“Monday is too late, Becca. I need to work on this now.”
I ignored her father’s scoff.
“I need to stop them in their tracks before they destroy your name and credit rating.”
“How?” she asked.
Gerald spoke up. “Doing what he does best, I imagine. Breaking the law.” He met my gaze, his eyes calculating and frosty. “What excuse will you use then, Reid? You did it in the name of love?”
I was done, fed up to the teeth with his holier-than-thou attitude and his snide remarks. I didn’t care about his opinion—or Becca’s anger over my decision.
“I’m doing it because, whether or not you believe it, I know how to fix it. How to handle it so your daughter isn’t stressed and upset. So her privacy and information aren’t out there being compromised.”
“With your shortcuts, no doubt. Circumventing the law.”
“With all due respect, sir, fuck you. You can sit there and judge me, but I’m not going to stand around and wait for people to do ‘the right thing.’ Not when I can make it happen faster and stop it now.”
He snorted, his eyebrows lifting at my words. “Typical. Taking the easy way out. Bending the rules.”
I shrugged. I was done with his attitude and rudeness. “You’re entitled to your opinion.”
I slung my knapsack over my shoulder and headed for the door, flinging it open. Becca followed, reaching for my arm.
“Reid, please.”
I turned, looking down into her pain-filled eyes.
“Don’t—” she pleaded, her lip quivering.
I shook my head. “Don’t ask me to stay, Becca. I can fix this. And regardless of what your father thinks, what I’m going to do isn’t illegal. It’s making things right.”
Her eyes filled with tears that ran down her cheeks. “I-I don’t—”
“Hey,” I whispered, cupping her face. “Hush. I’m not angry at you.”
Her hands gripped my wrists, her body trembling. “I have to choose now. This is making me choose.”
I glanced behind her at her father. He was watching us closely, a self-righteous look on his face, knowing he had won. I refused to give him the satisfaction. I hated him for making her so upset and forcing the issue.
“It’s okay, baby. You don’t have to choose anything.”
Her brow furrowed in confusion.
I leaned my forehead to hers. “I never had a family, Becca. No parents to love me. I longed for that my whole life.”
Her voice trembled. “I know.”
“Your dad loves you so much he is willing to risk your anger instead of letting you make a mistake.”
“You’re not a mistake,” she whispered.
I kept talking. “I would never ask you to choose, baby. I love you too much. He’s your father—your family. That’s forever. There is no choice here.”
I pressed a kiss to her head and pulled back.
Her eyes were huge, the tears endless. “Wh-What are you saying?”
“You stay here with your dad. I’m going to go and do what I do, get my stuff, and head home.”
Her fingers grappled, tugging on my sleeve. “No, Reid—I can fix this. It’ll be fine. I’ll talk . . .”
“No.”
She stared up at me, wordless.
“You have tried. We both have. It’s clear nothing we do will change his opinion of me. I love you, Becca. But sometimes, that isn’t enough. Because he will never allow it, and I refuse to be part of the reason for your sadness. I won’t let you be caught in the middle of a feud for your affection.” I kissed her lips softly. “It’ll be okay, baby. You’ll be okay.”
Her mouth opened, but no words came out.
“I’m going to fix your problem. I promise you that. I will make it right for you.”
I backed away and pulled the door shut behind me.
I was lying—to her and myself. One thing I knew for sure: I wouldn’t ever be okay again.
Not without her.
I had texted Richard as I grabbed a cab, and he arrived at The Gavin Group building a few minutes after I did. When I explained what had happened, he let me into their server room, not hesitating for a moment.
“I won’t do anything that can be traced back to this place. All I need is the power and some machines.”
He waved his hand. “It’s yours.”
“You don’t need to check with Graham?”
“You’re good. We trust you.”
I pulled out my laptop. “Any of your IT people around, by chance?”
“No, do you need something?”
“An extra pair of eyes and hands. And access to your network room, so we can get to work.”
He held up his pass card. “I can do all that.”
“Great.”
Richard stared at the screen. “Should I understand what you’re doing?”
“No. I’d be surprised if you did.”
“Can you explain it in small words?”
I laughed, my eyes never leaving the screen. “I’ve back-doored into the banking system. It appears the hackers laid a URL to misdirect real users to a phishing site. I found the key logger they placed to get log-in info and passwords from users. They embedded them within an email that was sent as the bank’s newsletter. But they left their coding fingerprints behind, and now I’m finding the people who did this.”
“For what purpose?”
“I’m taking Becca’s money back—and wiping every trace of her from their system. Then I’m going to load a virus into their machines so powerful it will destroy them.”
For the first time, he sounded nervous. “They won’t know?”
“No. My laptop . . .” My voice trailed off, and I cleared my throat. “Let’s just say my laptop is invisible. I’ll be rerouted and thoroughly masked, so even if they try, they won’t be able to figure it out before they explode.”
“Are you sure you can find them?”
I glanced at him. “I already have.”
“Holy shit. Maddox told me you had mad skills. I guess he was right.”
“I don’t use them anymore, but this is an exception.”
“Are you really leaving when you’re done, Reid? Walking away from Becca?”
“What can I do, Richard? Force her to choose between her father and me? I dislike him, but he is her family.”
“She loves you.”
“For how long? She’d hate having to hide the fact that she talks to him or goes to see him. I won’t make her do that.” I snorted. “You can be fucking sure I’m not coming back.” I sighed and passed a weary hand over my face. “Besides, if this backfires, I’ll be back in jail tomorrow.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Becca’s credit will be restored, her money back in her account. The people who did this will be helpless. They’ll start again, but they won’t have her information or probably hundreds or thousands of others. I’ve disabled their malware and reinforced the unauthorized access points for the bank. And hopefully, I will have damaged such a huge part of their network, and flooded so many of their machines, it will take them long enough to rebuild their protocols that the police will be on them first.”
“Are you going to help with that?”
“If you ever stop talking and let me do what I need to do.”
He stood. “Okay. I’m going to call Katy and tell her not to wait up for me.” He stopped at the door. “Reid.”
Pausing my frantic typing, I looked at him.
“You won’t go to jail. I won’t allow it, nor will the BAM boys. Somehow, if this goes bad, you have people on your side this time. You hear me?”
I met his intense gaze.
“You’re risking your own career and life to protect someone I consider my family. I won’t forget that.”
I nodded and looked back to the screen. He left, pulling the door shut behind him.
Becca was his family, but she was my world.
Even if I wasn’t part of hers anymor
e.
I rubbed my tired, aching eyes. I glanced at my phone to check the time. It was almost four in the morning. I scanned all the files one last time and saved them to an encrypted drive. I had done it. I even had a physical address and had already called in an anonymous tip to the police. I had sent Richard out to buy me a cellphone I used for that purpose and then disabled. My tracks were covered. I had managed to look around their setup, and it was scary. Scary how badly structured it was. I was in, invisible and undetected—searching fast. Downloading evidence. Reversing what they had done, with Becca being my number one priority. Then I planted my seeds and got the fuck out of there.
By now, their system was in shambles, computers frying. Hard drives wiped, and hopefully, police showing up at the door of the well-to-do home they were running their operation from, escorting them out in handcuffs.
The way I was certain Becca’s father hoped I would be later today.
I removed all traces of me from The Gavin Group’s system, making a mental note to tell Richard they needed to up their security and put some more firewalls in place.
I shoved my laptop into my knapsack and trudged down the hall. Richard was asleep at his desk. He had disappeared for a while, returning to hand me coffee and a sandwich and asking if I needed help. When I said no, he had left again, allowing me to work in peace.
I knocked on the doorframe and walked in, slinging my knapsack onto the other chair, before sitting down and scrubbing my face.
Richard stretched, rotating his neck to relieve his stiff muscles. “Is it done?”
“Yep. Becca’s money is back in her account. The same goes for several dozen other people. The rest will have to be handled—” I held up my fingers in quotation marks “—the right way.”
He chuckled. “Gerald has been an ass.”
I looked past him to the dark sky outside his window. “I’m not arguing.”
I risked a glance at him. “Did you, by chance, check on Becca?”
“I did. She went to see Katy and is currently asleep.”
“Okay.” I blew out a painful breath. Despite what happened, part of me had hoped she would show up here, knowing this was where I would come to work. But she was with her friend, and that was probably for the best. I could go back to the hotel, grab a few hours’ sleep, and be at the airport to wait on a standby seat before midmorning.
“What happens now?”
I held up the USB drive. “I’ll copy this and send it to the bank president and the police. It will give them everything they need to put these people in jail, and perhaps the information to help get more people their money back.”
“You shut them down?”
“Totally.”
“Wouldn’t the bank already be on it?”
I shrugged. “Probably. They’ll follow their protocols and proper procedures. I’m better and faster, though.” I chuckled.
He lowered his voice, making it sound like Al Pacino in Scarface. “Don’t fuck with you, eh?”
I chuckled. “There’re lots more where they came from. But if I stop one group, it’s at least something. Helping Becca was what mattered. They had all her information. She would have had credit cards in her name piling up the debt and God knows what else. It would have taken years for her to recover from it.”
“You risked your freedom to prevent that. Do you know how huge that is, Reid? I told Maddox, and he was furious with you, although he understood.”
I wiped my hand over my face, exhaustion setting in. “Yeah, there were a lot of texts. I ignored them. I’ll deal with them when I get back.”
“I’ll drive you to the hotel.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
We were silent on the drive. He pulled up in front of the building, shifting into park. He looked over at me. “Get some sleep, and we’ll talk when you’re more coherent.”
“I’ll call when I get home.”
He shook his head. “We’ll talk before that. Trust me.”
I opened the door, too tired to argue. He drove away, and I trudged inside, leaning heavily against the wall of the elevator.
Silence greeted me when I entered the room. The atmosphere felt as heavy as my footsteps while I stumbled into the bedroom, planning to fall face-first onto the bed. I needed sleep so I could think clearly. Prepare for the next step.
Nothing prepared me for the sight of Becca sitting on the bed, reclined against the headboard.
I gaped at her. “What are you doing here, Becca?”
She raised her chin. “Where else should I be, Reid?”
“With your father or Katy.” I closed my weary eyes. “Not with me.”
“My father is my family, Reid. Katy is my friend.”
I opened my eyes and frowned, not following her train of thought. “Okay?”
She tilted her head. “They’re important, but they aren’t you, Reid.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You were wrong earlier.”
I laughed bitterly. “I was wrong about a lot of things, Becca. Care to enlighten me?”
“You said I didn’t have to choose. But you were wrong. I did have to choose.”
My heart rate picked up. “And?”
Her voice quivered. “I choose you.”
Reid
I WOKE, SURROUNDED by the feel of Becca’s arms around me, her soft skin under my cheek and her fingers drifting up and down my back. For a moment, I was convinced it was a dream, but I lifted my head and met her tired blue gaze.
“Hi, BB.” I sounded sleepy.
“Hey.”
“You’re here.”
“There isn’t anywhere else I want to be.”
Frowning, I cleared my throat. After Becca had dropped her bombshell, she had insisted I come to bed. I pleaded for five minutes and grabbed a hot shower, needing to loosen the tense muscles in my neck and back. The aching soreness had set in from hours of hunching over the keyboard in the cold temperature of the server room at The Gavin Group.
When I stepped back into our room, Becca was waiting. She lifted the covers, and I slid in beside her. Immediately, she pulled me to her body, encouraging me to lay my head on her chest, then wrapped her arms around me. I sank into her warmth, the feel of her against me better than any shower in the world.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” I confessed.
She pressed a kiss to my head. “Sleep. We’ll talk when you wake up.”
I could feel the pull of exhaustion hitting me harder than ever. My body relaxed, and my eyes drifted shut. I struggled to get the words out.
“I fixed it, Becca. Just the way I promised.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I know, Reid. Sleep.”
“Where is your father?” I asked with a grimace, sitting up and grabbing a bottle of water from the nightstand, draining it in long swallows.
She leaned against the headboard. “At his place. No doubt stewing over our argument and grumbling about what a failure of a father he is.”
“No, he did a great job as a father—you’re amazing. It’s being a decent, nonjudgmental human being he’s rather shit at,” I said without thinking.
Her eyes grew round, and I grappled to apologize. “Shit, I shouldn’t have said that.”
She shook her head. “You’re right, though. We had the biggest fight ever after you left. I didn’t hold back, and I told him how ashamed I was of what he said to you.” She reached for my hand. “I owe you an apology. I never should have listened to him, and I shouldn’t have let you walk away.”
I lifted one shoulder. It had hurt, but I understood. “He’s your dad.”
“And you’re my forever.”
I turned slightly, facing her. “Yeah?”
She cupped my cheek, her fingers moving restlessly on my skin. “Yeah. You walking away made me realize how selfless you were being. The exact opposite of my dad, who was being self-righteous and rude.”
“What happened? I asked.
“We a
rgued. I told him what I thought of his behavior and how angry I was at myself that I had let you think I doubted you. He pointed out you had walked away. I informed him you had sacrificed your feelings so I didn’t have to make an impossible choice. That, above all else, proved to me how much you really loved me. I told him if he couldn’t see that, we had nothing else to talk about.” She sighed and ran a hand through her hair, pushing back the messy waves from her face. “It got loud and ugly, and I walked out.”
“I’m sorry, BB.”
She shook her head. “No, I am, Reid. I should have listened to you right away. I should have told my dad off big-time the first day. I regret bringing you here.” She sighed. “If you still want to leave today, we can.”
“No. I want you to show me the city. All the places you love. Meet your friends for dinner the way we planned.” I took her hand in mine. “I assume Richard knows what happened between you and your dad?”
She sighed, her fingers tightening within mine. “Yes. I was so upset, I called Katy, and she came and got me. We took the girls for a walk and ice cream, then she drove me to the office.”
“Wait. You were there?”
“Yes. I watched you for a while, and I got you a sandwich and coffee. I asked Richard to give it to you. He drove me back to the hotel.”
“Why didn’t you come into the room?”
“I watched you for over an hour, but you never noticed me. You were in the zone. I didn’t want to disturb you. I came here to wait, and Richard went to see my dad. He told him off—again.”
“Wow.”
“So, we need to take a cab to get the car.”
“Are you going to go up and see your dad?”
“No. We both need to cool off. We said things—harsh things. Today is only for you and me.” She met my eyes, her gaze anxious. “If you want that?”
“I want.” I grazed her cheek with my knuckles. “I think we had our first fight, BB.”
Her sigh was shaky. “It was a big one.”
“But we’re here. Together.”
“Yeah.”
“And you love me.”
A tear ran down her face. “So much, Reid. I’m so sorry—”
I laid a finger on her lips, silencing her. “It’s okay.” I edged closer. “You know what, Becca?”
Reid: Vested Interest #4 Page 21