1. Marisol
1
MARISOL
Grant’s going to lose his shit.
I squeal and bounce on the balls of my feet, catching myself at the last second when I slip in the soapy water. Okay, focus .
Seventy-two hours ago, two hackers entered the virtual Thunderdome, and only one left victorious. My eyes are drier than stale cereal, and my back might have permanently fused into a cooked-shrimp position, but I finally caught the slippery bastard who’s been hacking into Grant’s company for months.
Nello Marino, hacker name Beta, has been a busy boy. He’s got his fingers not only in Grant’s company Snap Close but also in Knossos Hospital, PRT Tech, Luporini Enterprises, a smattering of real estate firms, and way more I haven’t had the chance to sink my teeth into. The details I did manage to download onto my flash drive would put Mr. Beta in a world of trouble.
My stomach swoops in delicious anticipation like I’ve just shuddered to a stop at the peak of a rollercoaster. Beta might be an actual idiot—storing passwords in plain text should be punished with a loss of your two least favorite fingers—but he wasn’t working alone.
He’s in the Mafia .
Uncovering Beta feels like snagging my prized fish only to glimpse a colossal squid lurking below in the depths.
I scour my hair, in part due to excitement, and in part because my apartment’s water heater is broken again. I sent out a repair request, but I’ll have to see about bumping us ahead in line later. Thank god I had the sense to install a virtual backdoor to the apartment’s maintenance system months ago.
I manage to get my teeth to stop chattering once I’ve tugged on some clothes. Grant loves this long skirt with a blue daisy print—he says it makes me look like a sweet girl-next-door—although the last couple of times I’ve worn it, he didn’t get to see because he was at work or staying out late with a friend. The thought makes me shove my headband through my wet hair with a little too much force.
I’m not entirely stupid. I know why Grant’s been spending so much time at Jeremy and Lilah’s place. I’ve seen the way Lilah laughs at his jokes and how Grant wears the new clothes I buy him when he goes to see her. Like every other man-child in the world, he thinks a hot new girl will solve all of his problems.
Obviously, that’s crazy.
Because I’m going to solve all his problems—starting with his high-pressure work assignment.
I make my way to the kitchen and groan as I open the fridge door. I probably should stop by the grocery store soon. The contents of our fridge have been whittled down to a container of old deli ham, two bottles of hot sauce, and a dead fly. The ham is only a little shiny, so I stuff that into my purse along with The Flash Drive.
When I turn, I lock eyes with Buck. He glares at me from the kitchen counter, his tail lashing along the laminate.
“What?”
I run through my checklist. He has food and water, and his cat litter’s pristine—the only chore I manage to actually stay on top of. Does he want… affection? He never let Kristin leave the house without saying goodbye.
I suck in a breath and offer my fingers to him. He maintains his death glare but he hasn’t bolted yet, so I throw caution to the wind and creep my hand toward his neck. Before I can even touch his fur, he whips his head around to bite my hand then sails off the counter and scrabbles down the hall.
“Okay, thanks! ” I call after him before slamming the front door. That’s on me for expecting anything other than violence from that orange douche.
Despite my heels, I strike out toward the train stop for a little exercise. For the hundredth time this year, I swear I’ll get into a regular exercise routine that doesn’t involve the path from my desk to the bed. At thirty-two, with fantastic tits and a deep love of sitting down in air-conditioned spaces, back pain is a freeloader who’s been crashing on my couch for way too long. I add “personal trainer” right along with “personal chef” and “house cleaner” to my never-gonna-happen dream team.
At the train station, I arch until my back cracks and sit on an empty bench to tear into my deli meat dinner, ignoring the side-eyes from the other people waiting around me. I could care less. In the middle of the city, this hardly ranks as the weirdest thing they’ll see today. The train hisses as it pulls to a stop, and my reflection beams back at me in the glass before the doors open.
I can feel in my bones that Grant’s going to get the promotion to senior cybersecurity engineer from this. I mean, no one else in all of Snap Close was able to do what I did. He’ll at least get a raise. We’re so close to being able to pull the trigger on a house and then maybe he’ll be ready for what he calls “the M-word talk”.
Just because both our parents got divorced doesn’t mean marriage is a bad word. We could still make it work. I can make it work.
The proof is in my purse.
Grant’s boss Terrence gave him a “special” assignment to uncover who’s been siphoning millions of dollars from Snap Close and swore in private meetings that the honest-to-god Mafia was responsible.
After months of failing to catch anything conclusive, I walked Grant through putting a subtle, possibly illegal, tracker on Terrence’s employee login and when “Terrence” logged into work this Friday to look through our contracts, I tunneled back through the connection to find the real culprit. Beta was stealing details of all our proposals to give to our competitors. Turns out Tinhat Terrence was on to something.
I step off the train station and head toward Jeremy’s apartment. It’s unseasonably chilly today, but that’s not why my arms are prickling with goosebumps. This whole time, I’d thought Terrence was just a weirdo. I mean, he believes in Bigfoot and is always talking about microscopic recording devices. But if he was right, and he knew what Beta was doing with Snap Close, why did he still need evidence to prove it? Was there something he wasn’t telling us? Or was this a case of blind luck from a man who’ll believe anything?
A shiver passes through me as I stop in front of Jeremy’s door. There’s also the matter of how easily I found Beta. Yeah, it took me months, but relatively speaking, I’m still a noob. If this guy’s such a pro—and he is, judging by the number of systems he’s infiltrated—then why was it so easy to catch him? I can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something important.
I knock, my nerves giving way to heady anticipation. For tonight at least, none of that matters. All I care about is Grant’s reaction to the news.
He’ll be so overwhelmed with relief and gratitude that he’ll pin me up against the wall, make out with me on the spot, and take us home to break our forty-nine-day dry spell. And if he doesn’t dick me to within an inch of my life, I’m going to the nearest sex shop to buy out their entire stock and then to the grocery store for several pints of dairy-free ice cream. I’ll put on Sexy Hot Couples: Island Edition and have a totally normal crying-eating-and-violent-masturbating session.
No one comes to the door. I glance at my phone. It’s seven-thirty. Maybe all the guys have gone down to the bar. I send another text to Grant asking where he’s at.
While I wait for a reply, I gouge my heel into a divot in the concrete. Jeremy’s next-door neighbor gives me the stink eye as she lets herself into her apartment. I can already smell the weed seeping through the door, so it’s not exactly a mystery why the neighbors don’t love him.
Grant still hasn’t responded, and after another light knock on Jeremy’s door, I jiggle the handle, hoping it’s locked… and it opens immediately— damn .
It’s been ages since I’ve had a proper excuse to use my lockpicks, but just in case, I still take them everywhere. Seeing as how they’re not exactly, strictly legal to carry around without a license, they stay tucked away in my pink pouch labeled TAMPONS. I’m not about to let something as silly as the law stand between a girl and her hobby.
As I step inside, the living room belches a miasma of weed directly into my face. A glass bong that’s halfway through the alchemical process of transmuting into a bong-shaped piece of resin sits in its place of honor on the coffee table. The carpet crunches under my shoes. Yick.
At least Jeremy and Lilah share one very redeeming quality—they both love to cook. I swim through the weed haze toward the scent of Jeremy’s triple-fudge brownies as my stomach claws at itself. I’m either still hungry or that deli ham was more suspect than I’d thought.
Sadly, the baking dish on top of the stove is scraped clean. I blow out a sigh of disappointment. No brownies for Marisol.
I check my phone again. Nothing. Grant did say he was going over to Jeremy’s for a guys’ night, right? I was so fixated on the hacker lead that I hadn’t paid close attention to what he’d said.
The sound of a muffled bump comes from Jeremy’s room, probably his senile pug knocking something over.
The TV’s on, queued to Demon Blaster, and it stings a little to see. I know it’s important Grant gets guy time, but it still hurts that he’s playing my favorite game with his buddies and not inviting me. Especially when Lilah gets to play with them.
Jeremy’s dog thuds into the bedroom wall again. And again. Poor guy. I go to let him out of the bedroom but stop dead when I hear the unmistakable sound of a smack and a woman’s moan.
A wild grin spreads across my face. Did I just stumble onto Jeremy and Lilah having sex?
Lilah’s voice rings through the door, “Don’t stop! I’m almost there!”
I clap a hand over my mouth to suppress a giggle and back up slowly to wait outside the apartment until they’re done.
Then another voice joins Lilah’s—and it’s not Jeremy’s.
“Fuck, Lilah, I’m fucking coming!”
Icy horror wraps around my spine, freezing me to the spot. Was that Grant’s voice?
I shake my head. No. No, no, no. I misheard that. Jeremy and Grant’s voices are similar enough—I have to be wrong.
“Grant! Grant!”
Okay, there’s no mistaking that.
That lying, cheating sack of shit! My skin prickles with burning rage as I stomp to Jeremy’s door and yank it wide open.
The scene in front of me would’ve been funny in any other context.
Grant’s balls and ass swing backward before he pumps one last shuddering load into Lilah.
“What the fuck !” I scream.
Grant throws himself off Lilah as they both flip around to face me. Lilah covers her tits and shaved pussy immediately, her cheeks flushed pink. Grant’s dick bobs, and he’s not even wearing a fucking condom . Both of their eyes are wide in horror.
I want to kill. I want to turn into a fucking tornado and tear everything in this room to shreds. My stupid face heats and tears prick my eyes. How could he do this? After everything I’ve done for him?
You knew, some horrible voice whispers in my head. You knew, and you were too desperate and pathetic to leave.
“Baby,” Grant says, holding his arms open in supplication.
I step back, clenching my fists.
“Don’t you fucking dare ,” I snarl as tears break loose. “We are so fucking done.”
“Baby, I didn’t mean it.”
Lilah’s mouth drops open as she stares in shock at him. He swipes a pillow off Jeremy’s bed to cover himself and stumbles toward me.
My brain finally connects with my feet. I have to get out of here. I slam the door shut and storm away.
Grant opens it back up to trail after me.
“Mari, please,” he calls, “it was just a mistake. I’m so sorry. Please, I’ll meet you at home, and we can talk about it. I promise.”
As I swing open Jeremy’s front door, a chill breeze lashes against my face. I’m a bomb, and I’m going to explode and level this entire apartment complex if I don’t get out of here right now .
I turn to Grant. The image of him standing there with a pillow across his wet dick, while Lilah watches us in the background, sears into my mind for eternity. My stomach roils with the knowledge that no amount of alcohol or therapy or time will erase this memory.
I gather all my anger and shame and utter loneliness and whittle it into a knife.
“There’s nothing left to talk about,” I tell Grant in a cool voice even as tears stream down my face. “We’re done.”
I should’ve left then, head held high, but a small, shitty part of me couldn’t help but gloat.
“And by the way,” I call over my shoulder, “I solved your hacker problem.”