, eyes flicking across code she couldn’t understand. “Sensors are throwing noise—contradictory data, impossible patterns. It’s like the entire system is lying. But… I ran intrusion sweeps twice. No breach.”
His fingers stilled before he pulled off his glasses and tossed them onto a pile of equipment with less force than his frustrated expression warranted. He slumped back in his space-age chair and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.
The sharp scent of scorched plastic still emanated from the jumble of broken parts on his desk—remnants of the failed sabotage attempt to knock out the entire desalination facility.
Lena inhaled as quietly as possible. That odor, unpleasant though it was, somehow mixed with his skin and became grounding. Specific.
“David,” she said hesitantly. “Can I ask something personal?”
One of his hands drifted to rest on his chest, his fingers fisted. A thinking pose. “Always. I do, however, reserve the right not to answer.”
That was David in a single sentence. Direct. Dry. Distant, but not unkind.
“You don’t need those glasses, do you?” She looked at the discarded pair now resting innocently on top of an exposed hard drive. “At the water plant, you flipped wires and fixed circuits without any trouble.”
He didn’t respond immediately, as if debating his response, but then he turned and held her gaze, steady and unreadable. “No. I don’t. LASIK, years ago. These have clear lenses.”
Lena blinked, surprised she was correct. “Then why wear them?”
A pause before he shrugged, lifting one shoulder in a casual way that always meant he was saying something vulnerable.
“Zach’s idea. Said they give me an advantage.
Leverage if someone tried to—to disorient me during a breach.
People assume they matter, so they target them.
It’s a decoy. Gives me a few more seconds to react. ”
“That is… so very Zach.”
David’s mouth twitched. “Exactly.”
She glanced at the glasses again, perched there like any other accessory, but now looking a little more like armor. “Who knows?” she asked.
“You,” he said. “My brothers. Marguerite. Kate might—she’s incredibly observant. That’s it. If anyone else has figured it out, they haven’t commented.”
She warmed at the trust his words wrapped around her. No grand gestures, no declarations. Just inclusion.
A red alert pulsed at the top of the screen. David frowned and leaned forward. He swiped across the tablet, swearing under his breath as Lena moved in closer behind him, the tension in the air like a wire pulled tight.
“Tell me that blinking thing isn’t what I think it is,” she said.
“I’d love to lie to you,” he muttered, “but unfortunately, the system’s been poked again. A breach attempt—masked IP, spoofed credentials, recursive loop. Happening now. Advanced.”
“Poked.”
“Technically, penetrated. Briefly. I’ve isolated it. Mostly.”
Lena crossed her arms. “So… crisis?”
“Crisis-ish.”
He tapped the screen with rapid precision, then paused. A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as he sent a sly glance to Lena.
“I have a new security feature I’m installing.”
She arched a brow at him, intrigued by his sudden air of mischief. “Oh?”
David glanced toward the door as Minx slunk in, tail flicking with dignified disdain.
“I call it the Feline Firewall,” he said. “Unpredictable, highly judgmental, impossible to bypass without scratches.”
Lena laughed—short, surprised, real. The kind that slipped past her defenses.
Minx hopped onto the nearest chair like she’d been summoned to a board meeting, posing regally for their admiration.
Lena frowned at her. “How did you get out of my office? Again?” She shook her head and turned back to David. “I assume it comes with attitude pre-installed.”
David leaned near enough for her to feel the warmth of his breath when he murmured, “Just like her owner.”
Her heart stuttered—and the tablet let out a low beep. The screen flashed green.
The system stabilized.
Lena started. “Wait… did it work?”
David looked amused. “Maybe she’s good luck.”
Minx sneezed and knocked a USB stick off the desk.
“Or, she was sent by our competition to destroy me.” David watched her like she was both nemesis and muse.
Lena grinned. “Join the club.”
He looked down again, the glow from the screen gilding his long lashes in soft light. Stillness laced through the room—quiet, fragile—as though he was considering something larger than the current conversation.
“You ever wonder,” he said lowly, “why I—why I’m able to fix things so fast?”
There was something aching in his voice that made Lena scoot a little closer. Yes. She had wanted to ask, but didn’t want to pry.
Instead, she said, “Yeah. But I figured it was just extreme nerd genius. Like, stupid-level IQ combined with zero social life.”
That won her a huff of something—a laugh? Annoyance? Either way, she’d take it.
Without answering, David reached down and tugged an old, battered laptop out from under the desk. The casing was scratched, sticker-covered, clearly dead weight. It had crashed during the lightning storm last week and would no longer power on.
He opened the lid and laid his hand flat on the keyboard.
Lena’s senses sparked. A hum at the periphery of hearing. An awareness snaked up her spine like a magnetic tide. The hairs on her arms rose even as her brain registered the shift. With a muffled whir, the laptop powered on. No fanfare. No dramatic spark. Just… alive again.
David’s hand stayed resting on the plastic like he was communing with something sacred. He flicked a glance at her before returning his attention to the laptop. “Watch the screen.”
Lena’s jaw dropped as the mouse moved across the screen by itself, opening windows and files, closing them, moving to another, all in the blink of an eye.
“I’m not just good with computers,” he said, his voice raw now, not embarrassed so much as resigned.
“I talk to them. Directly. As long as I’m touching a network-connected device, I can reach the entire web.
Access anything connected. Influence it.
Manipulate it. Rewrite code. Alter electrical paths. All with my mind and a touch.”
She stared at him. Something inside her shifted—detached from logic. Her brain bounced between confusion and understanding, awe and disbelief. What he described shouldn’t exist, but she’d seen it herself. Whatever it was.
Genetic mutation. Psychic evolution. Magic.
Or maybe it was just David. Extraordinary. Imperturbable. Half-wrapped in circuitry and secrets. He’d told her he was a tech god. Maybe it hadn’t been a joke after all.
Lena realized he was waiting for her reaction, muscles tense, eyes locked on the screen, avoiding hers. She reached over and tapped his wrist, silently asking for his attention. “You’re even weirder than I thought, Genius.”
He blinked and smiled, a breath of warmth laced with exhaustion. “Yeah. You still want me on your crisis team?”
Lena’s heart ached in the way it always did when something mattered. “Only if you have a friends-and-family discount,” she teased, tilting her head. “I don’t think I can afford your rack rate. And you must provide caffeine.”
David pulled his hand off the tablet, and the life drained from him like a slow leak in a balloon. His shoulders slumped. Eyes dulled. Spent.
“Is it always like that?” she asked, quieter now. Reverent.
He nodded. “Usually worse.” He rubbed his temples. “Most of the time, I crash hard after using my talent. Migraines. Nausea. Delirium on occasion. A few minutes in-network generally demands hours of sleep. It’s why I avoid using it unless absolutely necessary.”
Lena’s throat tightened, but before she could speak again, he tilted his head, confusion creasing his forehead.
“Except after the elevator, I didn’t crash. I should’ve been wiped out, but I wasn’t. Just… tired.” He glanced sideways at her. “Nick—Nick thinks something’s changing. That we should test the parameters—see how far it goes.”
She barely thought about it. She just reached for his hand and laid her fingers atop his.
Heat bloomed at the contact: emotional or biological, she couldn’t say.
She didn’t know what tomorrow would bring.
The sabotage attacks weren’t over, and her stalker was still out there.
But she knew this: David didn’t scare her. Not his secrets. Not his strangeness.
Being alone again—that scared her. Somehow, that left a deeper mark than fear alone ever could.