The Hero and the Hacktivist

by Pippa Grant

  I move to help, but Knox puts a hand out and blocks me. “Don’t, man. They live for this kind of drama. I’m just hoping they get out of the building before the makeup sex starts.”

  “I have a meat cleaver,” Parker offers.

  Sia turns the marble unicorn upside down and stabs the phone with the unicorn horn.

  Chase is watching her with a horny kind of admiration.

  Sort of reminds me of Eloise.

  Fuck.

  Before I can demand to know why Knox’s phone isn’t ratting him out, the door bursts open, and Willow hustles in with Dax behind her.

  Dax’s phone isn’t squawking, but then, it doesn’t look like he’s carrying a phone.

  “There’s something wrong with Eloise,” Willow declares.

  “I told her not to send those dick pics to all those politicians,” Parker says. “All six of her phones are probably infected.”

  There’s a heavy moment of silence when even Sia stops beating the phone with the unicorn. “She didn’t…”

  “She couldn’t…” Willow whispers in agreement.

  “She absolutely could,” Parker says. “But she probably didn’t.”

  “She might’ve,” Sia says.

  “I thought she liked getting dick pics,” Knox says. “Remember a couple weeks ago, she asked if she could see all of ours and got mad when we all said we didn’t send them?” He jerks a thumb at Chase. “Except him, but that’s a given.”

  “Oh, shit, she did,” Parker sighs, but I get the feeling she’s not talking about that time Eloise asked to see everyone’s dick pics. She and the other women are on a totally different wavelength. They’re talking in code and I don’t have the key.

  Willow shakes her head. “Do you think she realized how bad it would be?”

  “You mean that she’d incapacitate a third of the cell phones in the nation?”

  “Hold up,” I say, finally tracking where they’re going. “Eloise can write viruses? She caused this? I thought she just played computer games all day.”

  All three of the women slide suspicious glances at me. “Yeah, that’s all she does,” Sia announces. “It’s all video games, all day. She just played a game like this once.”

  “Yep,” Parker agrees, but the nose wiggle gives away that she’s lying.

  “I send diiiiiiiiiiick piiiiiiiiics,” Chase’s phone announces, going deep and slow now.

  “She ever launched a virus before?” I ask.

  “No,” all three women chime together.

  I fold my arms. Knox is frowning. Chase is pinching his nose.

  Dax seems to find the jungle décor in here fascinating at the moment and isn’t making eye contact with anyone.

  I glare at Parker.

  She crosses her arms and glares back. “Don’t even try that, butthead. You know what? If she did it, I’m proud of her. It’s not like you can call the police and have them take you seriously when you report a dick pic that you didn’t want. So if she made assholes who send unsolicited dick pics pay, good on her.”

  “You get unsolicited dick pics?”

  “Not since I mastered privacy settings.”

  I growl.

  Knox growls.

  Sia growls.

  “See?” Willow says. “Whoever did this is a hero and should be treated as such.”

  “Exactly,” Sia agrees.

  “And probably checked on,” Willow adds with a wince. “Just in case she, um, got infected. Or had some other kind of…mishap…related or unrelated to this virus.”

  Now she has my full attention.

  “She does get carried away when she’s pissed,” Sia says cautiously, “and I’m pretty sure she sends dick pics to assholes who send dick pics, so her phones probably are infected, and if she thought she knew who did it, she might try to do something stupid.”

  Willow’s nodding. “Remember how upset she was when Chase bought Crunchy and Sia told us what he did to her when they were kids and how bad she didn’t want to work for him, and then when she threatened to de-nut Dax when he and I had that misunderstanding about who kidnapped whom when I ran away from my wedding?”

  “That’s so Eloise,” Parker says with a grin.

  I wouldn’t know. All I really know about her is that she’s horny as hell and she’s kind of a loner. Which actually does probably mean she’s hiding shit.

  “Diiiiiiiiiiiiiccckkk piiiiii….” Chase’s phone stutters.

  “Has anyone heard from her at all today?” Willow demands.

  “She’s not one to check in every hour.” Sia takes a final whack at the phone. “Or even every day. Remember when she disappeared for a few weeks this summer?”

  Willow’s cheeks go pink and Dax ducks his head and shuffles to the kitchen. “That wasn’t unexpected,” Willow says. “She hadn’t had a vacation in forever. And anyway, don’t you think she’d be texting us from a clean phone about how hilarious this is? Asking if any of us unexpectedly got hit?”

  Parker’s frowning. “That’s a really good point. She could afford to buy a new phone.”

  “We should go check on her,” Willow insists.

  Sia and Parker both glare at her.

  Her eyes go super wide. “Don’t look at me like that! She took me to her apartment once. And if she took me to her apartment, she was probably already planning on moving out.”

  “Wait. You’ve been to one of Eloise’s apartments?” Sia demands. “That wasn’t just a list of addresses she gave you to throw you off her trail? Does she keep baby hands in formaldehyde on her kitchen counters? Or does she have like eight different coffee makers always going at once? Is that her real hair, or is it a wig?”

  Willow backs away. Probably because Sia’s still holding the marble unicorn.

  I wouldn’t be holding that thing if I were her.

  Never know what Parker and Knox do with their unicorns.

  “That’s really not nice,” Willow tells Sia.

  “Are you kidding? That would be so fucking cool.”

  Parker’s frowning like her feelings are hurt, and I’m starting to think ducking out the window would be a good idea. “Why wouldn’t she let me and Sia into her apartment?”

  “You two were all happy and in love, and the two of us kinda…bonded more this spring.”

  “You were engaged,” Sia points out.

  “To Martin,” Willow fires back.

  “Fair point,” Parker tells Sia.

  “Fuckin’ right it is,” Dax growls.

  “You had three addresses the other night,” Parker suddenly says. She slides her glare at me. “And you know where she lives because you were stalking her.”

  I tap my head. “Internal SEAL detection system. Plus, Willow’s right. She probably moved.”

  “That’s it. We’re checking out all three addresses,” Sia declares. “Mostly because I think I need to high five her if this dick virus actually was her fault.”

  “No!” Willow cries. “If you go, she’ll move, and she’ll never tell me where she lives again. I’ll be outside the circle of trust. Do you know what I had to do to get inside the circle of trust in the first place?”

  “Did it involve an animal sacrifice?” Sia asks.

  “Did you have to show her your boobs?” Parker asks.

  “I don’t actually want to know, so I’m gonna go get a taco,” Knox announces. “Anyone else? Taco? Parker? Taco?”

  “You guys are being ridiculous,” Willow informs the room.

  “It is Eloise we’re talking about…” Chase mutters.

  “Did you ever stop to think that maybe she dry humps everyone’s legs because it makes her like that untrainable puppy that you can’t help but love?” Willow asks.

  There’s a lot of head shaking no in this room.

  “We do love her,” Parker says.

  “We just legit think she’s horny all the time. It’s relatable,” Sia adds.

  Willow huffs out a sigh. “We’ll send Rhett,” she announces.


  “No way,” Parker declares.

  “She’s lonely, you guys. She needs a friend. And not one of us who’s all happy and attached.”

  “She does not need my horny brother to be her friend.”

  “To be fair, all of your brothers are horny,” I assure her. “And you and your unicorn fetish can’t talk.”

  “Did you sleep with her?” Parker demands. “For real, Rhett. Are you sleeping with Eloise?”

  “I’m not sleeping with Eloise.” I’m just getting her off. Big difference. “And I can climb buildings, so Willow’s right. I should take one for the team and go.”

  “You—”

  “Plus, if I go, there’s more tacos for you. And you get rid of me. And none of you have to listen to half of Manhattan confessing to sending dick pics while we’re on the subway.”

  “I send dick pics! I send dick pics!” a phone squawks out in the hall.

  “I need tequila,” Parker mutters.

  “Dammit,” I mutter back, because if she’s drinking, she’s not pregnant, which means Ma’s still going to be insufferable the next time I go over to visit.

  Not that she won’t be insufferable when she finally gets to pull out the bins of stuff she’s been collecting since Parker started her third year of college, but insufferable in a new way.

  I grab a handful of tacos, all of them still wrapped from wherever they picked up take-out tonight. “Back in twenty.”

  “All of those addresses I have for her are at least forty minutes away,” Willow points out.

  “If I’m not back in thirty, say something really nice at my funeral. And drink lots of bad whisky.”

  “You’re such a goober,” Parker says with a sigh.

  “I’m a fucking hero,” I tell her.

  I’m not really—I’m just a guy who got the right training at the right time, and now I’m a has-been.

  But that’s not the sort of thing I’ll ever confess to my sister. Or anyone in this room.

  Instead, I’ll go play my role.

  Everything’s probably fine.

  So maybe I’ll get a chance to bang her again.

  And maybe this time, I’ll get off too.

  13

  Eloise

  You know the difference between bad and bad?

  Bad is going Robin Hood against a local bully who calls you bad names.

  Bad is stealing mafia money when the mafia has the resources to figure out where you live.

  Which is why, even though I don’t know how big this leg warmer mafia actually is, I’m madly unplugging every piece of electronic equipment I own, right down to my lamps, since I can control them from an app on my phone. Even my oven has WiFi.

  Dammit, I need to unplug my oven too.

  I’ve disabled my entire computer set-up and I’m about to dash into the bedroom for a change of clothes when Spider-Man leaps onto my balcony.

  I scream, then realize Spider-Man isn’t fucking real so it couldn’t be Spider-Man, then I scream again because there’s a legit actual person on my balcony regardless of Spider-Man’s realness, and my hairspray is in my bag that I can’t find because I do shit like putting my glasses in the fridge when I go to get a cup of milk.

  There’s only one thing to do in this situation.

  I scream, “Oh my god, the aliens!” to throw him off guard, and make a mad dash for the door—zigzagging, of course. I heard that was a good idea somewhere. My door is locked with seven different bolts, sliders, and knobs, because I’m the type of person who steals, which means I’m the type of person who’s ridiculously paranoid about other people getting into my private sanctuary.

  Unfortunately, it also means it takes me fifteen seconds too long to unlock my door so I can bolt, and really, why am I running from someone who can just land on my balcony with no warning?

  “Fuck, Eloise, it’s just me,” the Ass of Glory says, inside my apartment now, apparently able to unlock balcony doors with his mind.

  My entire body sags in relief. I’m seventy-six percent sure he won’t kill me if he knows why I’m freaking the fuck out.

  I mean the part about me stealing from some bad dudes who are into cyberterrorism in addition to leg warmers and fake life coaching classes. Not the part about me thinking he was Spider-Man.

  “You’re too late,” I tell him while I hustle to the kitchen, basically incapable of ever acting like a real human being. “I already had a booty call with my doorman.”

  He snorts like he’s seen my doorman. I give myself half a second to ogle him while I get to work jerking my oven out—no, not a euphemism—because this might be the last ogle of my entire life, and if I ever said I wasn’t the jeans-and-a-gray-Henley type, I lied. That shirt’s hugging the lean muscles in his chest and the bigger-than-lean muscles in his biceps like the cotton would dry hump him if it could, but more important, there’s a guy in my apartment who can either climb buildings or swing like Tarzan from the roof, which means there’s a guy in my apartment who can probably keep an eye on my brother while I’m gone.

  And if Dirk Lemonson’s mafia really knows where I live, they might be smart enough to figure out I have Davey despite all the places I’ve completely erased any evidence of our relationship.

  “Shit, are you crying?” He recoils, lip curling, eyes going wide.

  I swallow the stings and the lumps and the sniffles that might give me away. “No, you pansy-ass. I’m allergic to intruders.”

  “Why are you unplugging your oven?”

  “Why are you stalking me?”

  “I’m not stalking. I’m checking on. Because Willow asked me to, and nobody says no to Willow.”

  That’s true enough. I tried once, and it made me feel so bad I tried to go to confession at the synagogue across the street, but they told me they don’t do confessions there, plus I’m not Jewish. “You can tell her I’m fine.”

  He points at a pile of pieces on my counter. “People who are fine don’t disassemble their toasters.”

  “They do when their toasters are WiFi-enabled and they’re conspiracy theorists.”

  “You’re not a conspiracy theorist.”

  “How the hell do you know?”

  “I know everything. Except why someone would have a WiFi-enabled toaster. It’s a fucking toaster. Is your toilet WiFi-enabled too?”

  Dammit, one more thing I need to disconnect. I yank the oven plug and head to the john.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he mutters while he follows me. “What the fuck are you into?”

  “Sometimes a person just needs a good internet purge, okay?”

  “You made the dick pic virus.”

  It takes every ounce of determination to not ask him if the world’s gone mad with dick pic senders being outed, but getting out of my apartment alive is a bigger priority. “Dude, I don’t know what you’re smoking, but I don’t send dick pics, and I don’t do viruses.”

  “You’re a really good liar. But I still don’t believe you. And only partially because all your friends told me you send dick pics.”

  “Maybe you should talk to your therapist about your trust issues.”

  “Already did. She says it’s not uncommon, given my job, and since I still trust my family, I’m perfectly normal. Other than my god complex. She says I should work on that, but she’s wrong. I am a god.”

  Wasn’t expecting that. And I think he’s serious that he sees a therapist. “You’re delusional.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not crazy, because I know I’m delusional. What’s your excuse?”

  I try to rip the control panel from the bathroom wall—I never should’ve gotten sucked into the idea that just because I have a few million dollars, I needed a toilet with an electric control panel, but the heated seats are awesome and sometimes my cats freak out when they try to drink out of the toilet bowl and I hit the button to turn on the bidet feature—and I fail at yanking the controller off, because I’m a computer geek, not Wonder Woman.

  “If you rip that out,
I’ll give you a blow job, but only if it’s in the broom closet on the second floor, and only once I get my cats packed.”

  He crosses his arms and gives me one of those spill your guts now, because I’m a god and I’ll just read your mind and then spank you for not telling me otherwise looks.

  I have no business getting damp in the wondermuffin right now, but he’s really fucking hot when he glares. It’s a smolder. A god smolder. And he gives good O, which means I’m not immune.

  “If you’re not going to tear it off the wall, I’ll have to go get a crowbar, and I don’t have time for that shit,” I tell him.

  The smolder turns into one of those narrow-eyed glares that could level a city block, and I think my nipples just had an orgasm.

  “I pissed some people off, okay? It happens, I have all the resources I need to go into hiding for a while, and if you’ll hand me that cat, I’ll ask you to do me a huge favor while I’m gone, and if I ever come back, I’ll let you stick your man meat in my lady bun again.”

  He doesn’t move to rescue Princess Sparkle Butt, who’s circling his legs, and it occurs to me that I’ve spent too much time perfecting this horny hacking heiress image, because I probably shouldn’t have added that last bit but it just rolled off my tongue.

  There’s a massive boom on the street below. I flinch.

  He does too, but he does a respectable job of hiding it.

  Or maybe I wasn’t watching closely enough while I dove under my bathroom sink.

  “Car backfired.” He grabs Princess Sparkle Butt in one hand and wraps the other around my upper arm, pulling me on my butt over the tile floor. “Who’d you piss off?”

  I can’t tell him the cops are after me—which I hope is a lie—because he’s a military dude and even though he’s Parker’s brother and also freaky enough to do me twice, he’d probably drop me at the nearest precinct.

  “Someone…not nice,” I say.

  It’s lame, but it’s as much of the truth as I’m willing to admit.

  He snorts, and the next thing I know, he’s tossing me over his shoulder and heading for the door. Princess Sparkle Butt’s black tail swishes against his back.