by Gage Grayson
"What is it?” Marcus finally says. “Tell me what's going on, Katy."
I can't even meet his eyes as I say the words. "They...they have a bomb. I just learned about it tonight. They have a bomb and they're going to use it and I don't know when and I don't know where. I didn't know who else to ask for help. I just thought that, since you're with an organization that's pretty big, maybe you had some ideas how to handle this. I'm really worried."
He considers what I said for a moment, the gravity of the situation setting in. There's a bomb out there somewhere and we have no idea when it will go off.
"We can help you, Katy. I promise. We'll take care of everything," he says.
His words are like music to my ears and I hug him. I wrap my arms tightly around his neck because I'm so thankful and grateful to him for helping me.
I honestly don't know what else I would've done. Marcus is a godsend and once again, I realize that he's everything and more that I could want in my life.
Marcus
I’m ruthless when it comes to business.
I’ve been told I’m arrogant and have expensive tastes.
I’m a womanizer, and I’ve spent one too many nights on the town.
But when it comes to saving lives…I’ll spare no expense.
I’m shocked that Katy has trusted me with the truth. I’m pleased that there are no more secrets between us...at least from her side.
But now I have to jump into action. Lives are at stake, and I suddenly feel as though the weight of the world is on my shoulders.
“Katy,” I say, holding her arms. “You have to tell me more information. I need to know more information about the bomb. When is it gonna go off?”
She looks at me with a worried expression and says, “I don’t know. I’ve been trying to log back into the chatroom but they have me axed. I can’t get back in. I just know that it’s gonna happen in the next 24 hours. I remember them saying that.”
“Okay, that’s something. We still need more to go off, but I’ll start making calls now. Don’t worry, everything’s gonna be okay.”
I say the words, but in my heart, I’m not sure that it’s true. How can it be okay? There’s a bomb in the city, and we don’t know when and where it’s gonna go off.
Luckily, I have every resource at my disposal.
I make various calls, first to my personal security team who are the best in town.
“Hey, Alfred,” I say to the main operative. “There’s a bomb in the city, and we don’t know when it’s gonna go off. My…friend thinks she might know what building it’s at, but she’s not sure. She’s gonna try to hack into the system and find out more information. But in the meantime, I need you guys combing the city for all potential suspects. Got it?”
“No problem, boss.” He seems unfazed. “We’ll find it before it goes off. Trust me.”
That’s why I like my team so much. Having protected celebrities and presidents alike, they are used to this sort of threat. I know they’ll get the job done.
I also call the police, the FBI, and the government. There’s no hiding this from anybody. Everyone needs to find out.
Somehow I’m gonna have to work around the fact that Katy is a hacker. I don’t want her getting in that middle of all this. She came clean with me after all. She deserves to be trusted.
While we’re waiting for everyone to do their jobs, I ask Katy, “Anything else? Is there anything you can remember from the chat room?”
She thinks for a few seconds and says, “They said they want to make a statement. And that this is their statement. I told them I didn’t agree with them and then they locked me out.”
Part of me is proud of her for not being a part of this. I know she’s in a clandestine world that burglarizes corporations, but the fact that Katy can at least draw a line in the sand against her oppressors is a good sign. She has a sense of morality about her.
Tears are forming in her eyes, and I realize how upsetting the situation must be for her. She’s never dealt with anything like this before. I can’t imagine how traumatizing it must be.
And so much of my pride comes in the fact that she chose to call me over all others.
I wrap her up in my arms and say, “It’s gonna be okay, Katy. We have the best people on it. The government knows, for God’s sake. They’ll shut it down, and everything will be fine. I promise.”
“I hope so,” she says tearfully into my shoulder. “I just can’t help but feel responsible for all of this. Had I not been a part of their world, maybe none of this what happened.”
I squeeze her tighter and say, “Yes, but Katy, if you hadn’t been part of their world, we never would have known about their plan, and the bomb probably would’ve gone off no matter what. So, it’s a good thing you were there. You’ll be what stopped it. Besides your motives are pure...kind of.”
She laughs a little at my statement, and I’m glad to at least get a small smile from her.
“I’m gonna try to hack into their system again. It doesn’t hurt to try,” Katy says as she opens the chat room once again.
I facilitate many calls between the police and FBI. They’re questioning me about what else we know.
“Is your source reliable?” an FBI agent says.
“Extremely reliable. In fact, we’re trying to get as much information as we can right now.”
The man says, “This could be a hoax. To be frank with you, Marcus, we don’t have the funds or the people to follow up on an unreliable tip. You know how many calls we get every day about bomb threats―and many aren’t real. It’s hard to sift the real ones apart from the fake ones. So for me to put manpower behind this, I need to know that it’s real for sure.”
The fact that these guys are even talking to me about money makes me cringe.
Shouldn’t the government have every resource at their disposal? How do they sift through the various bomb threats anyway? Who’s to say what’s right and what’s wrong in terms of this kind of violence?
I decide to do the only thing that I can think of. I decide to do what I know is right.
“Let me tell you this,” I say. “How about I pay for all of it instead? You can use my money for your resources and therefore you can use the best of the best and make sure to shut this thing down. I want you to do it.”
The guy is surprised, and he says, “Are you sure about that, Marcus? Because I just might take you up on that offer. If what you say is true, we’re gonna need lots of people behind this.”
“I’m absolutely sure. Do it.”
It’s a drop in the bucket to me. I have so much damn money that it’s hard to spend it all sometimes.
Just then I feel her slim arms come around my waist from behind.
She says, “You’re really gonna do that? That’s amazing, Marcus. Spending your own money to stop this is really an amazing thing. Thank you.”
I turn around and take her face in my hands before placing a deep kiss on her lips. I can smell the perfume in her hair or on her neck or wherever she puts them. She smells and looks gorgeous, as always.
And I’m starting to get used to her little hacker apartment that doesn’t have one scrap of furniture.
I take a seat on the bed next to her computer, and she goes to try to log back into the chat room. The girl is ruthless. She’s trying to navigate around all of their restrictions.
I watch her fingers fly over the keyboard, and I’m just astonished at her talent for this kind of work.
“Do you think you can break it? If you can do that, Katy, then we’ll have the upper hand,” I say.
“I don’t know,” she says. “But I think I might’ve found a weakness in their chat room. I think I can get in and out pretty quickly without them realizing I was there. But the method that I need to use to do it is kind of shady.”
“Shady?” I ask.
“As in…breaking the law,” she says.
“I think you should do whatever you need to do. This is more important than the la
w.”
“Okay,” she breathes. “Here I go,” she says as she engineers her plan.
I’m looking over her shoulder, waiting for any information to pop up on the screen.
Finally, we see others in the chat room. The conversation is right before us. She and I are able to read every message exchanged about the bomb. We get every detail that we need.
“You got it?” she asks. “Because they’re gonna know we’re here in a second. If they learn that we saw all the details they might change the location and the day of the bomb. I have to get out.”
I’m writing down every last detail on my phone.
Then I say to her, “Shut it down.”
She does so, and we’re out of the chat room. But we got all the information we needed. Hopefully, the hackers will never have realized that we were there. Katy must really be good at her job to hack into a chat room with that many blocks.
I’m on the phone immediately with my contacts relating to them all the new information.
The FBI is absolutely pleased with it. I tell them not to ask where it came from. They don’t.
Marcus
Katy is a nervous wreck.
She’s pacing around the apartment, and I can tell that the waiting game is doing more to make her uneasy than if she had a job to do, like hacking into a system.
Suddenly our hands are tied. All the authorities have been informed of the location of the bomb and any of the other details that we know. All we can do is sit back and wait. It’s torturous for me, but I think it’s worse for her because she feels responsible or involved in this somehow.
“Katy, you know this isn’t your fault. You had nothing to do with planting the bomb. In fact, as soon as you found out about it, you did the right thing by contacting me and the authorities. Please don’t blame yourself,” I say, but it falls upon deaf ears.
She’s obviously not gonna believe me. She’s too much into her self-loathing.
After finding out she’s been a part of something so sinister, I can only imagine the torment she must feel. I wish I could take it all away from her. I wish I could take her pain because I would.
“What can I do?” I ask.
“Nothing. There’s nothing you can do. I already blame myself. I just want this to all be over. I hope it turns out right, or I’ll be devastated for the rest of my life.”
Now it’s more important to me than ever that they stop this bomb from going off. The thought of Katy being haunted by this situation is too much for me to bear.
I want them to find the bomb so that those people will be safe and Katy will be off the hook. She doesn’t need to feel guilt over this. That’s my hope.
I get up and try to hold her, but she’s wrestling out of my arms.
“I can’t. I just can’t be held right now. I’m too upset,” she says.
I try again to hold her. Maybe the feeling of my arms around her will do something to relax her strained body, but she pushes me off again and again. Finally, I give up.
All we can do now is wait for news. All I can do is watch Katy freak out.
Minutes tick by, but they feel like hours. I know I have my guys on the situation. I’m receiving text message after text message with updates. But nothing concrete yet.
That is, until the FBI agent calls me back.
He says, “We did it, Marcus. Everything is under control. The bomb squad caught two guys in action while trying to plant a bomb in the building that your source provided. We were able to dismantle the bomb and put the two guys in custody. We’ll make sure they give up the other people involved.”
“That’s great.” I breathe a sigh of relief. “I couldn’t have received better news. Thank you so much. Thank you to your team and to everybody who was on the project.”
Katy’s looking at me hopefully, and I don’t wait to tell her the good news.
“They did it. The bomb’s been found, the guys have been found, and everybody else that was a part of it are about to be found. There’s no longer anything for you to worry about, Katy.”
Now I don’t have to try to put my arms around her because she comes over to me with a big hug of celebration. She’s elated, and I can see that the torment of having any part of this is fading away. She’s back to being the old Katy.
She’s crying still, and I ask her why.
“They’re tears of happiness. I was so worried that people were gonna get hurt. I’ve never felt such fear and panic like that before,” she says, hugging me. “And it was all because of you. If you hadn’t been here, I don’t know what I would’ve done.”
I stroke her hair and try to reassure her with my loving arms. Things with Katy have reached a new level, especially since she’s confided in me about her truth.
That was the only thing standing in our way before. I couldn’t deal with the fact that she was lying about her lifestyle.
Granted, it took a bomb scare for her to admit it, but still.
“I told you it would be okay,” I say. “You can always trust me, Katy. I’ll always be there for you.”
This makes her cry more, and I don’t know why. Soft tears roll down her face.
“Baby, don’t cry. It’s all over.” I try to calm her.
“It’s not just that. It’s what you just said, about being there for me. All my life I’ve had no one to depend on besides myself. I’ve always had to take care of everything. And then I found you and everything changed.”
“You really feel that way?” I say, looking into her beautiful eyes.
“Yes.” She sniffles. “You have no idea how lonely it’s been. I’ve never had a single person to rely on, and then suddenly you’re in my life, and you’re so in control and sweet about everything. I just can’t believe my luck.”
I lean down to kiss her, and I pull her into me close. Heat starts to vibrate between us now that the threat of the bomb is gone. Her tears stop as she realizes what’s happening.
“Thank you,” she says before I stop her words with my kiss.
I kiss her long and deeply, trying to let her know without words how much I care about her. To think of this poor girl surviving on her own, without friends or family, makes me wish I met her sooner.
I’ll be her family now. I can be the one person that she can count on in life. It would be my privilege and honor to do so, and it’s also my damn near obsession to make sure that she knows she can trust me.
What is happening to me? I normally don’t care about the women I bed, but here I am.
In fact, part of me gets off on the fact that I’m Katy’s one and only.
I want her to focus on me all the time. I want to focus on her all the time. I want our lives to be so enmeshed that we’re practically one person.
I know she feels this connection as strongly as I do. There’s no denying it now.
What began as a simple fling has ended up being something much deeper. Something I was not prepared for.
While it doesn’t scare me, I can tell she gets anxious around me. Right now, she’s shaking a little bit in my arms.
I determine that I will make this better for her. I will make the world right again.
I lay her down on the bed and begin to trail kisses along her body. It’s time to express my affection for her by fucking her brains out and making her forget that time exists.
It’s just the two of us now, in a world of her own making. And that’s how I like it.
Marcus
I can’t believe I’m back in Katy’s bed.
The last time we had sex here was fucking incredible. In fact, I can’t stop thinking about it. I haven’t forgotten her or what it was like to make her come 1000 times. I’ve been replaying the time we spent in my head over and over again.
And yet here I am, back at her place, about to make it a reality all over again.
We’re both reeling from the kind of day this has been. She’s infinitely relieved that the bomb threat is over. I’m relieved that she’s finally trusted me enough to te
ll me about herself.
Of course, I’ve known all along, but the fact that she’s decided to trust me with this information means something―it means that Katy has let me into her heart at least a little bit.
And now I feel like a dog for having secrets from her. I haven’t yet revealed to her that, technically, I’ve been spying on her this entire time.
To say the truth now will just ruin everything. If I told her what I was up to, that I’ve been watching her because I have to know her plans for my company, then she’ll never have trusted that any of this is real. I’ll look like a fake.
Somehow I’ve really fallen for Katy. And now it seems like it’s too late to tell her the truth. I’m between a rock and a hard place, and I don’t know how to get myself out.
But one thing’s for sure, having her this relieved and happy to be with me doesn’t make it feel like the ideal time to reveal the truth. I can’t risk losing her, not for anything.
No, somehow I’ll have to figure out the right way and the right time to tell her the truth about me. It’s going to be a delicate process so as not to scare her off.
For now, I hold her lovingly in my arms. She seems so happy and relieved that it makes my heart swell. I would never want to do anything that could possibly undo her happiness.
Instead, I hold her and a stroke her hair. Then I pull her face up to my own and deliver her the most tender of kisses.
“Baby, we did it. Because of you, we were able to deactivate the bomb,” I say.
“No. It was you, and I will be forever grateful. You saved so many lives, and you have to be proud of that. I’m sorry that I ever got involved with that group to begin with.”
I could sit like this forever, with her on my lap. But she gets up and finds a bottle of wine from somewhere. She opens it and takes a swig straight from the bottle. I’m guessing Katy doesn’t have wine glasses.
She walks over to me and hands me the bottle. I chug down the mediocre wine and again wonder what Katy would think of my penthouse. It would be so much more comfortable than this place, but still, the timing’s off. I can’t tell her the truth.