The Hero and the Hacktivist

by Pippa Grant

  I’m missing something, but I’ll just assume Sia lied about something too.

  Also, she’s scary as hell at the moment. Scariest of all three of them, which says something, because I actually do know what Parker’s capable of, and I’m starting to get an idea of how much Eloise is capable of too.

  “The point is,” Sia growls, channeling the death mask her two massive brothers use on the ice rink pretty damn impressively, “we can’t help her if we don’t have all the details. I didn’t need help. She does.”

  “You needed help,” Eloise says with an eye roll.

  “And I still have the glitter to prove it,” Chase mutters.

  The door opens, and a tall blonde with a sunny smile and a devious glint in her blue eyes strolls in with three laptops tucked under her arm. Brooks is following her, because of course he is.

  “Hey, boss. Where should I set up?” she says.

  “Eloise, meet Nikki. Nikki, meet Eloise.” Sia points to the kitchen. “Set up in there. I’m leaving, because then I can tell myself you two are swapping secrets about whatever goat pirate video game you both play.” She swings her finger back to Eloise. “But we’re not done here. And don’t let the cats out.”

  Eloise eyes the computers, and I swear she’s more turned on now than she was when she was stroking Mr. Pokey fifteen minutes ago.

  Fuck.

  I’m having an inferiority complex because of a stack of computers.

  “I SEND DICK PICKS! I SEND DICK PICKS! I SEND DICK PICS!”

  All of us whip our heads around to look at Nikki. She grins, pulls out her phone, checks the display, and kills the noise. “You should see that thing go off in the server room when someone calls me. Best fucking ringtone ever.”

  Parker squeezes her eyes shut. “Eloise, I swear to god, if you replace us with Nikki, I’m going to have Rhett sprinkle dog turds in your coffee grounds when you’re not looking.”

  “I might go down on her, but I’m not going to replace you guys,” Eloise says.

  Fuck on a cheese cracker, I think I just popped a nut.

  “Work,” Parker says, pointing to the kitchen. “Horrify us later. When we have tequila.” She starts to head out of the room too, but stops long enough to grab Eloise in a tight hug. “And please keep to the non-dangerous kind of trouble, okay?”

  Eloise squeezes her eyes shut, but not before I catch a glimpse of them going shiny. “What fun is trouble if it’s not dangerous?” Even her voice is gruff.

  She’s a lone wolf. Stands out so she can’t fit in. Keeps people at a distance.

  I know her, because in a lot of ways, I am her.

  I know why I do it.

  But I don’t know why she does it.

  “I SEND DICK PICS! I SEND DICK PICS!”

  We all look at the kitchen again.

  “If you don’t like it, leave,” Nikki says.

  Brooks trails her into the kitchen after dropping off cookies in Dave’s pod.

  “I like her,” Eloise declares.

  “You get out too,” Nikki says. “I’m not having some two-bit heiress fuck up my routes. I’ll let you know when I have my firewalls and everything else in place.”

  I snag Eloise by the collar with my free hand before she paws the ground and charges. “Relax, Spikes. She’s just trash-talking you. Let me put your cat away, and I’ll go steal you a coffee.”

  “I can steal my own coffee.”

  “Then let me put your cat away so I can watch you steal your own coffee. Make sure you do it right so you don’t get caught.”

  She takes Princess Sparkle Butt from me and disappears into the pod where Dave’s hiding. There are muffled voices and shrieks of laughter.

  “It’s like she has this whole other life,” Parker mutters.

  “You knew that,” I point out. I’m a helpful bastard.

  “Yeah, but knowing it and seeing it are two different things. The mystery of Eloise is gone now.”

  Knox coughs. “Ah, I’d bet she still has more mysteries,” he says.

  Fuck yeah, she does.

  So many mysteries.

  My phone buzzes. I check the display, expecting an update from Pigpen, but instead, there’s a note from Clint, my cop buddy.

  Clint: You wanna tell me why a couple beat cops just found nine dudes tied up in your apartment with confessions duct-taped to their clothes?

  Rhett: Book research took an unexpected turn.

  Clint: CALL ME NEXT TIME.

  I don’t answer, because the less he knows, the more plausible deniability we all have.

  Another shriek of laughter comes from the pod where Eloise and Dave are hanging out.

  I grin, because who wouldn’t?

  Parker grabs my forearm and pinches.

  “Ow! Fuck, Parker, knock it off.”

  “You hurt her, and I’m telling Mom you adopted three dogs and got engaged to a woman with two kids.”

  I rub my pinch spot and don’t tell my sister it’s more likely her friend will hurt me.

  Because that would be admitting to weakness. Or feelings. Or attachment.

  Or wanting to walk that line between watching Eloise’s chaos and protecting her from the fallout of it for more than just this operation.

  When this is over, when she disappears, when she doesn’t need me anymore—not that she’ll admit she needs me, much—life is going to suck.

  And not because I’ll be bored.

  But because I’m going to miss her.

  And I don’t know how to deal with that emotional shit.

  My normal coping mechanisms aren’t going to cut it. There’s not another mission on the horizon. I don’t have my team to bullshit with until we’re called out for the next job. And the idea of working out whatever’s eating me with a one-night stand makes me sick to my stomach.

  I know what I’d tell my buddies if they had the same symptoms.

  But I’m not yet ready to tell myself.

  28

  Eloise

  Coffee isn’t as good when it comes with the silent treatment.

  This is a legitimate surprise to me, because I usually work alone. But having Rhett sitting across a café table in Crunchy’s snack bar, watching me slurp and not breaking eye contact is making me wish Parker, Sia, and the rest of the crew hadn’t abandoned us to go finish whatever it is they do during the day at their normal jobs and while I’m banished from screwing up Nikki using her own tricks to track down Dirk Lemonson.

  I slurp again, which I’m doing loudly, just to test the theory that he’s a robot physically incapable of being turned off by me and that I’ve fallen into a trap set by the cyborgs who secretly rule the world.

  He doesn’t blink.

  “Wanna sneak in the kitchen and let me wrap your dick in lettuce?” I ask. “I hear it’s organic.”

  “How many times have you gotten caught?” he asks.

  This might not be better than the silent treatment. I momentarily debate telling him a story about my mom catching me giving a neighbor a blow job while slapping his ass with fish sticks, but since Rhett has proven time and again that my stories don’t faze him, there’s not much point in putting the energy into it.

  “Once,” I grumble.

  He doesn’t react at all. Not a seriously, only once? and not a you must’ve fucked up good that time too.

  It’s a mental game and I know it. If he stays silent, I’ll talk.

  Oddly, I actually want to talk. “When my mom died, Davey and I were living together in this little apartment kinda like yours in Brooklyn. There was this chick down the hall, always friendly, always flirting with Davey anytime we’d see her. He started thinking she was into him, so I looked her up on social media.”

  “She was making fun of him,” Rhett surmises.

  I pick at a chip in the coffee cup handle. She was making him a laughingstock among her friends. “You don’t fucking fuck with my brother.”

  He’s still staring at me, but there’s an extra vein ticking in
his neck now.

  I know what all of Parker’s brothers did to Knox to make sure he was good enough for her. I know Rhett gets it.

  “And she might’ve actually been my best friend,” I tell the last few drops of my coffee, because it still hurts to remember that betrayal. “I cracked her password and posted a few confessions that I might’ve completely made up.”

  “She figured out it was you?”

  “I probably should’ve quit after the first seven posts about her liking to lick donkey ass and quit before I got to the part about her being jealous of siblings who love each other more than her parents will ever love her. And then I got super jumpy for the next three days, which was probably more of a clue. But I was young and lame and didn’t know how to just tell her to go take a leap off a bridge and never talk to me again.”

  “And now…?”

  “Now I’m fucking awesome.”

  That earns me a rare and obviously reluctant smile.

  “You keep doing this SEAL shit, maybe one day you’ll be as awesome as I am,” I tell him.

  He pinches his nose and ducks his head, but I know a man hiding a smile when I see one.

  “Just gotta believe in yourself,” I add.

  “Gotta believe in my team,” he says quietly.

  Goosebumps flash over my arms. “You got Pigpen. What else do you need?”

  He spears me with a look that says I don’t know shit.

  So I fling the rest of my coffee at him.

  His shoulders droop. “Should’ve seen that coming,” he mutters, but he doesn’t sound mad. He wipes the coffee drops off his cheek, but doesn’t so much as look at the stains dotting his shirt.

  “You can’t see everything coming,” I tell him. “You’re a badass, but you’re still human. I think.”

  The wariness creeping into his gaze makes my heart ping about my ribs, and I wonder how often his humanity is overlooked.

  People don’t often see me as human. I’m that weird chick who hacks computers and doesn’t have to work and rocks out on a drum kit a few times a week. I’m entertainment. I’m something to gawk at.

  I make Davey look normal.

  Maybe Rhett makes saving the world look easy, and people overlook who he is for what he does too.

  “Being a badass is harder than people give it credit for,” I tell him, like I know a thing or two about being a badass, which I don’t.

  Not really.

  I don’t look danger in the eye. I mean, not unless I’m propositioning Sia’s brothers when their wives are around, but on those more-frequent-than-I’ll-admit occasions, my friends are there to drag me out of trouble.

  Who drags Rhett out of trouble?

  He’s still watching me, with more and more wariness creeping into the layers of his eyes. “You ever have to disappear completely?”

  “That an offer to disappear with me?” I say with an exaggerated wink.

  He doesn’t twitch as much as an eyelash, but I swear there’s a flash of yes in his gaze.

  My belly dips.

  People don’t often get real with me. This is actually something of an honor.

  “I’ve disappeared temporarily a time or two. But never forever.” I went into hiding over the summer for a while after righting a wrong for Willow’s new boyfriend, but because he’s famous and the bad guys were bad guys, certain questionable activities that I may or may not have participated in were largely ignored by the police. “But it would suck,” I hedge.

  “It does.”

  I squint at him. “You’ve disappeared completely?”

  He rubs a hand over his short hair and shakes his head. “Feels like it.”

  We’re veering into real-person territory. And I don’t actually mind, because it’s the first time in my life someone outside of my family has really cared to get me. Despite knowing the me I show the world.

  And it’s the first time someone outside of family has trusted me with something that feels important.

  Someone of the male variety, anyway. I’m learning that I fit in more with my bandmates than I gave them credit for.

  I probably owe all of them a chocolate of the month club subscription. And then some.

  “What do you mean, it feels like you’ve disappeared?” I ask.

  “Imagine someone took your computers away forever and never let you touch another one.”

  I gasp, and not to be melodramatic. “Fuck them. I fix the whole world with my computers.”

  “The Navy took my computers away.”

  He’s not talking physical computers. “Why?”

  “We fucked something up.”

  My throat tightens.

  When I fuck something up at my job, I throw up a thousand new firewalls and lay low. When Rhett fucks something up at his job… “Like the bad guys know your face bad, or like people got killed bad?”

  “Close enough to both.”

  “So, one mistake, and they take away your toys?”

  He tips his chair back, lips tight.

  Like there’s more to the story.

  “Are you telling me this to warn me you might not come back from cleaning up my mess?” Like hell I’m letting him go clean up my mess without me, but I’ll play his little game.

  “I’m telling you because you get it.”

  I give half a second of thought to objecting to understanding what he’s talking about, except I can’t remember the last time somebody got me enough to know that I got them.

  Those laser-focused eyes are holding me captive. “You know,” he says. “You know what it’s like to put everything on the line knowing you could lose it all because you believe in something bigger than yourself.”

  Dammit, I’ve already cried once today. Whatever these pinpricks of heat think they’re doing in my eyeballs, they’re not going to make me cry again. “So?”

  He drops his chair back to the floor and leans on the table, which is small enough that he’s breathing in my space. My heart’s on a drum solo. My skin is tingling. My tongue is going dry.

  He leans impossibly closer. “So everything.”

  “You can’t—” I have to pause and swallow, because I sound like a bullfrog. “You can’t just so everything and think that makes any sense.”

  “It does make perfect sense.”

  He’s so fucking right it’s terrifying.

  We have different approaches, different rules, and different priorities, but we’re on the same team.

  I’ve never been so turned on and simultaneously terrified in my entire life. I clear my throat. “It only makes perfect sense until you’re off time-out and back to being a military badass, and I up my hacker game to leave fewer breadcrumbs with better firewalls.”

  “Navy needs hackers.”

  My pulse bounces like a sugared-up baby goat. “I don’t like being confined in my parameters.”

  “You could save people’s lives.”

  He’s good. He doesn’t add instead of wreaking havoc on assholes, because he clearly knows that’s an invalid and unpersuasive argument. “And you could work in an environment that could use your skills without being beholden to laws that don’t always take care of people,” I point out.

  “You’re so hot when you get riled up.”

  I leap across the table and tackle him by the lips—with my lips, naturally—and my coffee mug clatters to the ground.

  Not that I notice. Much.

  I’m too busy inhaling Rhett’s mouth and soaking up the way his fingers are gripping my short hair. And trying to climb over the table.

  And possibly trying to melt his shirt with my hands so I can get my fingertips on his hot skin.

  That’s not working so well for me.

  But this kiss?

  It’s hot and deep and possessive and life. It’s just life.

  He likes me. Despite all my normal attempts to keep him at a distance, despite all the trouble I’m causing him, despite me being me, he likes me.

  And I might almost be brave enoug
h to admit to liking him too.

  Or…something more.

  “Wow, another porno in the snack bar. Awesome. I got everything set up. Want to tell me where I should start looking for this dickwad, or should I just dig in blindly starting with the dick pic virus?””

  I’m about to hold up a finger—yeah, that finger—to tell Sia’s star hacker she can just wait when Rhett wrenches free.

  “We’re coming,” he tells her.

  “No, we’re not,” I grumble.

  He snags the Crunchy coffee mug off the floor and clunks it onto the table, then grabs me by the hand and pulls me out of the chair.

  Nikki grins at both of us. “If I tell Parker you two were kissing—”

  “I’ll tell their mom you’re carrying his secret love child and you’ll have to move to Greenland to escape what comes next,” I inform her.

  Rhett coughs like he’s smothering a laugh.

  And Mrs. Elliott’s reputation apparently precedes her—or maybe mine does, or Rhett’s, or all three—because Nikki actually frowns and backs off.

  And then she teaches me a thing or three about covering my tracks while we start recreating my path to finding Dirk Lemonson.

  Rhett disappears to take a phone call.

  Nikki’s phone rings with the soothing sounds of the phone voice shrieking about sending dick pics.

  And I get a knot in my stomach.

  Because Rhett isn’t a robot, and he’s not immortal, and he’s not even infallible.

  And I’m pretty sure he’s prepping for a mission.

  To avenge me.

  Nikki kills the phone and eyeballs me. We’re in front of three laptops on the kitchen counter, all of them flashing the same red dot on a map.

  “My granny fell for one of those phone scams,” she tells me. “Cost her three months’ worth of social security checks. I haven’t had time to fix it yet.”

  “Got the phone number?”

  “I’ll text it to you.”

  “Great.” That’s easy payment for helping find Dirk Lemonson.

  “Now get out. You’re breaking my groove.”

  “I—”

  “No offense. Seriously. But I can’t work with you breathing next to me. I’m starting with the bank accounts and the life coaching site. I can do this in half the time without paranoia that you’re gonna fuck it up.”