by Lacey Dailey
“Mischief?”
“That’s my code name. Wren has one too. Specter. In fact, we all have them.”
I was caught somewhere between shock and utter disbelief. My brain couldn’t decide what to think. It couldn't fit this information in with everything else it already knew about Ace. So, it started to shut down.
My whole body followed suit. My ears suddenly felt like they were filling with water and I fixated on a little scratch in the wall.
“I can’t tell you how many drug drops I’ve put a stop to. How many gun runners I’ve tracked down. How many pedophiles I’ve exposed. Everything Mischief does is to help people. It may not be in a very conventional way, but it’s the only way I know how."
I was reeling. I felt disorientated and off balance. His earlier hesitance to tell me the truth told me he was afraid of my reaction. Maybe he thought I’d be mad. I wasn’t mad. I wasn't entirely sure what I was feeling but I knew it wasn't anger.
He inched closer. Moving centimeter by centimeter until our noses were touching. “I know this is a lot.”
What a fucking understatement.
I blinked and shook out my limbs, ensuring my brain was still communicating with the rest of my body. My tongue clicked against the roof of my mouth, suddenly dry and thick. I shifted my gaze from the scratch on the wall to the tip of his nose. It was twitching.
"I..." I cleared my throat with a hack and a grunt, uttering the only words my brain cooked up. “I need some air."
Tugging at my T-shirt, I brushed past him. I was in a daze, my hand sweaty and shaking as I reached for the handle and wrenched the door open.
I had to get out.
I needed to breathe.
I had to...
13
Brett
I didn’t even know he owned a computer.
All the things I knew about Ace Jackson, and I didn't know that.
I berated myself when I began to question the things I did know. I grew fearful. Scared I had no idea who the man was that I'd fallen in love with.
When I met Ace, I wasn't looking for a best friend. I wasn't ready for love or the prolific emotions that came alongside it. I could've never anticipated what he'd bring to my life. That he'd be there even before I knew I needed him. That every moment alongside him would feel so easy.
I loved our easy.
With one unexpected truth, he yanked it away.
Now, everything felt unbearable again.
A gust of wind bit at my cheeks, my body trembling with the cold. Goosebumps rose on the surfaces of my skin, my fingers curling in on themselves as they tried to seek warmth. My ass was frozen to a bench on the sidewalk, overlooking a small parking lot in the back of our building.
With a shiver, I leaned backward and rubbed my hands up and down my arms. I knew the wind and lack of sun were to blame for the low temperatures and my icy skin. But I couldn't help but wonder if I was cold on the inside too. The warmth Ace normally gave me evaporated the second I shut the door and barreled down the stairs.
I wanted to get away.
This bench, directly below our bedroom window, was as far as I got. I itched to go farther, make my feet move and take my heart to a place where it could be guarded and protected.
My heart wished to stay as is— deep inside the warm and easy with Ace.
My brain was struggling to understand why that was. As it was struggling to do a lot of things. Perhaps that's why it didn't take my body and place it behind the wheel of my car. My concentration was off. My vision was blurred. I wasn't sure I was even capable of shifting the car into gear let alone pulling out onto a road with other drivers.
So I sat on a bench. Stuck somewhere between the easy and the unbearable, my stomach in knots and my heart aching with pain and love, an alarming combination.
The shuffle of footsteps had my hackles rising. Sitting up straighter, I listened as heavy feet approached me from behind. My eyes stayed glued to the windshield of my car as he came up beside me. I knew it was him without using my eyes to confirm it. My body reacted the same way every time he was in close proximity. More goosebumps appeared. They had nothing to do with the sharp breeze.
I stopped breathing and waited for him to speak. To rip away some more of our easy and replace it with something that felt impossible. The world was working against us now. A fact I wasn't ready to face.
I was a future cop in love with a man who called himself a criminal.
There was movement and a rustle beside me. Staying put, I felt something placed next to my thigh. The shuffle of footsteps retreating filled my ears. My body stayed stark still until I could no longer hear the crunch of his shoes on gravel. Taking a low breath, I swiveled my head to find whatever he'd left for me.
My heart flip-flopped.
Resting directly beside me, folding up nicely, was my coat. Beneath that was a fleece throw blanket, adorned with bright colors and Mario characters. It was a piece of fabric we often fought over. Something that truly belonged to him. It'd been in his possession long before he ever met me, but I loved it. It was warm, and dorky, and it smelled like his lavender skin.
I had no business snatching it from his bed on a daily basis. It was his. But here it sat, waiting for me, because he knew how much I loved it.
And that. That was the Ace Jackson I was in love with. The one who cared so immensely about other people, he often forgot to give love to himself. My heart was in shambles, confused and beating strangely. The Ace who left this blanket was the same Ace who'd lied to my face since the second he laid on eyes it.
I had no idea what to make of that.
Things just weren't adding up. Ace held a heart inside his chest big enough to give life to hundreds of people. Big enough to give life to me when I hadn't been aware I'd lost it.
I stood off the bench with shaky, determined legs. Snatching my coat and the blanket, I turned around with questions pouring into my brain by the dozen. It wasn't normally how this relationship worked, but it was his turn to provide me with an endless supply of answers.
I just hoped I could voice the questions.
Holding my things to my chest, I scampered across the sidewalk and back into the direction of the stairwell door. I wrapped my fingers around the steel handle. For a split second, it felt as though my fingers were wrapped around a block of ice as I pushed open the heavy door and stepped inside. The slamming of the door trapped the wind chill outside. One last shiver overtook my body before I moved to start climbing.
I stopped dead in my tracks. With seizing muscles and a wild heart, I made out his body slumped on the bottom step. His head was angled upward, his watery and red-rimmed gaze concentrated on my expression.
A few seconds of silence went by. I wracked my brain for one of my questions.
"Why?" I blurted vaguely.
Why did you lie to me?
Why are you a hacker?
Why didn't I know you own a computer?
I didn't know which I was asking. When I saw his lips part, I braced myself for an answer to a question I wasn't sure I asked.
"I didn't anticipate you." I followed his gaze toward his lap, his fingers wound around the bottom of his T-shirt. "Five years ago, when I became Mischief, I didn't know Brett Maddison existed. I didn't know who you'd become or what you'd mean to me. I agreed to the rules because there was nobody I wanted to break them for."
"But you broke them tonight."
"I couldn't keep up with the lie anymore. It was killing me to pretend with you, Brett. It has been killing me from the very beginning but please understand those were the rules. I abided by them until I just couldn't. I'm sorry I lied to you and I'm sorry if the truth met you too late."
I didn't like the look in his eyes. There was defeat swimming in them. It wasn't a look he regularly wore. I hated how seeing it made me feel.
"Why now? Why tonight?" As my sorry excuses for questions grew more elaborate, I grew more desperate.
"Because." He swung his head upw
ard and met my gaze. "I couldn't do it."
"Do what?"
"Mischief. I couldn't be Mischief. When I placed my fingers on the keyboard, they filled with lead. I couldn't get them to move. You were in my head, Brett. I couldn't do it without you knowing."
"So, you broke the rule?"
"You've always been my exception. I'm sorry it took me so long to stop pretending." He wiped at his eyes. "I thought I was going to have to choose between you and Mischief. I didn't know how. I didn't want to."
Slowly, I sat down beside him. Needing to touch him, I placed my hand on his thigh and squeezed. "Do you not trust me?"
"That's not it, Brett. Of course I do. But the whole operation is so delicate." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I commit federal crimes every night."
"Why?"
He reared backward. "Why?"
I nodded and tightened the grip I had on his thigh. "Help me understand, A. Why do you do it? Why do you hack?"
"Because it helps people," he said. "It saves their lives."
And that was it. The explanation that made sense. One he tried to explain to me earlier and one I wasn't ready to comprehend until now. Those were words that made Ace the people-lover and Ace the liar the same person.
That was the Ace Jackson I was in love with.
I slid my hand across his thigh and wound my fingers with his. There was a low hitch in his breath as he slid a few inches closer to me. Tentatively, he laid his head down on my shoulder.
"How many lives have you saved doing this?" I asked.
"Saved? We've saved hundreds of lives. But we've changed thousands more."
"We? As in you, Wren, and a team?"
"Yeah." He whispered. "There are thirteen of us. We're like family. They know about you, if you ever want to meet them."
"I do." The words left me quickly. The doubt I was harboring and the uneasy expression on my face sort of just faded away with what he was admitting to me. "I'm going to need a day or so to fully process this but I want to meet them, Ace."
He called them his family. He spent five nights a week with people sacrificing the same thing he is because they held hearts in their chests that beat to a similar rhythm as his. He surrendered himself for the sake of others.
It was so exactly like Ace Jackson.
I inclined my head and pressed a kiss to his forehead. I wanted to know so much more. To understand everything and be worthy of the secret and the rule he obliterated for me. "What's the best thing you've done with your team?"
A moment of nothing passed over us. We were unmoving, cramped on a step too small for our bodies. I thought maybe he wasn't ready to talk about the details, or he wasn't allowed to discuss them when he sat up and straightened his spine. His hand reached for me. One by one, he pressed a finger to my cheek before his whole hand encased half my face.
"A while ago." He started, eyes boring into mine. "My team and I, we took down a huge drug operation. We'd been working our asses off, trying to find the base of their operation when one of their men got sloppy. When the FBI busted in, they arrested the leader of that operation and in turn, saved a young girl who he'd been holding captive."
The hair across my body rose with awareness.
"That man was named Kade Wilson," he whispered like he was afraid I’d crumble into a pile of dust if he spoke too loud. "And that young girl... her name was Sage."
Some sort of strangled wheeze erupted from my chest. A sheen of tears fell over my eyes and I lurched forward. Reaching for me, he wrapped his hands around my back and held me against his solid, familiar chest.
"Circuit." I uttered the name I'd heard over and over again in the many court hearings I attended.
It was group of hackers.
Circuit is what they call themselves.
Nobody knows who they are.
"Circuit." I gasped out. "Ace, you work for Circuit?"
"Yes."
It was a lot. A whole fucking lot to take in. I felt like I was buried under piles and piles of answers I’d been searching for for years. But I still had so many questions for him. Questions I couldn't put together but knew he’d answer once I was able to ask them.
I shoved my nose into his neck and fucking sobbed. I wasn’t entirely sure why, but it felt good. Cathartic. Like I was purging a bunch of gratitude toward people I’d never met and could finally let it out. It was the only reaction my body was able to produce.
“I want you to know that having a hand in helping Sage was the greatest thing I’ve ever done.”
I dragged my head from the crook of his neck and placed a shaky hand on his cheek. “You’re fucking mesmerizing, Ace." I folded my lips over his, stealing his little gasp and kissing him breathless. “Even if you had no hand in helping Sage, I’d still think you’re the greatest hero this world has ever seen.”
There was a rumbling noise in his throat and I knew he was fighting off sudden emotion. "I... I don't want you separate from any aspects of my life anymore, Brett. Whatever comes next, I want you there."
My chest puffed up with each beat of my heart. Fuck. It felt so damn good to hear that. “I can’t wait to meet that part of you."
He flashed me a half-hearted smile. He wasn’t nearly as excited as I was. I couldn’t figure it out until I went back and replayed his last words.
And when I did, dread filled me and set me flying like an untied helium balloon.
“There’s something that comes next, isn’t there?”
14
Brett
“Brett! Help me!”
My eyes sprang open at the sound of her voice. I sat up in bed, peering around my dark room. The hair on my arms rose. An eerie feeling snaking down my spine told me something wasn’t right. I shivered, rubbing up and down my forearms, discovering the thousands of goosebumps that had taken up residence.
“Help! Brett! Help!”
The terror in her voice had me tossing back my covers and booking it across my bedroom. I yanked open my bedroom door with so much force, I stumbled backward and tightened my vice-like grip on the door handle so I wouldn’t fall over.
“Sage?”
An intense shudder coursed through my body at the wind that was draping around me and settling against my bare chest. I blinked, stepping out of my doorway and onto the sidewalk. My exposed feet froze against the concrete. Hugging myself as I walked, I kept my eyes peeled for my sister. I padded around, creating a circle around myself while lifting my chin and scanning my surroundings. I could hardly make out where I was. The mist in the air around me was too thick. If it weren’t for the street lamps on either side of me, lighting up the direction of the journey, I’d be rendered completely blind.
“Sage?” I called out for her, my eyes aching under intense squinting. I craned my neck, listening for her voice but was met with nothing but a deafening silence. A silence so intense, a faint ringing began deep in my eardrum. A shiver escaped my body as the eerie feeling grew heavier. My arms tightened the grip they had on my upper body and I trudged forward. “Sage!”
“Brett! Help me!” The scream that ripped from her chest was sharp enough to cut a hole directly through the fog. My feet took off, slapping against the cement while my arms extended out from my body, reaching toward the direction of her voice. The mist parted. I tripped over myself the second her body came into view. Relief flooded me as I stopped directly in front of her, bare toes meeting bare toes.
“Sage.”
She sniffed, tears as big as raindrops slipping from her eyes and cascading down her cheeks. Her wide, frightened eyes were rimmed with red. Each of her limbs was shaking like a frail leaf caught in a windstorm. “Help me,” she whispered. “Please, help me.”
“Sage, it’s okay. I’m right here.” I reached for her.
A sliver of hope slipped into her eyes. Her slender arm shook as it lifted and stretched to meet mine. We both frowned when our fingers didn’t meet, still inches and inches apart. I let out a noise of frustration and took another step forw
ard.
More tears stained her pale cheeks when the distance between them didn’t seem to shorten. “You’re too late.”
“No, I’m not.” I wrapped the fingers from my left hand around my right wrist, using double the strength to tug my arm toward her. My teeth ground together at the pain in my shoulder. My muscles were tearing themselves apart, but I was close. So close. “Take my hand, Sage!” I screamed. “Take it!”
Her head shook back and forth, the wind whipping her hair in front of her face. “You’re too late!”
“Take it!” I grew panicked, yanking my arm from its socket when my eyes locked on the shadowed figure approaching her. “Hurry!” My hand shook with desperation and pain, my eyes bulging from their sockets as I watched two unfamiliar arms wrap themselves around her body. “SAGE!”
Her mouth opened and a scream high enough to break glass flowed from the depths of her chest. Her legs thrashed the very second they left the ground. I watched in horror at the way she sent her fists flying, throwing them into the figure that was now pulling her away from me.
“Don’t touch her!” An uncharacteristic growl tore from my throat and I pounced. I took off running, my arms pumping and lungs burning as I chased after my little sister.
She wailed when she dug her heels into the concrete, trying to slow down her kidnapper. Bile rose in my throat at the way her skin peeled back and blood stained the sidewalk.
“SAGE!” The harder and faster I ran, the farther she got from me. Each time I thought I was getting closer, she ended up being miles and miles away. Cold tears were frozen to my cheeks as I gasped for breath and forced my tired body to keep moving.
The wind swirling around me was hindering my vision. The only piece of her I could make out was the blonde hair, flapping against the wind. I followed her scream like a siren, running and running and running until that scream morphed into something deeper. Something less familiar and raspier. My brows furrowed as I struggled to make out her face. The locks of hair tangled in the wind, exposing who was hidden beneath it.